Today, the very top chess players in the world can make good livings from the game. Magnus Carlsen and Vishy Anand, who will play this month’s world chess championship in Russia, made more than $1 million each of the past two years from ch...
So far, I have only been covering the world championship matches where the title actually changed hands. However, since this series has turned into not just a look at the instructive and beautiful endgames played at the highest level of chess, b...
By 1990, Garry Kasparov had done what nobody had done before since the creation of the world championship: defended his title multiple times against the clearly best challenger. All in all, he and Anatoly Karpov played five quite grueling matches ...
I’m a hard man to please, and no more so than when it comes to chess books. I expect honesty, I expect diligence, I expect innovation, and, perhaps most difficult of all, I expect my short attention span to be entertained at all times. It&rs...
Chess Informant 121 Midnight SunPaperback, 348 pagesProduct page (book/CD) WONDERFUL OLYMPIAD Just as chess fans all over the world were excited by the goings-on at the recent Chess Olympics, so were the staff at Chess Informant...
GIFs are a fun and quick way to share an animated image. These animations are short and soundless, so they do not require the viewer to invest as much time and attention as full videos. It’s no surprise that GIF animations are some of the ...
The recently finished Sinquefield Cup is going to attract chess players' attention for a long time. Mostly, chess analysts will concentrate their efforts trying to explain the phenomenal result of Fabiano Caruana. You can read my version here.&nbs...
The Sinquefield Cup is a fantastic event! It is the strongest tournament in chess history, the players demostrate fighting, very "tasty" chess, and the coverage on the official website is amazing. Of course, the whole chess community must thank Re...
When Fabiano Caruano was about 12, he and his father Lou, whom I knew casually, approached the TD booth to ask for a bye in one of the Continental Chess Association's big Philadelphia-based open events. I was the fill-in TD and, although I knew h...
GOOD OR BAD? Mordecai10 asked: I have just completed part 1 of your Test Your Chess Understanding articles, and I wasn’t completely satisfied by one aspect of your solutions. In your solution to puzzle 2, you say the following: &lsquo...
Professor: Happy July 18, class! Class: Happy July 18 to you, Professor. Rachel: What’s so special about July 18? Professor: I don’t know. It just seems like a beautiful day. Thomas: Actually, on this date, in the year with the...
When a player starts out, he’s told various rules that will help him navigate through the choppy waters of chess. A few basic ones are: Don’t hang your pieces Don’t swallow and talk at the same time Castle as quickly as possible Don’t allow your ...
The hardest thing in chess, Frank J. Marshall warned us, is to win a won game. It is no surprise that technique - the ability to convert an advantage (of any kind) into a full point - is a coveted skill. As beginners, we are often told that solid ...
There are not many duels between elite chess players that generate as much interest as the games between the World Champion Magnus Carlsen and the U.S. number one Hikaru Nakamura. Indeed, everyone can find something of interest. What will prevail:...
The current World Blitz Champion, GM Le Quang Liem, and the former World Junior Champion, GM Dmitry Andreikin, will face off in Death Match 24 on Saturday, May 3, 2014. Their average FIDE rating of 2716 makes this the highest-rated Death Matc...
Paul Morphy, Spring Hill College, 1854 This is a highly unusual article for me. I have no love for chess engines. Additionally, I have severe reservations about trying to compare modern players with 19th cenutry players. It has alwa...
"If I play for a legal trap and it doesn't work, can I still have a good game?" Sounds like you might be a lawyer (or need to consult one)! This is also a good example of how I need to "interpret" questions on my Q&A show. Since the questio...
Today's article is inspired by a trend in media posts - calling Carlsen's play in the World Championship match “nettlesome” - his opponents tend to make more mistakes when playing him compared to their play vs. the other opponents...
During dramatic fourth game of the World Championship match between Vishy Anand and Magnus Carlsen, Garry Kasparov has tweeted from the battlefield in Chennai: " Game 4 demonstrated exactly what I wrote for my last Chess Informant column: The Berl...
A big day! Carlsen's era has started but the time has come also for the brand new periodical, Chess Informant 118 Cobra edition! Few days ago, after the dramatic fourth game of the World Championship match between Vishy Anand and Magnus Carlsen...
Magnus Carlsen is a phenomenon. He could recently be seen on enormous billboards all over the world posing next to supermodel and Lord of the Rings actress Liv Tyler; he’s been a guest to The Colbert Report; and he has featured on the cover ...
One of the results of Chess.com's acquisition of ChessVibes is that from now on, José Diaz will be posting his cartoons here as well! José is the best chess cartoonist we know, and so we're very happy that he's joining. Many years ago José Diaz w...
By the fifth round of the World Cup in Tromsø, Norway, the field had been whittled down to eight players. Former world champion Vladimir Kramnik faced Anton Korobov of Ukraine, Gata Kamsky played Evgeny Tomashevsky, Dmitry Andreikin played Peter S...
At this point we know who won the World Cup - former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik showed that he was of a higher class and won the tournament very professionally. But we will continue to look at the endgames played throughout the tournament, no...
