Vasily Smyslov. Robert Fischer and His Book (foreword) I think that no other chess player of our time is as discussed, both in print and writing, as Robert Fischer. The opinions of his colleagues and journalists about his personality and playing...
Nikolai Krylenko (1885-1938) was a Soviet government official who held various posts throughout his career, including briefly becoming the entire Red Army's supreme commander in 1917. In 1931, when he addressed the crowd with this speech at the 7t...
This is an excerpt from the book The Chess History of Tataria by Marat Khasanov, published at the Tatarstan Republic Chess Federation site. http://www.tat-chess.ru/publ/pochemu_r_nezhmetdinov_ne_stal_grossmejsterom/1-1-0-14 As Nezhmetdino...
This is a peculiar genre of Soviet journalism: feuilleton. Soviet state press used this form of sarcastic short stories to condemn some sort of "unbecoming" conduct. They were mostly based on reality, but with (obviously) changed names and so...
In the 1970s, a young talented girl named Lyubov Scherbina emerged in the Crimean region. She qualified to the 1972 Soviet women's championship, where performed poorly (7/19, 18th place out of 20), but soon her career was on the rise: in 1975, she...
Predictions for @tatasteelchess based on "Bestuzhev index" (percentage of points in classical games against each other, as per chessgamescom data). @lachesisq is the only player to have classical games against all 13 opponents, and has best poin...
Been reading through the old issues of 64 (many of them are available for free at the Russian Chess Federation website) and other Soviet chess publications recently. This gave me, among other things, two excellent pieces on women's chess...
Another article about women's chess, written two years after Alexandra Klimenko. Olga Morachevskaya (1906-1973) was a three-time Moscow champion and shared 2nd-3rd places at the 5th Soviet Women's Chess Championship in 1938. In 1945, she played a ...
This column from the Soviet magazine Shakhmatniy Listok looks quite modern, even though 90 years have passed since its publication. Not all woman players were satisfied with the work of chess authorities. The author rises a legitimate point e...
I'm still calculating the Player Dominance Index (percentage of points scored in games against elite field; the rules of admission are discussed in previous posts). This is how the table looks now, after 2018 ended. All results were taken from c...
I decided to get adventurous (blitz is the thing to get adventurous in, anyway) and sacrifice an exchange in the opening... and it worked greatly.
Rimma Bilunova, nee Kazmina (1940-2015) was an international master, one of creators of the Central Chess Club's card index and the head coach of Soviet women's team for a number of years. This is more or less the only big interview she ever ...
This interview was conducted by Sergei Rosenberg in 2016 for an upcoming book about the Soviet women's chess champions by the late Rimma Bilunova and Rosenberg (still unpublished, as I understand it). http://e3e5.com/article.php?id=1751 ...
Back when I was in elementary school, I studied chess. In the last days of Soviet Union, in autumn 1991, I visited the Central Chess Club for the only time in my life, and got this pennant as a keepsake. I later studied in the Petrosian chess...
Daniil Dubov's first interview as the world rapid chess champion. Conducted by Evgeny Surov from ChessNews.ru http://chess-news.ru/node/25476 Evgeny Surov: Daniil Dubov, world rapid chess champion, is standing beside me. By the way, these are ...
Let's face it: chess fans don't like draws. They complained about them in 1920s (Alekhine vs. Capablanca), in the 1980s (first Karpov vs. Kasparov match), and especially now, after Carlsen and Caruana drew all 12 classical games. Still, Carlsen ...
Well, of course I'm joking. Richard Reti wrote the article titled "Some Conclusions: Alekhine vs. Capablanca" in 1928 for Shakhmatniy Listok. Still, many of the things written 90 years ago seems still relevant today, so I think it's worth rep...
I've already unearthed an obscure game of one chess.com GM contributors, Grigory Serper. This time, I found a game played by GM Roman Dzindzichashvili in the Soviet youth tournament in 1961 or 1962. It was published in the April 1962 issue of&nb...
This article was written in 1927, soon after Alekhine defeated Capablanca. An interesting insight into Soviet attitudes towards Western players (compare this with Kotov's words about Fischer more than 40 years later), and some obscure biographical...
Sergey Karjakin's big interview after the Chess Olympiad. Taken by Marina Makarycheva and her husband Sergey. Source: http://kavkaz-chess.ru/?p=37850 THE TOURNAMENT WAS TOO SHORT FOR THE RUSSIAN TEAM Marina Makarycheva: Hello dear frien...
Anatoly Karpov, the 12th chess world champion, recently spoke to Vasily Papin during the Poykovsky tournament. He was uncharacteristically harsh towards Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. The RCF has supported Ilyumzhinov's candidacy for the FIDE President ...
Here's a small handy table that perhaps some might find useful. Only classical world champions and candidates are listed. World champions are in bold. Player First WCmatch Country representedat WC level Birthplace Birthplace's cu...
What If This Is One of My Last Chances? https://russian.rt.com/sport/article/490281-kramnik-shahmaty-turnir-pretendentov by Artyom Andriyanov, RT When You Lose Your Cool, You Can't Expect Good Results What thoughts and mood did you bring t...
This index shows the point percentage of top chess players in history against each other. Rules of admission are explained here. Ian Nepomniachtchi, Wei Yi and Hou Yifan have wild cards (Ding Liren already qualified for the 2018 Candidates')...
