William Ewart Napier was born in England on January 17, 1881. His family soon moved to the United States, and because they did American chess has been all the richer. Napier first played correspondence chess, participating in one of the Continenta...
Jackson W. Showalter, Herman Steiner, and Diane Savereide are all being inducted to the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame this afternoon in Irvine, CA (USA). I am still working on the manuscript for the Showater book and hope to have it completed by Spring...
During my extensive research on Jackson Showalter, I recently came across an article from 1916 that details an inexplicable eleven move checkmate suffered by then American chess champion Frank Marshall at a Brooklyn, New York simul. The article ...
The third Moscow international chess tournament in 1936 had an impressive field of participants, including two former world champions (Jose Raul Capablanca, Emanuel Lasker) and one future world champion (Mikhail Botvinnik). The tournament took pl...
One year ago today, the greatest chess player of all time passed away in Iceland of kidney failure. Bobby Fischer was 64 years old when he died and despite the fact that he had not played competitive chess since 1992, he was still the most talked...
Stefano Roselli del Turco was a strong international chess player in the 1920’s and 1930’s. He won the Italian Chess Championship in 1920, 1923, and 1931. Even this strong chess master was not immune to bad games or blunders. At the famous 1925...
Samuel Reshevsky, the legendary chess prodigy who was born in Poland and later immigrated to the United States, made his tournament debut at the age of 10 years old. The site was the Chess Club International in New York City and the date was Octo...
The 1983 qualifying cycle to determine a challenger for Anatoly Karpov was filled with chess legends both past and future. In the quarterfinal round, up and coming Russian player Garry Kasparov faced off against fellow Russian, Alexander Beliavsk...
The London International Chess Congress of 1922 provided us with many memorable games. Jose Raul Capablanca was the reigning world champion at the time and headlined an impressive cast of participants. His first round game was against ...
Hermann Helms, “the dean of American chess”, was an accomplished chess columnist and an attacking chess player of national master caliber. His chess career included wins over American legends Harry Nelson Pillsbury and Frank Jame...
The 1915 triangle match in Atlantic City, New Jersey (USA) was contested between Frank J. Marshall (United States champion), Sydney T. Sharp (Pennsylvania state champion), and Wilbur L. Moorman of Lynchburg, VA (USA). The format consist...
Now that the Bobby Fischer had defeated Boris Spassky in a rematch of their legendary encounter in 1972 Reykjavik, the burning question was whether or not he would play again. His belief that he was still the true world champion did not bode...
November 5th, 1992 Bobby Fischer won the 30th game in the match with his old nemesis Boris Spassky in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. The win additionally sealed the match for Fischer by the score of 10 games to 5, as well as the winner’s purs...
Boris Spassky bounced back to win game 26 of his 1992 match with Bobby Fischer, just one day after being thoroughly dominated by the American in the previous game. Knowing that his back was against the wall, as Fischer only needs one more ga...
After three successive draws and two additional days off due to Boris Spassky’s nagging cold, Bobby Fischer won game 25 of their $5 million dollar match in Yugoslavia. The game was a Scheveningen Sicilian with Spassky playing...
The great London tournament of 1862 was one of the strongest tournaments of the 19th century and only the second event recognized as a true international chess tournament. Several legendary players participated and many great games and novel...
Bobby Fischer scored his second consecutive victory in a hard fought Game 21 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Spassky employed a Sicilian Defense with the black pieces and Fischer answered with the main line variation (3.d4) for the first time in th...
Boris Spassky won game 20 of his match against a seemingly passive Bobby Fischer. After letting Spassky off the hook in their previous game and settling for a draw, it was widely expected that Fischer would come out very aggressive in this g...
October 10, 1992 Belgrade, Yugoslavia Bobby Fischer won his second consecutive game of match, prevailing against Boris Spassky’s Siciilian Defense in game 17 of their rematch for the world chess championship. Fischer had previou...
October 7, 1992 Belgrade, Yugoslavia After one loss and three draws since moving the match to Belgrade, Fischer picks up his first win in the Yugoslav capital. Spassky tried a relatively outdated opening in the Accelerated Averbakh At...
A few months ago, I was doing a weekly posting on some of the games from the 1992 Fischer-Spassky rematch. I was not getting much feedback and kind of abandoned this for other articles of interest. After purchasing and reading a book by Cart...
Albert Beauregard Hodges (1861-1944) was one of the greatest American chess players in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. He lost a title match for the U.S. Championship early in 1894 to Jackson W. Showalter, but won their re-matc...
Today we bring you a game from the infamous St. Petersburg International Chess Tournament of 1914. Then world champion, Emanuel Lasker plays the young up and coming Russian player, Alexander Alekhine. Lasker was 45 years old at the time...
The recent 2008 Pivdenny Bank Chess Cup in Odessa, Ukraine provided us with a stroll down memory lane, as the 34-year old rivalry between Victor Korchnoi and Anatoly Karpov was renewed for a brief period of time. The background on this storied ...
The 1896 cable match between the United States and Great Britain took place on Friday, March 13th and Saturday, March 14th. The final rosters for each team were to be decided in the last few days leading up to the actual match. Brookly...
