An Inspiration When I read GM Becerra's article last week about a man who was an absolute inspiration to me, I just knew I had to share my own tribute to Lev Polugaevsky this week. Prior to reading GM Becerra's article, I actually did not know j...
Starting from today I would like to share with you some articles on chess psychology. This topic is relatively neglected in books, so most chess players have to learn by making their own mistakes and then corresponding adjustments to their behavio...
Viktor Korchnoi was born March 23, 1931 in Leningrad, USSR. He was a candidate for the World Championship ten times from 1962-1991. He won the USSR Championship four times from 1960-1970. Korchnoi never won the world title, but has been considered...
Lev Abramovich Polugaevsky was born November 20, 1934 in Mogilev in the Soviet Union (now Mahilyow, Belarus). Unlike many of his grandmaster colleagues, his development in chess was slow, and he did not receive the Soviet master title u...
The life of a chess pro is a sequence of trips from one tournament to another. Some prefer to play virtually non-stop; others can afford to compete from time to time. Naturally, a person who wants to improve in chess should not only play, but also...
Boris Spassky became the challenger for the World Championship held by Tigran Petrosian after a successful campaign in which he defeated Keres, Geller, and Tal in Candidates Matches. The title match was held in 1966 and resulted in Petrosian winni...
His "First Loss" At the New York 1924 chess tournament after beginning with four draws, Capablanca’s defeat at the hands of Richard Reti in the fifth round was his first loss in serious competition in eight years. Capablanca recovered with...
José Raúl Capablanca y Graupera was born on November 19, 1888 in Havana, Cuba. His father was an army officer who liked to play chess. One day, the young boy noticed his father make an illegal move with his knight, accused him of che...
Moishe Mieczslaw Najdorf was born near Warsaw Poland on April 15, 1910. He was a pupil of Savielly Tartakower. At the age of 20, he became a Polish National Master. He played for Poland in the 1935, 1937, and 1939 Chess Olympiads. At the Buenos Ai...
Early Years Max Euwe was born on the 20th of May 1901 in the town of Watergraafsmeer near Amsterdam. He was the second of six children and learned the game at the age of 4 from his parents. At 15 years old he qualified for the Championship Group...
The 12th Women’s European Chess Championship was held in May in the hospitable city of Tblisi, Georgia. 130 participants, 9 of them with ratings over 2500 FIDE, 14 qualifying spots for the World Championship. For me it was the 8th WIECC (not count...
Early Years Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik was born on August 17, 1911 in Kuokkola, near Saint Petersburg, to a Jewish family. His father was a dental technician and his mother, a dentist. He learned to play chess at the age of 12, practicing a lo...
Efim Petrovich Geller was born March 8th, 1925 in Odessa, Ukraine. He learned how to play chess as a young man, and was one of the top 10 players in the world for over 20 years. He earned his doctorate in Physical Education. He won four Ukrainian...
Mikhail Nejemevich Tal was born in Riga, Latvia on November 9, 1936. He was a genuine child prodigy: at three years old he read perfectly, at five he multiplied three digit numbers in his head. His father was a physician and Tal became interested ...
Right now I am playing in the Russian Club Cup. This tournament has a relatively long history, and accumulates top players not only from Russia, but from all over the world. The event is a round robin. Six main boards + two reserves for men, 4+2 f...
January 6, 2011 was a day I will remember well for a long time. I was currently playing in the Berkeley International, and I needed half a point from my next 2 games for my final GM norm. Although that day I lost to GM Erenburg and it wasn’t until...
Early Years Vasily Vasiliyevich Smyslov was born on March 24, 1921. He learnt chess at the age of six, and after studying books in his father's library, became really serious about the game at the age of 13, when two world champions, Capablanca a...
Paul Petrovich Keres was born on January 7, 1916, in Narva, Estonia. Keres first learned about chess from his father and older brother Harald. In 1935, Keres became the chess champion of Estonia, defeating Gunnar Friedemann for the title. Keres b...
David lonovich Bronstein was born February 19,1924 in Bila Tserkva, Ukraine, to a Jewish mother and father. Growing up, he learned chess at age six from his grandfather. As a youth in Kiev, he was trained by the renowned International Master Alexa...
Early Years Tigran Petrosian was born to Armenian parents on the 17th of June, 1929 in Tiflis, Georgia, which was then a member of the Soviet Union. As a young boy, Petrosian was an excellent student and enjoyed studying, as did his brother Hmaya...
Emanuel Lasker was born on December 24, 1868 at Berlinchen, son of a Jewish cantor. At the age of eleven he was sent to Berlin to study mathematics, where he lived with his brother Berthold Lasker eight years his senior, who taught him how to play...
When I tell people who are not into chess that physical training is very important, they often don’t take it seriously, or are deeply surprised. At first sight, it seems that chess is purely a brain game which has nothing to do with endurance or p...
He started playing chess at age 10, became a Candidate Master at 18, a Master at 24… At that point, it seemed as if this player would never emerge as a truly exceptional chess talent. He had the habit of playing fast, 15-20 minutes per game was ty...
Most people, when delving into the culture of chess, tend to write and read about the Great chess players, the Great tournaments and the Great games. But chess is about far more than those select few things. In fact, a very real part of th...
