8/18/2022 – Fischer leads by three points. The Match of the Century was coming to a head, with Spassky, despite all his efforts, unable to reduce the deficit. "I felt that Fischer was like a large fish in my hands," he lamented, "one that was slippery and hard to hold on to. At certain moments I let him slip. And then again the psychological torment would begin. Everything had to be begun again from the start ..." Spassky was beginning to feel despondent. | Photo: Skáksamband Íslands

8/15/2022 – How fast and how reliably can strong chess players recognize chess positions? How good are world-class grandmasters at identifying games? And how do they compare with amateurs in this respect. The very successful science and engineering channel Veritasium has picked up this subject and made a very interesting video on it. To which we add our own research, conducted almost forty years ago.

8/13/2022 – After ten games in the World Championship match in Reykjavik, 1972, the score was 6½-3½ for Challenger Bobby Fischer. The match seemed virtually over – in the last eight games Boris Spassky had only managed to score 1½ points. In game 11 Spassky took on the Poisoned Pawn variation of the Najdorf Sicilian. "Fighting with the desperation of the doomed: he sensationally crushed his opponent in the 11th game" (Kasparov). In the twelfth he held Fischer to a comfortable draw. And then came the 13th round. Fischer played, for the first time in a top-level game, the Alekhine Defence. It turned into one of the most exciting battles of the match, and is beautifully annotated by GM Robert Byrne.

8/4/2022 – The game was invented in the 6th century in north-western India, from where it migrated to the west and conquered the world. The country of origin, however, descended into mediocracy – until it in the 1980s it suddenly produced its first grandmaster and World Champion. Now India is on the verge of becoming the ultimate super-power of chess. Our report includes a nice video summary of the performance of the Indian teams at the Chennai Olympiad so far.

8/4/2022 – After the first two traumatic games World Champion Boris Spassky was leading 2-0 in the Match of the Century. But then Fischer started to play and struck back: in the next eight games he scored 6½ points, chalking up a 6.5-3.5 lead. Games 8, 9 and 10 were quite spectacular, and are the subject of today's report – exactly fifty years after game ten. Younger players will also learn about "adjournments" and how exactly "sealed moves" were handled. Some were born after these practices were abandoned.

7/24/2022 – Today we offer readers a glimpse of what had been happening behind the scenes of “The Match of The Century”, especially in the Russian camp, exactly fifty years ago. A tense Boris Spassky, cajoled by seconds Efim Geller and Nikolai Krogius, nevertheless failed to perform, to the dismay of his friends and admirers. It’s also the story of a gamble that could have hurtled Bobby down the precipice in that fateful Game 6 of the match. A cautionary tale and object lesson for aspiring players.

7/19/2022 – Fifty years ago, after the disaster he suffered in game one, Bobby Fischer was on the verge of abandoning the entire event and returning home. The challenger continued his vigorous protest, and when his demands were not met, Fischer did not turn up for game two. He was forfeited and the score was 0-2. Bobby booked a flight back to New York, but practically at the very last moment decided to play game three – in an isolated ping-pong room!

7/11/2022 – Half a century ago, exactly on this day, the most famous chess match in history began: Boris Spassky vs Bobby Fischer in Reykjavik, Iceland. Five year ago we celebrated the event by reporting on it, game for game, as if it was all taking place live. Today we bring you links to all the reports we published at the time, starting with our full report on the drama that surrounded game one. It contains original film footage which nobody should miss.

6/12/2022 – Are you able to play a game of chess without view of the board? Can you solve problems and studies by just looking at a position or a diagram? Well, grandmasters and very strong players can stun us with feats of mental skill that we mortals are scarcely able to comprehend. We start our series with an experiment in which you can try competing with some great chess prodigies.

5/2/2022 – Can you imagine a chess book, written by a master, which contains exactly one chess diagram, and the notation of a single 17-move game? And that you would not be able to put it down? That is what happens with this unique work, written by chess master Asa Hoffmann, with his wife Ginny. Asa has spent a lifetime hustling game in the clubs, parks and streets of New York, and his account of his days there is absolutely compelling.

4/25/2022 – Just a day after the Russian assault on Ukraine began, Anna Muzychuk and her sister Mariya, after careful deliberation, decided to flee the country. They undertook a harrowing journey to Poland and then to Germany and Spain, where they are now "stranded." Frederic Friedel asked Anna to tell us what the escape from their war-torn country was like. Read her vivid description.

4/6/2022 – Tykhon Cherniaiev is a Ukrainian Candidate Master, a double world U10 chess champion in Rapid and Blitz. The young talent (Elo 2209) turned 12 on first of March, during the war in Ukraine. The family fled the country and is safe in Hamburg, Germany. Would you like to meet the lad, play against him? Well, then join our stream this evening at 4:30 p.m. European time. There will also be a number of young super-talents present.

4/1/2022 – Two years ago, to the day, we reported that Garry Kasparov had launched a project called "Corochess", introducing a new chess table that would enforce full social distancing during the pandemic. Now a Russian leader has taken it a step further. His table is designed to ensure that he cannot be physically attacked during a game. Take a look at what his future mastches will look like.

3/14/2022 – Cobicistat is a drug that was originally devised for HIV/AIDS therapy. Now a new study shows that it can inhibit the replication of SARS-CoV-2 – which would mean we could have a powerful therapeutical drug against Covid-19. Very encouraging news – but why are we reporting this on a chess news page? Because one of the virologists working on the project happens to be a chess grandmaster. Here's his story. | Photos Lara Gallucci.

3/1/2022 – Last Tuesday Werner Keym, one of the most creative problemists we know, turned 80, and we celebrated his birthday with samples from his book "Anything but Average". Today we give you the solutions to the truly unique problems, hoping you enjoyed them and were able to come up with the solutions yourself.

2/28/2022 – You know the problem: can you place eight queens on a chessboard so that now two queens threaten each other. There are 92 distinct ways of doing this. But how about on larger chessboards? For 27×27 board people have worked out that there are exactly 234,907,967,154,122,528 ways. Now a Harward mathematician Michael Simkin has come up with an almost-definitive answer for any number queens on a corresponding chessboard. Warning: his result can lead to dizziness and fainting spells.

2/22/2022 – Werner Keym is a teacher (of French and Latin) and a musician who has organised more than 300 concerts in his town. In 2010, he ran for Mayor of Meisenheim and won in a landslide. Now in retirement he devotes his time to the family — he has six grandchildren — and to his hobbies. The foremost of them is problem chess, where he is the is one of the most creative problemists we know. Today he turns 80, and we celebrate with samples of his work. Prepare for an hour of fun.

1/3/2022 – We know that our latest version of Fritz has a special mode that allows you to actually win games – which no 3500+ program would ever do. A lot of amateurs are having loads of fun, learning to spot combinations and by brilliancies in the process. We are also experimenting with strong GMs: will they too enjoy using Fritz 18 as a training partner? Here's someone who has tried.