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...
David Bronstein (1924-2006) was among the world's great grandmasters. In 1951, he missed becoming world champion by one half of a point when he scored 12-12 against Botvinnik. His game was known for beauty, opening ideas, and complications. His ch...
On November 26, 1892, future world chess champion (from 1894 to 1921) Emanuel Lasker (1868-1941), age 23, gave a simultaneous exhibiton in Quebec, Canada. There were 18 players. He won 15 games, drew 2 games, and lost one game to Nicholas Macle...
Frank James Marshall (August 10, 1877 – November 9, 1944), was born in New York City, and lived in Montreal, Canada from ages 8 to 19. His father taught him chess when he was eight years old. During the period from 1904 to 1909, Marshall won four ...
David Bronstein was born February 19, 1924 in Bila Tserkva, Ukraine and died December 5, 2006 in Minsk, Belarus. He earned the Soviet Master title at age 16 for his second place result in the 1940 Ukrainian Championship. He believed he was the you...
Siegbert Tarrasch was born March 5, 1862 and died February 17, 1934. He was close to the best player in the world around 1890. His match with Mikhail Chigorin, a contender for the world championship, resulted in 9 wins for each after 22 games in 1...
Rudolf Spielmann (1883-1942) "The Master of Attack" and "The Last Knight of the King's Gambit"! He was a lawyer but never worked as one! He learned to play chess while still a boy and was exhibited in public as a prodigy. He loved complex position...
Today we will see one of the most beautiful Dutch defence games ever played. The winner Savielly Tartakower (1887-1956) was born at Rostov-on-Don in 1887. His native language was Russian, but he was a subject of Austria-Hungary, and in World War I...
If only they were married: GM Kasparov (2851) - GM Polgar (2735) = 5586 WGM Natalia Pogonina and Peter Zhdanov (they married on June, 5) decided to compile a list of the strongest chess couples in the world who could become members of the honor...
Bobby Fischer’s real name is Robert James Fischer and he was a famous chess player. He represented the United States and Iceland in all of his chess matches. Fischer was born on March 4, 1943 in Chicago, Illinois and he died on January 17, 2008 ...
