Playing with Tigers

7/23/2003 – It's more fun and less dangerous than it would seem: The Chess Tigers, organisers of the Mainz Chess Classic 2003, are staging an Internet battle against "The Rest of the World". It is a game of Chess960, in which the pieces are shuffled in the starting position. Not easy to play, but you do have Vishy Anand and other illustrious partners helping you. More...

Too many Indians in the Commonwealth?

7/23/2003 – The 2003 British Championships has started in Edinburgh, with close on one thousand entries. Unfortunately the flagship event is being boycotted by all England's top players, due to the BCF regulation permitting any Commonwealth master (especially Indians) to play in the Championship. They are castigated for it in this Daily Telegraph article.

Happy Birthday Judit!

7/23/2003 – Today one of the great chess personalities of our day is celebrating her 27th birthday. Judit Polgar is the strongest female player – by a long margin – in the history of the game. She is number 11 in the world men's rankings and 215 points higher than the number two ranked woman. Here is a personal tribute to this remarkable young lady.

Matches and tournaments and analysis, oh my!

7/22/2003 – Can you name the last chess event held to honor a physicist? Boris Gelfand and Judit Polgar just played in one in Hungary, as far as we can tell. Gelfand demolished Polgar 6-2 in a rapid match. Meanwhile, a trio of players dominated the 18th North Sea Cup in Denmark. Dreev, McShane, and Sasikiran shut out the locals. Results and games here.

New ChessBase CDs: "Paul Morphy" and "English opening"

7/22/2003 – The games of Paul Morphy have fascinated generations of chessplayers. But what made Morphy "tick"? What were his strengths and weaknesses? How strong was he? A new ChessBase CD, Paul Morphy: Genius and Myth attemps to provide the answers. It's previewed (along with Mihail Marin's English 1.c4 e5) by Steve Lopez in this week's ChessBase Workshop

Chess in the sand

7/22/2003 – We known chess pieces made of wood, ivory, marble, metal, plastic. We have a hot air baloon set. But chess pieces made of sand? With eight-foot tall kings? They are certainly not meant for blitz games but part of an exhibition in the German sea resort of Travemünde called "Sand World 2003". Nadja Woisin reports.

A great historian passes

7/20/2003 – Kenneth Whyld was one of the great chess historians, co-author of the illustrious Oxford Companion to Chess and columnist of the British Chess Magazine for 25 years. This "wonderful person with the mind and sense of humour of a man half his age" (Sarah Hurst) passed away unexpectedly last week at the age of 77. More...

For a few ducats more

7/18/2003 – Tomorrow on Saturday begins the third edition of the Champions Challenge, our new knock-out tournament for title holders. The winner of the event, which is open to all Kings, can take home 2.000 ducats (about € 200,00). Start is at 17.00 CET, on our server at Playchess.com.

Workshop: Pawn captures with mate?

7/18/2003 – Games uncovered by using ChessBase 8's maneuver searches are a great resource for training questions. But maneuver searches can also be a source of fun. In this week's ChessBase Workshop, Steve Lopez goes hunting for checkmates caused by a capturing pawn. ChessBase Workshop

Singapore and ChessBase

7/17/2003 – With more than 2100 participants from schools all over the country, last year's Singapore Chess Carnival was the biggest Internet tournament of all time. This year's edition includes an international competition on Playchess.com. In eight preliminaries players from all over the world can qualify for the grand final on September 6, raking in a lot of prizes on the way. Here are all the details.

Kasparov Takes Manhattan

7/17/2003 – From the length of the line you would have thought someone was giving out free food or theater tickets. But the commotion was caused Garry Kasparov signing copies of his new book at a Manhattan Barnes & Noble. Hundreds of fans turned out to buy the book and hear Kasparov talk about his great predecessors. Now if only they had had more books... Report and pics here.

A new dimension in computing

7/16/2003 – In the last few days the news on the ChessBase web site has been somewhat sporadic. The reason for this is that our team was caught in a storm that swept over New York. But now hurricane Kasparov has passed (it took the one o'clock flight from La Guardia) and we can bring you a fresh report from the world's most exciting city, where chess is entering a new dimension.

Kasparov takes on X3D Fritz in November!

