A Little-Known Leonid Stein Brilliancy
This game was played at the 1966 Soviet Team Championship, Avangard (Ukraine) vs Mehnat (Uzbekistan). Annotated by Stein himself.
Boris Spassky 2016 interview
This interview was conducted by Yuri Golyshak and Sergei Kruzhkov for their column Friday Talk in the Sport-Express newspaper in early 2016. Heading photo was taken during that interview. The tenth world champion returned from Paris to Moscow...
Tributes to Viktor Korchnoi from Russian press
Quoted from the interviews by R-Sport (rsport.ru). Sergey Karjakin "Even though Viktor Lvovich never became a world champion, he still left amazing legacy. His name is written into chess history with golden letters. I remember that when I was 10...
"Lasker's Successor", Alexander Kotov's article about Viktor Korchnoi
I've started to translate the article some time ago, but today seems the most appropriate time to post it. This was published exactly half a century ago, in 1966, when Korchnoi was still a well-respected member of the Soviet chess society. Lasker...
Mikhail Tal: "We fought like Hussars". Interview after Riga 1979 Interzonal
Some games are added to the interview. TANJUG Agency (Yugoslavia): Could you please evaluate the tournament and the players? Mikhail Tal: Look at the second Interzonal in Rio. Quiet playing, dense results, a big leading group. Riga was very diff...
Veselin Topalov discusses the Candidates' tournament
http://chess-news.ru/node/21231 Interview given on March 25th. Maria Manakova: How would you evaluate the Svidler - Giri endgame? Veselin Topalov: I think it's a draw, obviously. Mark Dvoretsky: Of course. Giri had a solid advantage, but, as a...
GM Daniil Dubov discusses the Candidates' tournament and cheating in chess
http://chess-news.ru/node/21182 The interview was conducted on March 16th. Daniil Dubov: This tournament is so depressive that this is the most interesting thing. Maria Manakova: "This"? What are you talking about? DD: Is Maria Manakova ac...
"Robert Fischer As He Is", an article by Alexander Kotov
From Kotov's old book Jokingly and Seriously (1966, the article was written around 1965) Robert Fischer As He Is There was no salvation for the Black King. Doomed, he stood among the remnants of his army, still trying to fight off the attacks of...
Another secret of Russian chess school
Russians play chess in icy water. For fun! And yes, that's a different video, not the one featured in the News some time ago :D
Karpov's doctor
Everyone knows the infamous parapsychologist, Dr. Vladimir Zukhar, whose presence was so unbearable for Korchnoi in Baguio that he demanded to remove him from the first rows of the playing hall. But there was another doctor working with Karpov on...
Influenced by Silman: the tale of a Queen in a pin and a rampaging Knight
I was never a particularly good player to begin with, but those instructive articles by Silman seem to be paying off. I'm not quite an epitome of an analyst either: aside from a couple variants, I didn't even move the pieces on the board during t...
Spassky - Fischer: The Return Match
The last chapter of the Krogius book, mostly consisting of quotes from other authors. The Spassky - Fischer series: Part 0: Excerpts from the chapter about Spassky's preparation. Part 1: Pre-match, Spassky waiting for Fischer in Reykjavik. Par...
Spassky - Fischer: The Match Diary by Nikolai Krogius, part 7
Part 7. The fallout: Boris returns to USSR Previously on: Part 0, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6. And so, the departure day came. This time, we flew to Copenhagen through Oslo. The cold and rainy Icelandic autumn seemingly accomp...
Spassky - Fischer: The Match Diary by Nikolai Krogius, part 6
Part 6. Ending and Aftermath, with Bobby speaking Russian Previously on: Part 0, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5. But while some wrote articles, and others prepared to greet the new world champion in person, thinking that the next few gam...
Spassky - Fischer: The Match Diary by Nikolai Krogius, part 5
Part 5. In which Operation Chair is commenced and fails completely, and there are some draws Previously on the series: Part 0, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 Let's discuss the atmosphere around the match; we haven't touched that subject since Fi...
Spassky - Fischer: The Match Diary by Nikolai Krogius, part 4
Part 4. In which Boris recovers, but it's too late Previously on: Part 0, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 The ninth game was played on 1st August; its opening didn't go well for the world champion. In the improved Tarrasch defence, Spassky went for a va...
Spassky - Fischer: The Match Diary by Nikolai Krogius, part 3
Part 3, in which Boris falters, and Bobby takes the lead Previous installments: Part 0, Part 1, Part 2 But now, Bobby asked (or, should I say, demanded) that the third game, scheduled for July 16th, be played in a closed room, without any audie...
Spassky - Fischer: The Match Diary by Nikolai Krogius, part 2
Part 2, in which Bobby comes, sees... loses and forfeits Part 0 and Part 1 can be found by following the hyperlinks. The postponement of the match caused a stir in the world. Spassky received many telegrams from Yugoslavia, Germany, Sweden ...
Spassky - Fischer: The Match Diary by Nikolai Krogius, part 1
As promised, I'm continuing the translation of Nikolay Krogius' biographical book about Boris Spassky, particularly the most interesting part for the Western readers - about his match against Bobby Fischer. The chapter was divided by arbitrary pa...
"Preparing for the match against Fischer", excerpts from Boris Spassky's bio
Nikolai Krogius was one of Spassky's coaches during his preparations for the match against Fischer. He shares a lot of insight from the Soviet camp. Here are some quotes from his biographical book about Spassky, published in 1998 and 2000 (2 volu...
Serper's Long Lost Game
I'll admit, the title is a bit misleading. GM Serper himself probably has it in his archives. But, nevertheless, this game is not featured on chessgames.com, so it certainly was lost for a vast majority of chess fans. The game is from the Soviet ...
Rare candy: Korchnoi tactic
Viktor Korchnoi isn't exactly known for his tactical masterpieces - his best chess quality is arguably his great tenacity, both in attack and defence. But, in his youth (yes, there was a time when Korchnoi was young!), he destroyed Efim Geller wit...
Garry Kasparov. My Best Chess Game
Article from the magazine Chess In Russia, 1999 My Best Chess Game "My best game is ahead..." How many times have we heard this answer from chess players of any age and level of success. The dream of playing that game, which would shine upon the...
Inspired by Naroditsky
GM Naroditsky is currently feuding with GM Serper in the Articles section of the site. The main topic of their argument is a certain Knight sacrifice at e6. After reading Naroditsky's article, I suddenly got a chance to sacrifice at e6 as well, ev...
