Romanian holding on in India

9/11/2004 – In a tournament full of ups and down, Dieter Nisipeanu is staying up. (That's not him, but we needed someone smiling.) With one round to go he is clinging to a half-point lead in the Pune GM tournament. FIDE champion Kasimdzhanov is right on his tail. Local hopes for a place on the podium are good with Harikrishna and Chanda vying for third. Report and photos.

The Greatest Player Never to Become World Champion

9/11/2004 – He has been an active grandmaster for 50 years, in the world's elite for 40, and a three-time challenger for the world championship title. It is not impossible that, at 73, Viktor Korchnoi may yet win the title that has so far eluded him. In his Monday night lecture our Playchess.com trainer Dennis Monokroussos shows us a brilliant Korchnoi game from 1981.

1st Dato’ Arthur Tan Malaysia Open

9/11/2004 – After eleven grueling rounds in six days, China's Ni Hua took clear first place in the strongest chess tournament ever held in Malaysia. Players from all over the world came to this fascinating nation for a memorable event. Edwin Lam brings us a remarkable report with food, fun and photos.

Alisa at the Olympics

9/11/2004 – A chess grandmaster at the Olympic Games? Not the Olympiad, mind you, but the big one in Athens, where WGM Alisa Maric represented her country, Serbia & Montenegro. And while she was there she proved that size actually doesn't matter – by trouncing Yugoslav basketball stars, each a foot and a half taller than her. At chess. Here are impressions of Alisa in Athens...

A birthday song for Martica

9/10/2004 – Patrick Schönbach was born with a debilitating illness, but an unusually agile mind. Against all odds he grew up to be a musician, programmer and chess player. A while ago Patrick met a woman grandmaster on the Playchess.com server. A friendship developed, across 7000 km of ocean. Now it has resulted in a beautiful birthday chess song.

Nisipeanu leads in India

9/9/2004 – A chess tournament near a fort with spikes to ward off enemy elephants? It must be India! The city of Pune is hosting the strongest all-play-all event ever to take place in India, a category 16 that includes FIDE champ Kasimdzhanov and a host of local stars, sans Anand. We bring you an onsite report, analysis, and some beautiful local color.

Alexander Morozevich wins Moscow Blitz

9/9/2004 – Every year there is a Moscow Blitz championship, sponsored by a local newspaper. The first prize is a beautiful samovar. The legendary Mikhail Tal took twelve of them home with him to Riga. This year, under the watchful eyes of some famous player, it was another magician of the chess board

Women's Championship in Iran

9/7/2004 – For a while chess was forbidden, but now it is blossoming in Iran, which now boasts two GMs and five IMs. But especially the women seem to be profiting from the chess boom – 170 turned up for the Iran Women's Championship that ended last Friday. Here's a report and pictures of the Girls of Iran...

Yuriy Kuzubov joins the mini-GM club

9/7/2004 – He is two weeks younger than his club mate Sergey Karjakin – and ten months older than the Norwegian wunderkind Magnus Carlsen. Today, at the age of 14 years, 7 months and 12 days, Ukraine chess prodigy Yuriy Kuzubov completed his third and final GM norm.

Surprising the stars

9/6/2004 – Rating systems are a good indicator of what’s likely to happen in a game. Likely, but not guaranteed. Our Playchess.com trainer Dennis Monokroussos shows us how a world-class GM fared against a well-prepared 2290 master, in his Monday night lecture...

Momentoo – chess in available light

9/6/2004 – ChessBase.com is know for its emphasis on visuals – spectacular picture reports that accompany tournaments. Recently we found a man to whom we can only tip our collective hats. Dutch photographer Fred Lucas has shot some of the best portraits of chess players that we have ever seen. Here's a selection...

Finishing the Dragon: the Yugoslav Attack

9/5/2004 – This is a weapon Bobby Fischer used in an attempt to maintain the initiative in the Sicilian Dragon. With the "Yugoslav Attack" our GM trainer Boris Alterman completes his lecture series on the Dragon theme. You can watch and listen to him live on the Playchess.com server in his Sunday night lecture.

