What makes a photo "iconic" and not simply interesting or even outstanding? If you find that a difficult question to answer, you are not alone. The two leading dictionaries in the world can't exactly agree either. Merriam-Webster: iconic, ...
As eight of the strongest women in the world gear up for the Women’s Candidates Tournament in April, let’s celebrate brilliant games played by female players throughout time. What is a brilliancy? Is it the most visually aesthetic mo...
NM Ben Johnson is the mastermind behind Perpetual Chess, one of the world's most-loved chess podcasts. He has spoken to grandmasters, world champions, adult improvers, content creators, and other luminaries of the chess world every week since star...
A fan-favorite Chessable course creator, GM Erwin l’Ami has quite literally written the book on some of the most popular ways to start a game with the black pieces. Thousands of people have benefited from his work as one of the chess world...
By the age of sixteen, FM Anna-Maja Kazarian had won 25 separate national championships in various age categories. In 2015, she was crowned the U16 Girls' European Youth Champion. In 2020, she claimed the Dutch Women's Internet Chess Championshi...
Eighty-five years ago GM Mikhail Botvinnik won the premier tournament of the year, the Soviet Chess Championship, with a very impressive score 12.5/17 (+8−0=9). Later, in his book about the tournament, Botvinnik shared his methods of chess p...
WGM Ticia Gara is a three-time Hungarian women's chess champion who has represented her country on an international level. Among the finest players in her nation, she has scored impressive draws against legendary grandmasters including GMs Nigel S...
Chess drama this, chess drama that… If you’ve been on Twitter/X in the last couple of months, you’ve probably been inundated with discussions over whatever the latest scandal is that day. It can get tiring… maybe you&rsqu...
Any experienced tournament player knows that playing for a win with the black pieces can be quite challenging, especially against a well-prepared opponent. Indeed, in most openings, White gets some initiative right from the start of the game due t...
Do you still remember when you were bitten by the chess bug? Followed by that feverish desire to improve in the game? Only to realize that you started “too late” to amount to anything? In this era of prodigies and 12-year-old grandma...
There have been many attempts to estimate ratings of chess players, both past and present, by looking at their game scores and comparing the moves with a top engine's choices, including one notable study here on Chess.com in 2017. These at...
The game of chess didn't have a world championship until 1886. It took an additional 41 years for there to be a women's world championship, first held in 1927. Despite the shorter time period, there have been as many women's champions, 17,...
If you've enjoyed our previous data visualizations of the most accurate chess players over time and the countries with the most grandmasters over time, then you'll want to check out our latest: The top women over time! With the 2023 FIDE Women's...
When I was 12 years old, we got a school assignment to write an essay about a personal hero. I had just finished reading the immortal classic The Twelve Chairs, and the book had a profound effect on me. It was difficult not to fall in love with th...
By now you've seen our ranking of every opening move and our ranking of every possible response by Black to 1.e4 from White. Naturally, here comes every possible response by Black to 1.d4 from White. As in the e4 article, moves are given with th...
In the age of ChatGPT and artificial intelligence computer algorithms that know everything (or almost everything), a YouTube algorithm started recommending me videos of a doctor who promised to cure most health problems with just one simple recipe...
There are thousands of ideas in chess. Some of them are very basic, and others are so complicated that you cannot help but think: "Who was the genius? Who came up with this idea first?" Unfortunately, in most cases, we will never know the answer. ...
The opening is the part of chess that players study the most. I doubt that this statement came as a big surprise to you, considering the humongous amount of books and videos on this subject. When I ask my students what kind of chess books they hav...
We're approaching the end of the year, but there's still a lot left to be excited about. Check out this month's update for tech improvements, speed chess action, and major announcements coming up. Here's what this monthly update covers: ...
GM Anish Giri, for those of you without Twitter, is one of the best players in the game of chess. At the time of writing, he is the Dutch number-one and the world number-seven. Having earned his grandmaster title at the age of 14, he reached his p...
As we approach the year 2023, the same distance from the year 2000 as the original theatrical release of Star Wars, the chess world chugs forward to the next world championship and another year of fun, excitement, and growth. They say that age i...
Chess, like any form of competition, has always seen its fair share of unfair play. From prearranged draws to computer cheats, where there's the will for ill-gotten gains, players have found the way. Whether the side being cheated can prove it or ...
If you are someone who has only started playing chess in the last year or two, you may already know about The Queen's Gambit or GM Hikaru Nakamura's stream. But if you want to understand chess culture at a deeper level, there are many more referen...
Today, the stage is set mainly for the young. Celebratory news pieces, including our own on Chess.com, often highlight the accomplishments of the next up-and-coming player. These days, there's lots of talk about GMs Alireza Firouzja, Nodirbek Abdu...
Few would question that, in an ideal world, the best chess player would be the world champion and vice versa. We can agree that GM Magnus Carlsen, who has been world number-one by rating since 2010 and world champion since 2013, is both. But at so...
