William Davies Evans was born in Pembroke, Gales, January 27, 1790. Marine by profession since age fourteen, he became sea Captain in 1819 in the United Kingdom Postal Service. By 1818, he had learnt the moves of chess. During his free hours in of...
It is said that few people in chess have been so uncomplicated and frank as Miguel Najdorf, and for this reason he created around him a very good atmosphere. Maybe for that, it is not surprising that at Buenos Aires 1939 during the Chess Olympiad,...
Bobby Fischer was having a very good performance at the Interzonal held in Palma de Mallorca in 1970. He had 14.5 points out of 19. His only loss was to the Great Dane, Bent Larsen. In round 21, he was to face the Brazilian prodigy Henrique Meckin...
Emanuel Schiffers, Russian chessmaster and chess writer, was born to German parents in St. Petersburg on May 4, 1850 and died there December 12, 1904. He was educated in his native city, studying the classical, physical, and mathematical faculties...
Josef Emil Krejcik (22 January 1885- 4 January 1957) was an Austrian chess master, problemist, journalist and author. He was born in Vienna and participated in many local tournaments there. His best result came in 1921, when he shared first with ...
Isidor Gunsberg (November 2, 1854, in Budapest – May 2, 1930, in London), English merchant, future challenger for the World Chess Championship and chess journalist began his career as the hidden operator of the chess automaton Mephisto! Nowadays t...
One of the reasons behind the “nemeses and customers” theory is that each chess player has his own style. It reminds me of the “Rock, Paper, Scissors” game where there is no one dominant item. The main three chess characters are:• Positiona...
Wesley So was born October 9, 1993. At the age of 14 years, 1 month, and 28 days he became an International Grandmaster (December 8, 2007). Only six players have done it at a younger age. In October 2008, he became the youngest player to ever be r...
Mikhail Chigorin (12 November 1850–25 January 1908) was born in Gatchina, near Saint Petersburg, and was the founder of the Russian chess school as well as the first grandmaster from Russia. He served as a major source of inspiration and influence...
The transitivity law does not hold for chess. That is, if player A usually beats player B, and player B usually beats player C, it does not imply that player A usually beats player C. In fact, sometimes it’s quite the opposite. While playing agai...
“He was not popular with his colleagues; he was surly, arrogant, conceited, and almost paranoid. People were out to poison him. Noise bothered him. Everything bothered him. Not naturally, he was in constant controversy with other players. They obj...
Aaron Nimzowitsch (7 November 1886 – 16 March 1935), one of the most influential players and writers in chess history, was born in Riga, (the birthplace of two chess geniuses: Mihail Tal and Alexei Shirov!) Latvia, one of the Baltic states, along ...
Richard Réti (28 May 1889, Pezinok – 6 June 1929, Prague) was an ethnic Jewish, Austrian-Hungarian, later Czechoslovakian chess player, chess author, and composer of endgame studies. His older brother Rudolph Réti was a noted (musical) composer an...
Men tend to look down on women’s chess, joke about their level and style of play, and also discuss the female players’ looks whenever they have a chance. Continuing my story about the Russian Superfinal-2009 (Part 1 can be found here...
The world famous Mihail Tal was born in Latvia November 9, 1936. By the time he died June 28, 1992 he was celebrated for his achievements, style, and personality. On his way to winning the World Championship from Mikhail Botvinnik in 1960, he had ...
“When I play White I win because I am White, when I play Black I win because I am Bogoljubow!”Efim Bogoljubow (April 14, 1889 - June 18, 1952) was a Russo-German chess grandmaster who won numerous events and played two matches with Alexander Alekh...
Francois André Danican Philidor (September 7, 1726 – August 31, 1795) was born in Dreux France. His father was seventy-nine at the time! He was a French composer whose operas were successful and widely known in his day and who was a famous and rem...
Richard Teichmann (24 December 1868 – 15 June 1925) was a strong German chess player, easily of grandmaster strength! In 1890 he was a student of modern languages (becoming fluent in several of them) and studied in Berlin where he also improved hi...
There are chess players that, despite being outstanding players, did not reach the fame of their other, more famous, colleagues. This is the case of Jacques Mieses (February 27, 1865 – February 23, 1954) who was born in Germany and moved to Englan...
Judit Polgar was born July 23, 1976. She became a grandmaster at the age of 15 years and 4 months, which was the youngest ever at the time (1991). She is the strongest ever female player and was rated as high as eighth in the world. It was actuall...
Vasily Panov was born November 1, 1906 and died January 3, 1973. In 1929, he won the Moscow Championship. He played in the USSR Championship five times from 1935 to 1948. FIDE awarded him the title of International Master in 1950. He was better kn...
“Chess, like love, like music, has the power to make men happy."Siegbert Tarrasch (March 5, 1862 – February 17, 1934) was born in Breslau the hometown of Andersen and Zukertort. The young Tarrasch learned to play chess when he was 15 years old. He...
Gioachino Greco (1600-1634), known as Il Calabrese, was born in Celico, in the province of Calabria, Italy. Greco was a notable chess player and writer. His hand-written booklets, originally presented to his wealthy patrons, about opening traps an...
GM Hikaru Nakamura (FIDE 2715) aka Smallville needs no introduction - we have already published an article on his epic battle against Alexander Grischuk. IM Vlad Akselrod (FIDE 2446) aka Raix, a second of WGM Natalia Pogonina and Peter Zhdanov, ha...
