Chess
Philidor’s heir
There was a time when France was the dominant power in world chess. When Howard Staunton commenced his remarkable series…
Magnum opus
A new book on the ingenious Hungarian master Gyula Breyer ranks, in my opinion, at the very top of chess…
Test of time
Last week I pointed to the fact that games played at accelerated time limits are acquiring an official imprimatur that…
Classical conundrum
The great Mikhail Botvinnik excoriated chess played at fast time limits. Botvinnik believed that classical chess at time limits of,…
British championship
This year’s British Championship starts on Saturday and is endowed with an outstanding prize fund supplied by Capital Developments Waterloo…
New in chess
New in Chess is one of the world’s leading chess magazines. At one time or another, every contemporary champion and…
Queen’s gambit
International master Andrew Martin is the head of the English Chess Federation Academy. He is well qualified for this post,…
Judgment of Paris
This year’s Grand Chess Tour started in Paris, continues in Leuven (Belgium) and will go on to St Louis and…
Sporting life
Can chess and bridge be considered sports? According to a European Court of Justice judgment earlier this month, bridge is…
Great Tigran’s heir
Tigran Petrosian is the great chess hero of Armenia. World champion from 1963-1969, his best games exhibit a profundity which…
Stavanger
The powerful tournament in Stavanger, Norway, draws to a close at the end of this week. World champion Magnus Carlsen…
Parliamentary moves
With the election dominating the news, this week I focus on the strongest chess player to have entered Parliament. Marmaduke…
Vote Basman
To the best of my knowledge, Michael Basman is the first officially titled chess master to ever stand in a UK…
Thoroughly modern
In 1972, in collaboration with George Botterill, two-times British champion, I published a revolutionary book on 1 … g6 which…
Trumpeting success
Regular readers will recall my column of 15 April in which I speculated on the future of the eccentric Fidé…
Tetralogy
Four important events have taken centre stage over the past few weeks. These were tournaments in Shenzen (won by Ding…
Catalan
The Catalan opening looks as if it should be relatively harmless, combining as it does the Queen’s Gambit with the…
Bugged
Polish grandmaster Akiba Rubinstein was one of the strongest players never to win the world title. Up to 1914 he…
BCM
The British Chess Magazine is the oldest continuously published chess magazine in the world. Recently it has been boosted by…
Presidential panic
This month, watch out for unidentified fleeing presidents. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, president of Fidé, the World Chess Federation, and a self-confessed…
Stakhanovite
Before leaving the topic of the 50th anniversary of the 1967 tournament to mark the half-century of the Russian revolution,…
Fifty glorious years
Whatever else you may say about it, the USSR certainly created the greatest national chess-playing machine the world has ever…
Pauline conversion
Paul Keres is the only chess player to have appeared on the euro currency, his face adorning the two-euro piece…
Oxford v Cambridge
The 135th Varsity Match hosted by London’s Royal Automobile Club last Saturday resulted in a narrow win for Oxford, who…
Mutkin’s masterpiece
This Saturday, 11 March, the annual Oxford v Cambridge Varsity match is being hosted by The Royal Automobile Club Pall…
