Peter Svidler prepares to dance the Mainz Shuffle

8/12/2003 – In recent years a part of the Mainz Classic events has been "Chess960," aka shuffle chess or Fischerrandom chess. Russian GM Peter Svidler won the open event last year and will face Peter Leko in a match of this curious variant in a few days. Svidler talks about that match, his return to the top 10, and what being a father has meant for his chess. More

Grandmasters brutalised in Lippstadt

8/10/2003 – The weather is sultry, but one participant at the Lippstadt GM tournament is keeping its cool. Our experimental hardware program Brutus is taking point after point from its opponents. Brutus has won all three games so far – the first one with a spectacular piece sacrifice against Ukrainian GM Oleg Romanishin. Here are the computer games.

Dortmund Round 10: Viorel Bologan sole winner

8/10/2003 – Viorel Bologan has created the sensation of the year. The 31-year-old Moldovan clinched sole victory in the Sparkassen Chess-Meetings 2003 in Dortmund, a full point ahead of Kramnik and Anand. Bologan led the tournament from the first round all the way to the end. With 6.5/10 his performance rating was 2814. Full report now up.

It's official – Garry Kasparov vs X3D Fritz

8/10/2003 – Newsweek broke the story and we reported on the preparations. Now it's official. X3D Technologies has announced that Garry Kasparov will take on the computer program X3D Fritz "in total virtual reality, with the chessboard floating in the air between man and computer". Here is the X3D press release.

Anand: 'Stop the circus!'

8/9/2003 – In 2001 Vishy Anand won the FIDE title of world champion, which he lost a year later to Ruslan Ponomariov. Now the the world's number three has been shut out of the championship cycles. Anand calls the current situation a complete mess. "It is tough to get sponsors, and people are still trying to hold three World Championship matches," he says in this critical interview.

Fritz – the ideal chess coach

8/9/2003 – Everyone knows that Fritz is strong – strong enough to take on world champions in match play. But is it weak enough to be genuinely useful to the chess amateur? Emphatically yes, according to a review published on the Deaf Gamers site. Mainly the author is impressed in how realistically the program plays weak chess. Here are excerpts.

Dortmund Round 9: Big guns quiet, showdown on Sunday

8/9/2003 – Just when you would expect things in Dortmund to be heating up they have gone stone cold. Bologan's pursuers, Anand and Kramnik, again played short draws. The only person happy about this is Viktor Bologan, who can wrap up the tournament with a draw tomorrow in the final round. He was held to a draw by Radjabov today and will have his hands full with black against Kramnik on Sunday. Report and games

Germany's new Grandmaster: Shredder!?

8/8/2003 – The Sixth Magistral de la Republica Argentina was won convincingly by the ChessBase program Shredder 7. It's 8.5/10 score was well above the GM norm and two points ahead of the pack of GMs and IMs chasing it. That's a 2752 performance rating! The human side of things was won by Andres Rodriguez of Uruguay. Report and games

Dortmund Round 8: Radjabov's revenge, leaders draw

8/8/2003 – Not all short games are created equal. Bologan-Leko went from slow to stop in 19 moves. Kramnik-Anand was a complicated 21-mover that required precise defense from Black. Then there was the 26-move battle of the teens rematch between Radjabov and Naiditsch. Black was under attack before his seat was warm and threw in the towel with mate not far off. Report and analysis

ChessBase 8.0 statistics – part two

8/8/2003 – In this week's ChessBase Workshop, Steve Lopez presents the second in a series on ChessBase 8's graphic statistical displays. This time out, Capablanca's wins as Black are broken down by ECO code in multiple bar graph displays. More...

Dortmund Round 7: The real Vishy Anand is in the house!

8/8/2003 – What a difference one game can make. Anand beat the player who defeated him in the second round, beat the leader, moved into a tie for second, and played a spectacular rook sacrifice. And he did it all in one game against Viktor Bologan. Radjabov swindled a draw against Leko, Naiditsch-Kramnik was a 27-move draw. Analysis and report are now up here.

Dortmund Round 6: Red-hot Bologan extends lead

8/7/2003 – Be on the lookout for this man. He's armed (with novelties) and dangerous (in any type of position). We've run out of superlatives for Viktor Bologan's performance in Dortmund. He won again on Wednesday to build an insurmountable lead with an incredible 5/6 score. This win came against Naiditsch's Marshall Gambit. Anand is back in the fight (for second place) after beating Leko. Report and analysis are now up.