18-year-old Andrei Volokitin Ukraine champion

9/4/2004 – The 73rd Ukrainian Championship has ended with an upset victory by Andrei Volokitin 18, who beat his one year older compatriot Anton Korobov in the final. 24-year-old Alexander Moiseenko came in third. Top seed Vassily Ivanchuk was eliminated by veteran Oleg Romanishin in round two. Illustrated report.

Entrepreneur, philanthropist, chess aficionado

9/4/2004 – In the past two years there have been a flurry of big chess events in New York city. Kasparov played against Karpov, Deep Junior and X3D Fritz. With 46,000 newspaper reports and live Internet and TV coverage the latter was the best-reported match in chess history. We introduce Armand Rousso, the extraordinary personality behind the events.

Kasparov em Brasil

9/3/2004 – Brazil, or Brasil as they write it, is embracing chess (xadrez) more and more. Anand and Karpov were invited to play in the showcase Desafio tournament in Sao Paulo. At the same time, Garry Kasparov was giving a simul, touring education centers, and signing the Brazilian edition of his book series. Report and photos.

Chess Olympiad in the paradise of Calvià

9/3/2004 – The first was in held in Paris, 80 years ago. The 36th edition of the Chess Olympiad will take place from October 14th to 31st on the beautiful Mediterranean island of Mallorca. There are events is for professionals and for amateurs. Who knows, you may even decide to move there after you have seen our spectacular pictorial report.

The name is Spassky – Boris Spassky

9/2/2004 – "If chess is a vast jungle, computers are the chainsaws in a giant environmentally insensitive logging company," writes Nigel Short in his always entertaining Sunday Telegraph column. He goes on to plead for more romance in chess, and tells of a brilliant King's Gambit game by Boris Spassky which was used in a Bond movie...

Release Your Inner Chess Publisher

9/1/2004 – Exporting pretty diagrams with ChessBase and Fritz is pretty easy. But to present an entire game, or many games, with notes, nothing beats online replay. ChessBase 8 can quickly produce an HTML replay page from the games you select and Mig shows you how in his latest ChessBase Cafe tutorial.

'We want to live together forever'

9/1/2004 – She collected pictures of her chess hero after his match with Boris Spassky in 1972. One year later they met in Tokyo – the start of a romance spanning decades. Since four years the two have lived together in downtown Kamata in Tokyo's Ota Ward. In an exclusive interview for ChessBase Miyoko Watai tells us the story of her life with Bobby Fischer.

The Playchess Grand Prix

8/31/2004 – Every Wednesday, at 4, 6, 8 and 10 p.m. CEST (= GMT +2) we will be staging special fast blitz (3+0) tournaments, each a seven-round Swiss, on the Playchess.com server. The winners of each tournament can win Ducat prizes and collect Grand Prix points. Here are the details...

YAUST – Yet Another Ukraine Super-Talent

8/31/2004 – What's with Ukraine, where world class chess players spring like corn flowers in a wheat field? After Ponomariov (FIDE world champion at 18), Kateryna Lahno (women GM at 12) and Sergey Karjakin (male GM at 12) we are now confronted with 14-year-old Yuriy Kuzubov who is sending waves at the Ukraine Championship. A pictorial portrait...

World Chess Solving Championship in Greece

8/31/2004 – The athletes have left, and now some of the finest minds in the world are collecting in Halkidiki, Greece, to solve direct, help and self mates, endgame studies and a host of other chess problems. Themis Argirakopoulos has sent us a comprehensive report on problem chess and even supplied samples to test your wits against the champions.

The Vladimir Kramnik Web Site

8/30/2004 – While classical chess world champion Vladimir Kramnik and his challenger Peter Leko have gone into seclusion, preparing for their match which starts in less than a month from now, the former has launched a new web site devoted to his biography, games, interviews and photos. More...

Alexander Morozevich’s coming-out party

8/30/2004 – He is gifted and idiosyncratic, one of the world's strongest active players. In 1995, at seventeen, he came out with a fine win against world championship challenger Vishy Anand. In his Monday night lecture our Playchess.com trainer Dennis Monokroussos discusses this extraordinary game.