When did chess "arrive"? Was it when Alexander McDonnell and Louis De La Bourdonnais played their incredible match in the 1830s? Was it the first international chess tournament, organized by Howard Staunton in London in 1851? Was it when Paul Morp...
What is the first chess masterpiece ever played? Naturally one thinks of the games of Paul Morphy and Adolf Anderssen in the 1850s, and indeed some of the greatest masterpieces ever played such as the Opera Game, Immortal Game, and Evergreen Game,...
My one classical game with Hans Niemann was from the 2017 World Open. There we met in the 8th round, the penultimate round. He was rated a bit shy of 2300 FIDE, having reached the FIDE Master title about a year previously and having slid back a bi...
Draws get a famously unfair bad rap in chess. As is often noted, a perfectly played game of chess is a draw. Still, there are certainly draws that can be dry, unsymmetric, and uninteresting. It's also true that draws have a dramatic disadvantage i...
Johannes Zukertort was a protege of Wilhelm Steinitz, but for some time it seems as though he might surpass his mentor. The collegial rivalry between the two culminated in the first ever World Chess Championship in 1886. Zukertort could not have s...
James Mason was an Irish-born chess player who emigrated to the United States in 1861, not a great year to first set foot on American soil as the Civil War began in this year. Many Irish men made the journey to the United States in these years. Pa...
Some rivalries practically guarantee exciting chess. World Champions Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik always contested amazing games, at least until Kramnik discovered that the Berlin Defense was incredibly effective at neutralizing Kasparov's ...
The Urusov family was a remarkable chess family in Russia. Most notable was Prince Sergey Urusov after whom the Urusov Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nf6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nf3) is named. Urusov was a Russian noble and a military man who fought in the Crimean War...
This July, I attempted a new challenge for myself, I played a simul against all challengers from my local club, the Columbia Chess Club in South Carolina. I've previously played small simuls in camps, and I've played fairly challenging simuls such...
Positional chess as a concept was a latecomer to the game. One can find documented combinations and miniatures dating back 1,000 years. Attacking play and ideas have existed for more than a millenium. Positional play, in some senses, finds it's or...
Mikhail Chigorin was the greatest challenger to the first world champion, Wilhelm Steinitz, between the times of Johannes Zukertort and Emanuel Lasker. Chigorin played two world championship matches against Steinitz, one in 1889 and one in 1892. ...
Carl Schlechter is one of the most under-appreciated chess masters to play the game. He may also have been one of the least ambitious. Schlechter emerged on to the chess scene around 1893, when today's featured game was played, and he soon was s...
Rudolf Charousek is one of the great and tragic figures of early chess. A romantic player, he won many beautiful tactical victories. His best games flow freely with tactics and are a joy to witness. In Nuremburg in 1896, he even beat the reigning ...
Today we know that a world championship candidates tournament does not necessarily lead to a title defense by the reigning world champion, BUT does the existence of a world champion lead to a candidates tournament? That seems to be the case in the...
The 1900s were a chess decade in development. Just as the world was observing rapid modernization, the chess world was also modernizing. Lasker remained the reigning world champion at the decades outset, but he had not defended his title since his...
The 1910s were a decade interrupted. The first half of the decade was (from a chess perspective) the most exciting that had yet been seen. Lasker drew a dramatic World Chess Championship match against Schlechter and won a crushing match agai...
It's rare for unknown players to create a truly magical chess game, and back in 1900, it was even more rare. Most of the celebrated chess games were played by established players in established tournaments in established chess countries. Today's g...
World Champion Emanuel Lasker fared pretty well against most of his challengers to the World Chess Championship title, but his victory over many-time United States champion, Frank Marshall, was truly a statement. He won eight games, conceding only...
Harry Nelson Pillsbury was one of the great masters of the early 1900s. Had his health been stable for longer, a world championship match between him and Lasker seemed nigh inevitable. With two rounds to go in the Munich tournament of 1900, Pill...
There are more than a few bad chess authors, but arguably none was as creatively terrible as Franklin Knowles Young who wrote many bestsellers around the turn of the 20th century. You can read some such as "Chess Generalship" on Google Books. Here...
My favorite thing in chess is discovering a new brilliant game or combination that I've never seen before. Chess is infinite, and there are ALWAYS fresh patterns and majestic ideas being discovered. Today's blog features an utterly brilliant gam...
World Chess Champion Jose Capablanca was the consummate master of intuitive positional play. His pieces always flowed harmoniously to the perfect squares and with a combination of short-term plans and little combinations. In his game presented h...
The 1900s were a turbulent decade for David Janowski. He had one of his great successes in the 1905 Barmen tournament, and in 1909, he drew an exhibition match against the World Champion Emanuel Lasker. Emboldened by this success, he challenged La...
Playing a brilliant move is a thrilling experience. Whether it's in a classical tournament or a mindless blitz game, finding that sound, incisive, and counter-intuitive move that fully merits the mystical "!!" is a special thing. It's rare for unk...
Mikhail Chigorin, the great Russian master, was a fine attacking player with a complex and unique style. For me, he recalls modern grandmasters like Morozevich, Rapport, and Dubov who always find creative and unique approaches to chess and chess o...
