Chess

Sporting life

1 July 2017 9:00 am

Can chess and bridge be considered sports? According to a European Court of Justice judgment earlier this month, bridge is…

Great Tigran’s heir

24 June 2017 9:00 am

Tigran Petrosian is the great chess hero of Armenia. World champion from 1963-1969, his best games exhibit a profundity which…

Stavanger

17 June 2017 9:00 am

The powerful tournament in Stavanger, Norway, draws to a close at the end of this week. World champion Magnus Carlsen…

Parliamentary moves

10 June 2017 9:00 am

With the election dominating the news, this week I focus on the strongest chess player to have entered Parliament. Marmaduke…

Vote Basman

3 June 2017 9:00 am

To the best of my knowledge, Michael Basman is the first officially titled chess master to ever stand in a UK…

Thoroughly modern

27 May 2017 9:00 am

In 1972, in collaboration with George Botterill, two-times British champion, I published a revolutionary book on 1 … g6 which…

Trumpeting success

20 May 2017 9:00 am

Regular readers will recall my column of 15 April in which I speculated on the future of the eccentric Fidé…

Tetralogy

13 May 2017 9:00 am

Four important events have taken centre stage over the past few weeks. These were tournaments in Shenzen (won by Ding…

Catalan

6 May 2017 9:00 am

The Catalan opening looks as if it should be relatively harmless, combining as it does the Queen’s Gambit with the…

Bugged

29 April 2017 9:00 am

Polish grandmaster Akiba Rubinstein was one of the strongest players never to win the world title. Up to 1914 he…

BCM

22 April 2017 9:00 am

The British Chess Magazine is the oldest continuously published chess magazine in the world. Recently it has been boosted by…

Presidential panic

14 April 2017 11:00 pm

This month, watch out for unidentified fleeing presidents. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, president of Fidé, the World Chess Federation, and a self-confessed…

Stakhanovite

8 April 2017 9:00 am

Before leaving the topic of the 50th anniversary of the 1967 tournament to mark the half-century of the Russian revolution,…

Fifty glorious years

1 April 2017 9:00 am

Whatever else you may say about it, the USSR certainly created the greatest national chess-playing machine the world has ever…

Pauline conversion

25 March 2017 9:00 am

Paul Keres is the only chess player to have appeared on the euro currency, his face adorning the two-euro piece…

Oxford v Cambridge

18 March 2017 9:00 am

The 135th Varsity Match hosted by London’s Royal Automobile Club last Saturday resulted in a narrow win for Oxford, who…

Mutkin’s masterpiece

11 March 2017 9:00 am

This Saturday, 11 March, the annual Oxford v Cambridge Varsity match is being hosted by The Royal Automobile Club Pall…

Mutkin’s masterpiece

9 March 2017 3:00 pm

This Saturday, 11 March, the annual Oxford v Cambridge Varsity match is being hosted by The Royal Automobile Club Pall…

Mr Hundred Per Cent

4 March 2017 9:00 am

Nigel Short has distinguished himself by scoring 100 per cent, winning all six games, in the Bunratty tournament which finished…

Mr Hundred Per Cent

2 March 2017 3:00 pm

Nigel Short has distinguished himself by scoring 100 per cent, winning all six games, in the Bunratty tournament which finished…

Blazing Sadler

25 February 2017 9:00 am

Matthew Sadler’s retirement from full-time international chess is one of the great losses to the British game. Occasionally, the one-time…

Blazing Sadler

23 February 2017 3:00 pm

Matthew Sadler’s retirement from full-time international chess is one of the great losses to the British game. Occasionally, the one-time…

Cui Bono

18 February 2017 9:00 am

The cause célèbre at the Tradewise tournament in Gibraltar, which finished earlier this month, was the extraordinary protest by Hou…

Cui Bono

16 February 2017 3:00 pm

The cause célèbre at the Tradewise tournament in Gibraltar, which finished earlier this month, was the extraordinary protest by Hou…

Tradewise

11 February 2017 9:00 am

The Tradewise tournament at Gibraltar has gained a colossal reputation and is even challenging the traditional tournament at Wijk aan…