2008 was not just another year. It was the year in which Bobby Fischer passed away, it was the end of the Kramnik era, and we saw the birth of both the Grand Prix and the Grand Slam. Like we did on December 31 last year and the year before, here's...
After co-winning the first Grand Prix as the nominated player in Baku, Vuigar Gashimov is also a serious candidate for winning the third, in Elista. Today he trapped Mamedyarov's queen and rejoined Grischuk in the lead, with 6.0/9. Overall leader ...
Do you know who Britney Spears' manager is? Do you care? Okay, I admit having read a news item about the breakup between Britney Spears and her previous manager, but, of course, that was not because of the news itself, but because it involved Brit...
What started as a promising series of tournaments has rapidly turned into a sinking ship: the FIDE Grand Prix series. After Doha was cancelled, and Montreux is also out, now top seed Magnus Carlsen decided to withdraw.Last week FIDE suddenly chang...
While several videos have emerged on the internet showing Armenians and Georgians celebrating and cheering, after their best chess players won gold at the Olympiad in Dresden, Ukraine is less happy. They worry about their best player Vassily Ivanc...
Bob Wade, International Master, arbiter, journalist, coach, organiser, writer, archivist and foremost, chess lover, died this morning from pneumonia. He had been in the Elisabeth Hospital in Woolwich for three days for complications from a common ...
Bob Wade (pictured) was far more than a chess player - he was also a chess writer, coach, director, arbiter and friend to many generations of chess players. Robert Graham Wade was born in New Zealand in 1921, but settled in England in 1950 where ...
According to the world's number one player, the current world championship cycle shouldn't be changed, at least not until 2011. In a special press conference held on the last rest day of the Olympiad, Veselin Topalov shared his opinion on several ...
Veselin Topalov made his debut in the third round of the Olympiad in Dresden, scoring an easy win. There are still nine countries with a 100% score; Azerbaijan is not one of them because The Netherlands held them to 2-2. Round 3 report with games,...
The Kamsky-Topalov match / FIDE saga continues with two more open letters: one by the Bulgarian Chess Federation and one by Kamsky's manager Chernenko, but there's not much new under the sun.To get you updated: on November 3, FIDE President Kirsan...
2nd UPDATE: open letter by Rustam Kamsky Update: No Chernenko money, Iluymzhinov gives Bulgarian Chess Federation another chance.By now nobody believes the Kamsky-Topalov match will still take place before the end of the year, if at all, but after...
Today is the 60th birthday of Robert H?ɬºbner. Andr?ɬ© Schulz wrote about it at Chessbase and a rare interview (by Stefan L?ɬ?ffler) was published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine.
Opinions are like belly-buttons. Everyone has one. Some people think Vishy Anand will successfully defend his title against Vladimir Kramnik; others think that Kramnik will overcome the Indian champion. But what about the facts? What do the ac...
German magazine Der Spiegel is Europe's largest and one of the most influential weekly magazines with a circulation of more than one million per week. This week's edition has an interview with Viswanathan Anand.It's a rare thing that a chess playe...
It's the first public chess match between someone in space against an opponent on earth: since last Monday astronaut Gregory Chamitoff, floating 210 miles (about 340 kilometers) above earth, is playing a chess game in space against a group of scho...
Today it's time for a 3rd update on the Women World Championship saga. More players have cancelled their participation and FIDE President Ilyumzhinov wrote a letter to Georgian President Saakashvili.The developments around the World Women Champion...
Yesterday a number of participants of the upcoming Women World Championship expressed their worries, as the event is supposed to be held August 28 - September 18 in Nalchik, a city in the Caucasus region of southern Russia. Today, FIDE President I...
There have been so many chess events taking place lately that it might have been easy to overlook an unremarkable tournament in Argentina, the Copa Mercusor, except for one small thing - one small pocket PC sized thing. The winner of the categor...
The 2008 World Junior Championships were held from August 2-16, 2008 in Gaziantep, Turkey. On the boys side GM Abhijeet Gupta from India won the World Junior Championship title in dramatic fashion with a victory over another top contender in the f...
It can hardly have escaped anyone's attention that a terrible armed conflict has flared up in the South Ossetia region of Georgia. The violence has claimed many lives and the whole region is in turmoil. Anyone travelling near the area woul...
"A game of patzers," that's how Radjabov described his victory against Cheparinov, in the fifth round of the Sochi Grand Prix tournament. Besides that game there were six draws, and so Radjabov joined Cheparinov,in the standings, together with Gri...
The recently released newest incarnation of the strongest chess engine in the world, Rybka 3, took the Chess960 Computer World Chess Championship title at Mainz by beating Shredder 11 in the final. Rybka is the brainchild of International Grandm...
There is one big disadvantage of Sochi: I cannot visit the Mainz Chess Classic this year. Fortunately, this great tournament also provides a great media service, and helped by many press releases, here's the first report, on the FiNet Chess960 Rap...
The strongest chess program just got stronger!You know what that means: Rybka 3 is out.But the shooting star of computer chess (and reigning world champion) not only gained elo points. It also has a new interface, designed by ChessBase, and intr...
