In 1934, the New York State Chess Association sponsored the New York State Chess Championship in Syracuse, New York. It has held at the Hotel Onondage from August 13th through August 25th. In round 11, Samuel Reshevsky met Arnold Denke...
In Part #1 I discussed the importance of development, and mentioned in passing the importance of developing towards the centre. In this article I will expound upon the importance of the centre. Firstly the centre of the board are the squares e4, e...
Here is an index of all 110 articles at www.chess.com as of August 7, 2007 and excluding the Amazing Games. NAME &nbs...
The Staunton chessmen is the standard pattern for chess pieces used in all world chess federation and United States Chess Federation events. On March 1, 1849 the pattern was first registered by Nathaniel Cook. Prior to that, the pieces most commo...
On July 6, 1919 the German city of Sorup-in-Angeln issued paper money with a chess motif. It had a chess table with a woman seated. Paper money replaced coins, which became rare in Germany since metal was being used for armaments. In mid-1921 St...
Searching for Bobby Fischer really begins in 1972 when Bobby Fischer defeated Boris Spassky in the World Chess Championship Match in Reyjavik, Iceland, then disappeared from chess. Many people got interested in chess and picked up the game, even b...
Chess was probably introduced in Russia in the 9th century AD through the Caspian-Volga trade route. At the time, there was a Volga trade route to Baghdad. In the 10th century, chess reached Russia from Byzantium and from the Vikings. Arou...
Fred Reinfeld was born in New York City on January 27, 1910. Reinfeld wrote over 100 chess books in his lifetime, and perhaps over 260 books total. He also wrote about geology, history, numismatics, checkers, and astronomy. He was said to have...
George Washington (1732-1799) may not have played chess, but there is the story of Washington crossing the Delaware to attack the British army. Earlier, a boy had given a spy report to the British commander that Washington was about to attack. The...
In 1974 Gerald Abrahams wrote an interesting book called Not Only Chess. He called it a selection of Chessays. Here are some interesting items from his book. On page 15 Abrahams conjectured that Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) and Karl Marx ...
I did a little survey of chess opening frequncies from several chess databases. After looking over a million games or so and keeping tabs of the first few moves, this is the result. 1.e4 was the most common opening, representing 70% of the samp...
n 1607, the first ballet with a chess theme was Ballet des Eschecs, performed for Louis XIV of France. Francois-Andre Danican Philidor (1726-1795) was a famous music composer. He was exposed to chess by the musicians in the French king's co...
In 1877 chess players met at the Cafe Logeling, 49 Bowery Street in lower Manhattan. Mr. Logeling was a chess enthusiast and eventuallu built a room in the back of the cafe for chess. On November 24, 1877, it was decided to form a chess clu...
In 1949 Fred Reinfeld and Irving Chernev published a book called The Fireside Book of Chess. Here are some interesting items from the book. On page 69 is the claim of the shortest master game. It is between Gibauld and Lazard and played in Pa...
he first world team competition took place in Paris in 1924 to coincide with the Olympic Games. There were 54 players from 18 countries. Czechoslovakia won the Gold Medal. The Silver went to Hungary and the Bronze went to Switzerland. The individu...
In 1945 Alan Turing (1912-1954) used chess-playing as an example of what a computer could do. Turing himself was a weak chess player. In 1946 Alan Turing made his first reference to machine intelligence in connection with chess-playing. In 1...
Compositions are chess positions other than which arises during a chess game, usually, but not necessarily, composed for solving. The chess problem and the composed chess ending are the true art forms of chess. Orthodox compositions co...
Here is an interesting game in which White sacrificed his Queen to force mate. It's a familiar pattern - get the Bishop on Bishop 6 and threaten to put the Rook on Rook 8 for mate.
Victor Knorre was an amateur chess player (he was an astronomer) who beat some of the strongest players in the world. Here is a game in which he defeats Johannes Zukertort, one of the strongest players in the world. Knorre sacrificed a piece...
There have only been a few "serious" games in which 4 or more Queens appeared on the board at one time. In many databases there is a game Sumpter - King, Australia 1965, with 7 Queens, which was later proven to be spurious; many chess si...
Here is a game that Frank Marshall defeated Akiba Rubinstein by controlling the 7th rank. He was able to get his Queen and his Rook on the 7th rank to force mate. A Rook sacrifice helped it along.
The opening is the first of three sections which a chess game is commonly divided into, the other two being the middlegame and the endgame (If you can't figure out which goes when then please, close this site and find a new hobby. Perhaps...
Dear ladies and gents, Here is a typical rook-pawn ending which I want to share with you Anthony
Igor Bondarevsky was a Soviet grandmaster, and for many years, Boris Spassky's trainer. He played in nine Soviet championships, and won it in 1940. Here is a game that he played in one of the famous Hastings Christmas tournaments i...
