8/18/2018 – Everyone knows — and some even love — chess problems. But apart from straightforward "mate in x tasks" there are also other very interesting types: helpmates, selfmates, and retrograde analysis, a genre where the legality of a position or a move is what we are looking for. Sound boring? Well, take a look at some examples and decide for yourself. You may find it fascinating.

8/8/2018 – We have been trying to keep track of incredible playing strength and title wins at a very early age. It started with Capablanca and Reshevsky, and today we are seeing full grandmasters aged thirteen — and in two cases twelve! Most recently it was Pragnanandhaa, who achieved the title at twelve years and ten months. It became time to update our prodigy page, with better graphics and a few telling graphs. We also invite our readers to contribute.

7/15/2018 – On his 90th birthday, which we celebrated with a major biographical article earlier today, we add to the congratulations: Happy 90th, Pal, please stay with us as long as you can, and remain as incredibly creative as you still are. It is also appropriate to present our readers with the solutions to Benko's record-breaking twin problems, which turned out to be harder than expected.

7/7/2018 – In problem chess "twins" are two or more problems, normally composed by a single author, that are slight variations of each other. This is usually brought about by moveing pieces slightly or subtly, or adding, removing or exchanging a piece. Sometimes the position is moved to another location on the board. The solutions should be different. Now our dear and faithful friend Pal Benkö has sent us a record-setting eleven twins. Have fun solving these unique problems. | Photo: Diana Mihajlova

6/8/2018 – The recent article by Qiyu Zhou on pattern recognition was very well received — by our readers and in academic circles. At the end of the article, Frederic Friedel asked readers if anyone could locate footage from a science documentary he had produced 38 years ago, in which similar experiments were conducted. Unfortunately nobody apparently could, and so this promised follow-up article will have to make do with vivid descriptions and black and white photos. | Pictured: A teenage Nigel Short, a subject of Friedel's chess experiments

4/2/2018 – Did you think that the "Drunken Master" story we published 24 hours ago was an April 1st jest? No, it wasn't. It was funny but perfectly true (so far as we know). So is the made-up report coming? No, it isn't. We have decided to abandon the twenty-year tradition (this time really!) and stick to straight and truthful news. But we will look back at some of the pranks we have perpetrated in the past — just to prove we have not lost our sense of humour.

2/28/2018 – Two weeks ago there was a World Championship — in Chess960, a variant that symmetrically shuffles the position of the pieces behind the row of pawns. The game has gained some popularity since it eliminates the staggering amount of preparation that is required in regular chess. But Chess960 has a few problems that probably prevent it from really taking off. We discuss some possible solutions to these problems.

2/12/2018 – Our readers called it "devilish" and "insane" — the study shown to us by Hans Böhm during the Tata Steel Chess Tournament had people really straining their minds — and computers. Today we give you the solution and tell you who won the prize (a signed version of Fritz 16). But more importantly, we provide a full background of the study, published by Dutch composer Gijs van Breukelen, a number of years after it had been seen by friends — including the great Mikhail Tal.

2/5/2018 – The Tata Steel Tournament, often called the "Wimbledon of Chess", is held in a wind-swept Dutch coastal resort, Wijk aan Zee, in the middle of winter. It is very prestigious and attracts top players from around the world, as well as hundreds of amateurs, who play in subsidiary tournaments or simply come to watch the action in the top groups. We bring you impressions of this year's 80th anniversary event, and a wonderful chess study to solve. You can win a Fritz 16 signed by the winners!

1/25/2018 – Every year Pal Benko, grandmaster, former World Championship candidate, and one of the best problem composers in the world, sends our readers very special seasonal greetings. They come in the form of chess problems in which the pieces represent figures — this time a Christmas tree and candles. This year it was seven problems, one shaped like a tree and six like candles. Here the solutions — and some new and amusing problems to tickle your mind. | Photo of Benko: Diana Mihailova

1/23/2018 – In the early 1980s Ken Thompson, working at the Bell Laboratories, generated one of the world’s first chess endgame databases — king and queen vs king and rook. At the time he explained to Frederic Friedel how this revolutionary new technology worked. He did it in the form of a parable: God calculating the 32-piece endgame and playing chess. It is an amusing thought experiment that has gained interesting relevance at the current time.

1/17/2018 – Today, ten years ago, one of the greatest chess players of all time, Robert James Fischer, passed away. He had spent three years in Iceland, two in relative comfort and harmony, but struck by horrendous illness at the end of 2007. He had one true friend who tended to him to the end: Gardar Sverrison, who eight years later wrote a remarkable book on the Fischer he knew and who became part of his family. Today, with Gardar's permission, we bring you very moving excerpts from the final section of his book.