7/14/2003 – This has been an eventful week with Garry Kasparov in New York. First the chat and the new book, now the announcement that Kasparov will face a special X3D version of Deep Fritz. The news was broken in Newsweek today, but we have news and photos of what's been going on behind the scenes, with more to come. We'll have comments from Kasparov, X3D, and Team Fritz. More..

Live from New York, it's Garry Kasparov!

7/13/2003 – Like any author with a new book out Garry Kasparov is making the publicity rounds. We met with the author of "My Great Predecessors" at his hotel and logged in to the Playchess.com server for an hour of Q&A with 1500 online fans. We bring you an illustrated report of the session, including some portrait pictures by a budding young photographer.

Garry Kasparov Playchess.com chat transcript and photos

7/13/2003 – "This book is the most important thing I have done in chess other than winning my title in 1985." With that you know that this is no ordinary chess book. No "winning with.." or "secrets of..." here. The world's top player took questions and gave answers on the 300 years of chess history and development covered in his new series of books. Read on.

The most popular players in Europe

7/11/2003 – After the European Championships in Silivri, Turkey, we ran a poll asking our readers to study the games, results, tactical positions and pictures of the players and select their favourites. The response was overwhelming. After counting all the votes we present you with the winners. And with the many interesting, profound, funny and critical things people wrote in their entry forms. Here are the results.

'This one is a must-have!'

7/9/2003 – Pocket PC Magazine has reviewed a chess program in it's September issue. Author Doug Mackey, a 1421 rated chess player, obviously had a lot of fun with Pocket Fritz. "For $50, it will provide you many hours of entertainment and competition," he writes.

Icewalker grabs Champions Challenge

7/9/2003 – The first Champions Challenge, the new knock-out tournament for title holders on our server at www.playchess.com, became easy prey of Icewalker, a.k.a. Einar Gausel. The Norwegian grandmaster cooly swept away all opponents to rake in the prize of 2.000 ducats. Next Saturday we have the second edition, open to all Kings.

Gentlemen, life is not so easy!

7/8/2003 – A month ago there was a great deal of controversy between some of the players at the 4th European Championships in Istanbul, Turkey and the organisers. A protest letter was published, then a reply by the President of Turkish Chess Federation. Yesterday the struck again and now TCF president Ali Nihat Yazici has sent us a detailed reply with an daring new proposal...

The first chess program to break 2800!

7/8/2003 – For the first time a chess program has crossed the 2800 mark on the computer rating lists. This on the basis of over 90,000 games played by 254 computers. A bit worrying for Fritz, which has been duelling Shredder for first place for some time now. But it's a family tussle, since both programs are distributed by ChessBase. Here is the latest SSDF computer rating list.

GM slayer at the Staunton Memorial

7/8/2003 – To celebrate it's 175th anniversary as the home of chess the famous London restaurant Simpsons in the Strand is staging a double round robin in memory of its famous patron: Howard Staunton, strongest chess player in the world in his day. In August it will be a 12-year-old boy billed as a "GM slayer" who will uphold the tradition.

The Fifth Move: a chess thriller from Bollywood

7/7/2003 – The movie set in North America. Two men are playing a game of chess. One is a detective who has lost everything that he loves; his life depends on how well he plays the game. The other is an exiled Georgian grandmaster who is ... well, dead. The project has attracted the attention of Hollywood stars like Paul Newman, Dustin Hoffman and Robin Williams. More...

Problems in Paradise continue

7/7/2003 – Almost a month ago, during the 4th European Championships in Istanbul, Turkey, 187 participants published a protest letter, threatening to boycott the next event. On the same day the President of Turkish chess federation replied forcefully to that letter. Now the players strike back with a second open letter and by forming an Initiative Group. More...

The pulse-racing equivalent of a sword duel

7/7/2003 – Chess played a strategic part in Albert Morris's chequered Army career, like the time when in British Somaliland he unsuccessfully attempted to introduce feuding tribal chiefs to the subtle clashes of chess warfare. His article in The Scotsman is rich in stories, puns and witticisms, and tells about how the British Education Secretary is encouraging children to play chess to improve their academic skills. Excerpts and links are here...