Ladies and gentlemen, upgrade your ratings!

8/7/2003 – ChessBase 7 and 8 both contain a unique Players Encyclopedia. This contains full information on over 100,000 players and tens of thousands of pictures. Periodically the Elo ratings need to be upgraded. We show you how you can do this, step by step.

The Rogozenko-Bologan conspiracy

8/7/2003 – Why is everyone talking about Viorel Bologan? Because he is winning the Super-GM in Dortmund by some ridiculous score. But doesn't it strike you that two weeks ago, long before the tournament actually started, our Playchess.com trainer Dorian Rogozenko held a lecture on Bologan. We uncover details of a sinister plot.

Happy Birthday Helmut Pfleger!

8/6/2003 – Who is the best-known German chess player? If you count the number of people who know his name or would recognize him on the streets then GM Helmut Pfleger wins the contest hands down. Not because he was one of the most talented players in the sixties and seventies, but because he has brought chess into the mainstream media. Today Helmut turns sixty.

ChessBase 8.0 statistics - part one

8/5/2003 – Have you ever wanted to know just how well a certain player does statistically when handling either the White or Black pieces? In short -- yes! You can do this in ChessBase 8. It's easy, quick, and can yield some pretty interesting results. Steve Lopez explains how it's done (in the first article of a series) in this week's ChessBase Workshop. More...

Judgment day for chess players

8/5/2003 – Muscles and chess are not mutually exclusive. We know that heavyweight champions Lewis and Klitschko are fans, but now we hear that superstar Arnold Schwarzenegger plays chess between shoots. This was revealed by a Spanish newspaper, and we found further evidence on a German chess site. Unfortunately your incompetent reporter let the biggest fish get away.

Dortmund Round 5: Anand: It's nice to be winning.

8/5/2003 – We are halfway through the Dortmund tournament and the big story, the only story, is Viktor Bologan and his +3 score. A short draw against Radjabov left him a full point ahead of Kramnik. Leko-Kramnik was a wild draw that required great defense from Kramnik. Anand scored his first win after giving Naiditsch a lesson in the Sicilian. Report and analysis

Dortmund statistics: who will win

8/4/2003 – Five days ago we asked our visitors to predict who was going to win the Super GM in Dortmund. We agreed to accept predictions based on any of the great divination methods. Most used common sense, one, Jeff Sonas, ran a multi-million-game simulation to reach his conclusions. Here are the results.

Alexander Morozevich sensational in Biel

8/4/2003 – Some of his moves look like typographical errors and so do some of his scores. The 26-year-old Russian scored 8/10 in the strong (avg. Elo 2640) Swiss round-robin. His performance rating was close to 2900 as he racked up six wins and four draws to finish 1.5 points ahead of Bacrot and Smirin. We also link to an forceful new interview with the winner. Report and games

Abhijit Kunte the new British Champion

8/4/2003 – He's not British but he is the winner of the 2003 Smith & Williamson British Championship and that's what matters. The 26-year-old Indian played solid chess and punished his opponents' errors in an efficient display. He survived a close call in the final round against Gallagher. This is the second consecutive Indian takeaway at the British, but eligibility changes mean it will likely be the last. More..

Dortmund Round 4: Bologan keeps living the dream

8/4/2003 – Are we dreaming or is it just Viktor Bologan's dream and we're all living in it? After beating Peter Leko with black the Moldovan has now defeated the world #3 and #4 on consecutive days and leads Dortmund, 2003 by a full point ahead of world champion Kramnik. Naiditsch won the teen battle over Radjabov. Anand-Kramnik fizzled into a non-game draw. More..

Dortmund Round 3: Bologan leads after beating Anand

8/3/2003 – Maybe it's something in the water and only Anand is drinking it because everyone else in Dortmund traditionally drinks beer. Whatever the reason, Anand has now lost four of his last six games in the German city if you go back to his disastrous result in 2001. This time the damage was at the hands of Viktor Bologan and the Moldovan underdog is now the clear leader. But it's not champagne time yet. The other two games were drawn. Report and games

The strongest native-born American woman

8/3/2003 – At 22 Jennifer Shahade, the 2002 U.S. Women's Champion, is the strongest American-born female chess player in history. In a profile, published in the latest edition of the Smithsonian magazine, Paul Hoffman, author and chess player, introduces us to a generation of female chess champions and the new, cool world of competitive chess.