4/13/2003 – At a time when chess players should be slipping, Garry Kasparov is still at the top of the chess world, where he has now been perched for over 18 years. Today is his 40th birthday, and instead of putting together a summary of his career we simply clicked a few times in ChessBase and allowed the database which he originally initiated to put together some biographical information.

4/10/2003 – In recent months we staged a number of prize contests. Our readers were asked to pick the winners of big chess tournaments or solve chess puzzles. They could win software autographed by the world's top players. One of the awards was hand delivered to the winner, who lives in a charming Italian town with beautiful churches and run-down stadiums. We got some very nice pictures out of it. More

4/10/2003 – Some time ago we linked to an article in which discovering the laws of physics was compared to learning chess by observing games. At the end of his article there is mention of a 1959 short story by Robert Heinlein, which turns out to be a special favourite of Dr John Nunn. The Oxford mathematician and chess grandmaster tells us why this tale is important and gives us a list of the best works of science fiction.

4/8/2003 – Big names like Shirov, Khalifman, and Linares participant Vallejo were left in the dust as Russia's Alexander Rustemov took first with 6/9. His score was matched in the final round when Dreev wore down Campora in a marathon, but Rustemov won the title on tiebreaks over his countryman. Report, photos, and a selection of games here.

4/8/2003 – Viswanathan Anand, the "33-årige indisk verdensmester", won the SIS-MH Masters, Denmark, held from April 4-6 2003 in Middelfart on the Danish island of Funen. The other players were GMs Peter Heine Nielsen and Curt Hansen of Denmark, together with Swedish GM Jonny Hector, the event was a double round robin of rapid games. The Danish television station DR2 made a 30 minutes program to be broadcast on April 14. You will find a report and the games here...

4/7/2003 – The French Championship "National 1" is one the most attractive in the world. 'From April 3 to 6 the eight top teams of the country battled it out in Besançon, a lovely Roman city situated near Switzerland. Jean-Michel Péchiné of the French chess magazine Europe Echecs has sent us this link-filled illustrated report.

4/7/2003 – A tale of two simuls. His website never made it to Wall St. but Garry Kasparov made it to the New York Stock Exchange anyway, for a 24-board simul. When it was done he had to catch a plane to Germany where he logged on to Playchess.com for an online simul. Four of his opponents were back in New York! Mig was on the scene for both events. More..

4/6/2003 – It was a private event, staged by the successful German chip manufacturer ZMD. To celebrate the laying of the foundation stone for a new ZMD campus Garry Kasparov played a clock simul against six opponents located in Germany and America. But if you were logged into the Playchess.com server you may have followed the action. In case you missed it here's a full illustrated report.

4/5/2003 – In the last FIDE ratings lists the two leading players had a berth to themselves. Now Kasparov and Kramnik have slipped almost 20 points down, while Anand, Leko and Shirov have gained about 10-12 each, making things much closer at the summit. Judit Polgar has once again joined the top ten, the only women in history to come close to achieving anything like this. Here are the top 100 and some statistics.

4/3/2003 – In the chayhanas of Usbekistan it is usually considered impolite to openly play for money. The usual stake here is ordering Uzbek pilav (or "plov") for the whole company. This meal is delicious, and indeed it's the pride of Uzbek cuisine. In part two of his wonderful article Jamshid Begmatov tells us how to prepare it, and also how a very beautiful lady saved her life with a very beautiful chess combination.

4/2/2003 – That was the kind of rejection we got from some readers to yesterday's news story on a bionic chess interface (which was repeated in Slashdot). The report was not completely true. First of all the release date ("the beginning of the next year") was inaccurate – Fischer and Ivanchuk are already testing implants. And apparently there are a lot of rats playing chess already – on the chess servers. More feedback.

4/1/2003 – Remember Brutus, the "mini-Deep Blue" that is being developed by ChessBase? Two years have passed since work on the chess chip was started, and many chess fans are becoming a little bit impatient. What is taking so long? As the director of the project, Dr Christian Donninger, reveals, the whole endeavour has moved in a different direction.