“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...
Paul Keres was among the world's eight top players who met at the AVRO tournament in the Netherlands in 1938. He and Reuben Fine scored 8.5 out of 14 to tie for first place. Keres had scored 1.5 out of 2 against Fine in the event and this was used...
Philipp Stamma (c. 1705-1755), was born in Aleppo, Syria, but moved to Europe (France and Italy) and established himself in England after 1737.Stamma was a chess master and pioneer of modern chess, but his reputation rests principally on his autho...
Paul Keres was born in Narva, Estonia January 7, 1916 and died June 5, 1975. From the 1930s to the 1970s he was one of the world's best players. After winning the AVRO tournament in 1938 he was to play Alexander Alekhine for the world champion...
Arthur Bisguier was born October 8, 1929. He became an International Grandmaster in 1957. He remembers when "there were so few of us." He was the US Junior Champion in 1948 and 1949. He was the US Open Champion in 1950, 1956, and 1959. Fischer won...
Karl Schlechter (1874-1918) was born into extreme poverty in Vienna, Austria. He learned to play chess at the age of 13 and very quickly become one of the strongest players in Vienna and one of the strong masters of the late 19th century.In the ch...
Anatoly Karpov was born May 23, 1951 in Zlatoust, Russia. He won the European Junior Championship in 1967. In 1969, he won the World Junior Championship. He was the world champion from 1975 to 1985. He played three matches in for the title from 19...
Dawid Janowski (25 May 1868–15 January 1927) was born in Wolkowysk, Poland, but soon relocated to France. His chess career began in the “Café de la Regence” in Paris, becoming one of the most brilliant players of his epoch!He started his professio...
Vyacheslav Osnos has recently passed away at the age of 74. He was born July 24, 1935 and died August 27, 2009. He played in the Soviet Championships 1963-1968. He won the Leningrad Championship twice. He coached world championship contender Vikto...
Mark Taimanov was born February 7, 1926 in Kharkiv. He became a top Russian chess player and a concert pianist. In 1952, he became a grandmaster. He came in tied for 8th and 9th out of 15 players in the Zurich Candidates Tournament, from which I h...
“The Scientist”In the Vienna 1873 chess tournament Steinitz unveiled a new "positional" style of play which was to become the basis of modern chess! Forget those wild attacks. Prepare a position and follow it through, using the logic of the positi...
The great tournament at Moscow 1967 had eighteen strong players, including four world champions. Tal and Smyslov were former champions who tied for places 2-5. Spassky, who would become the next champion tied for places 6-8. The world champion at ...
The 'Mad Queen' rules (before these Bishops were capable of only moving two squares diagonally, and the Queen one square diagonally) were introduced to chess during the Renaissance, in Italy, and it was there that one of the first masters was born...
Part 1: The Austrian MorphyWilhelm Steinitz, born in Prague on May 14, 17 or 18, 1835 or 1836! (the date has never been ascertained) was the last of thirteen children in a very poor family and the first acknowledged World Champion of chess. He was...
Machgielis (Max) Euwe was born May 20, 1901 and died November 26, 1981. He was the fifth world champion in 1935 after beating Alexander Alekhine 15.5-14.5, a score that would have been 16-14 if Euwe had not given Alekhine a draw in the last game w...
Harry Nelson Pillsbury (1872-1906) was a chess genius! At age 22, he won Hasting 1895 one of the strongest tournaments of all time and the most important of the 19th century, since it assembled the entire cream of world chess! His illness and earl...
