10/22/2002 – Every three months, FIDE publishes a list of chess ratings calculated by a formula that Professor Arpad Elo developed decades ago. This formula has served the chess world quite well for a long time. However, statistician Jeff Sonas believes that the time has come to make some significant changes to that formula. He presents his proposal in this milestone article.

10/21/2002 – "Election season is a jolly old time for the Russian press," writes Alexei Pankin in the Moscow Times. Kalmykian president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who is standing for a third term and failed to reach the 50% needed to win the first round of elections, is now under heavy fire by the Moscow-based press. Since Ilyumzhinov is also the president of the world chess federation, the European FIDE delegates are watching the elections with some concern. More

10/19/2002 – Saturday October 19, 12:00h GMT (14:00h CET, 8 a.m. NY): it's Judgement Day, the final decisive game in the match that pits human and machine intelligence in the game of chess. The socre after seven games is 3.5:3.5. World Champion has the white pieces and a slight advantage. But Fritz is the player that will not feel the pressure. You can watch the game on our live coverage sites.

10/19/2002 – The Brains in Bahrain Man-Machine match is over and has finished in a 4-4 draw, with two wins each and four draws! Game 8 was the shortest game of the match, a 21-move draw. The World Champion was unable to make any progress against Fritz's solid defense. It was a tremendous result for Fritz, particularly after starting out with only half a point from the first three games. Both sides said they would be happy to play a rematch. More

10/18/2002 – The free day after the monumentous game six of the match between Vladimir Kramnik and Deep Fritz was devoted to shopping and sight-seeing. One person, however, did not have his heart in the souks and malls in the capital Manama. Mig Greengard was pondering the final position of the sixth game in which Kramnik had resigned, after his vicious attack against Deep Fritz had failed. Did he find a draw? More

10/17/2002 – Game seven of the Man vs Machine event in Bahrain ended in a draw after Vladimir Kramnik was unable to capitalise on a typical anti-computer postition. Fritz in fact threatened to turn tables on the world champion, who ended up defending for the draw. The score is now 3.5:3.5. A full report and pictures will follow soon. In the meantime you can replay the game here. More

10/16/2002 – It is an interesting theory: the Fritz team installed the latest chatter files during the Man vs Machine event in Bahrain, causing the machine to talk to the world champion in authentic Shakespearean verse during the game. The historical chatter drove Kramnik to distraction and prompted his ill-fated Morphy-esque knight sacrifice. That, in any case, ist how Schakespearean scholar and chess addict Michael Fischer tells it in his special report.

10/15/2002 – The FIDE World Cup in Hyderabad, India, has seen top seeds Ivanchuk and Morozevich bowing out in the preliminaries, while Vishy Anand came back after a shock loss to compatriot K. Sasikiran to qualify for the quarterfinals. But the stars are the women players Meenakshi Subbaraman and Koneru Humpy. Read all about it in Manisha Mohite's richly illustrated report from Hyderabad.

10/15/2002 – The computer went for a Queen's Indian today, giving the opponent a clear advantage but keeping its pieces – and especially its queen – on the board. On move 19 the world champion could not resist a piece sacrifice which could have made this game "the most beautiful of my career" (Kramnik). But Fritz found a brilliant defence and took the point. Here's our full illustrated report.

10/14/2002 – Monday is children's day in Bahrain. At least this Monday was. They descended in droves on the Muharraq Mind Sports Centre, noisy and smart, speaking flawless English, mostly with a British accent, but with American-style jokes and goofing off. The girls in hijabs and more subdued, but enjoying chess as much as the boys. Actually quite delightful, as you will see in our Bahrain Picture Gallery V.

10/13/2002 – The old adage that behind every good man there’s a good woman is true more times than not. More or less the same can be said for chess computers: behind every good chess computer there’s a good designer. James DuBois takes a first look at Behind Deep Blue by Feng-Hsiung Hsu.

10/13/2002 – In its best game of the match Fritz had world champion Vladimir Kramnik under considerable pressure. With 15 minutes on his clock to make six more moves, Kramnik tried to avoid a long, tedious and possibly lost endgame – and played the worst blunder of his career to lose a piece and resigned almost immediately. More