Chess
The Polgar Challenge
Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, at 15 years old one of India’s most exceptional young players, emerged as the winner of the Polgar…
European Online Club Cup
Since the start of the pandemic, opportunities for serious competition between players ranked outside the world’s top 20 have been…
Unfair play
Twenty players were disqualified from the Fide World University Online Championships, out of almost 900. Does that call for moral…
Fortune favours the brave
If you wish to unsettle your opponents, first attack them and second, play the moves quickly. It’s far from easy…
Everybody must get stoned
Have you ever played the Frankenstein-Dracula variation? The Monkey’s Bum? The Nescafé Frappé Attack? These are all real chess openings,…
When the universe winks
I write this with a sunny feeling. That’s partly because spring is upon us, but mostly because I have just…
Armenian champions
In the 21st century, which country has won more international chess Olympiads than any other? Russia? USA? China? None of…
Play from home
Is working from home the future of a productive society, or a fleeting aberration? Nobody knows yet, but a significant…
Synthetic diamonds
Diamonds are forever, they say. Likewise, brilliant games of chess have an everlasting sparkle. I will never tire of replaying…
He who hesitates…
If there was one ingredient which separated the two finalists of the Opera Euro Rapid, it was confidence. The third…
Knights before bishops
In 2005 Steve Jobs gave a commencement address at Stanford University. The late Apple CEO kicked off with a story…
Double Dutch
Are you not entertained? The climax of this year’s elite Tata Steel tournament was as riveting as it was vulgar.…
Remembering Kavalek
‘I began my escape from the communist Czechoslovakia 42 years ago, on Sunday, September 1, 1968. According to Wikipedia, I…
History at Hastings
The Hastings International Chess Congress hasn’t skipped a year since the second world war, so I was delighted to learn…
Missed opportunities
In game 1 of his Airthings Masters Final against Radjabov, Aronian’s pawn push 21 e4-e5 (shown in the first diagram)…
Antiques Roadshow
It is one of life’s comforts to see a forgotten trinket being dusted off and appreciated afresh. So in chess,…
A puzzling dozen
This Christmas, government guidance says that board games are out and quizzes are in. Thus, 12 questions for Christmas. Answers…
Birthday surprise
The Magnus Carlsen Chess Tour is back. This time, the series of online events is rebranded as the Champions Chess…
Chess improvement
The juicy prospect of improvement constantly dangles above a chess player. Those morsels of knowledge one has acquired whet the…
Forbidden pairings
Put yourself in the shoes of Aryan Gholami, the teenage master from Iran who was paired with an Israeli opponent…
Speed freaks
Writing in January, I described internet bullet chess, where the players have one minute for all their moves, as ‘popular,…
The Brick
I own a few chess books that could serve as a murder weapon, but none so hefty as Chess: 5334…
The Queen’s Gambit – Accepted
‘It’s chess. We’re all prima donnas.’ You can hear it spoken with a wink in the Netflix miniseries The Queen’s…
Collapsing barricades
Geometry shmometry. The pirouette of a knight may be pleasing to the eye, but sometimes what I really crave is…
Sweet surrender
It’s over. Magnus Carlsen’s undefeated streak in classical chess has finally come to an end, after 125 games. It is…
