7/31/2024 – Vasyl Ivanchuk's first visit to Portugal was a complete sporting success. The former world number two now spends a lot of time in Spain. Stefan Löffler spoke to him. | Photos: Federico Marin Bellon (unless otherwise indicated)

7/27/2024 – The long Portuguese chess summer has begun with the national league. AX Gaia won with aplomb. The championship and the battle to stay in the league would have been more exciting if two double rounds had not ensured that the decisions were made at midnight. Our Lisbon correspondent Stefan Löffler reports. | Pictured: Estrelas São João de Brito | Photos: Dominic Cross / Portuguese Chess Federation

9/27/2023 – Jeremy Silman (1954-2023) got hooked on chess after the Bobby Fischer boom, discovered his writing talent, and went on to get paid handsomely for chess lessons. Last Thursday, the Californian bestselling author died after a long illness. Stefan Löffler sent us an obituary. | Photos: JeremySilman.com

9/20/2023 – This year’s Portuguese Chess Tour concluded with the Maia Chess Festival at the beginning of September. The Open tournament was a great success, both in terms of quality and popularity. Victor Mikhalevski won with 7½ points. On the sidelines of the Open, a conference was also held on the Tecmaia Campus under the motto Strong Minds. Stefan Löffler chaired it and sent us a report. | Photo: Streamer James Canty / Official website

3/31/2023 – John Foley is the Director of the 2023 London Chess Conference. Stefan Löffler was involved as a facilitator and was the founding director of the conference in 2013. Here they report from a breakthrough edition which established how chess enhances 21st century skills, interest in STEM subjects and even pre-school education. | Pictured: Rita Atkins, John Foley and Dana Reizniece-Osola | Photo: John Yip

9/2/2022 – One of the most magnificent collections of historical chess sets is currently on display at the Museum of Ancient Art in Lisbon. The collection is part of an exhibition on games and cultural exchange between Europe and Asia, reports Stefan Löffler from Portugal. The exhibition, curated by Ulrich Schädler and Thomas Thomsen, can be seen until 25 September. | Photos: Museo Nacional De Arte Antiga

2/14/2022 – Café Museum was the meeting place for Viennese chess players in the eighties. Photographer Erich Reismann was a regular guest. Now his reportage from that time is on display at the café, where after a long time chess players are welcome again. Stefan Löffler tells us more. | Photos: Erich Reismann (unless stated otherwise)

10/6/2021 – How does Magnus Carlsen spend his time when he is not playing chess? He is quite active, in fact! For example, he is one of the contestants on a Norwegian reality show — in “Ikke lov å le på hytta”, the contestants try to make the other residents of the house laugh while not laughing themselves. And this is only one of his many side activities.

9/16/2021 – How do you plan chess events with Covid-19 in mind? What to offer non-club players fascinated by online chess and "The Queen's Gambit"? What is hybrid chess good for? The Work4Chess online conference on Saturday, 18 September, tries to answer these and other questions. Access to the online conference is free. | Photos: ChessTech

8/4/2021 – On the Peniche peninsula, a center of fish processing and surfing, the Portuguese team champion was determined. Two Spanish Grandmasters put in a special effort for the winning team A.XAT Montemor O Velho, reports Stefan Löffler. | Photos: The Portuguese Chess Federation

6/14/2021 – In the winter of 1921/22, Ernst Grünfeld developed a revolutionary chess opening. Almost a hundred years later, the Viennese, who became a professional player out of necessity and joined the NSDAP because of his Jewish-sounding name, is the unlikely star of an exhibition in his hometown. Stefan Löffler visited it. | Photos, if not otherwise indicated: Collection Michael Ehn

5/19/2021 – Playing over-the-board but entering the moves of the game into a computer to play online against an opponent who is playing in an entirely different location, all supervised by an arbiter - that is Hybrid Chess. After the first hybrid tournaments the players now share their impressions. But feedback from the Mitropacup participants reveals mixed attitudes about hybrid chess and the rules that were applied, writes Stefan Löffler. | Photo: Peter Sadilek | Photo: Stefan Löffler

5/13/2021 – Online chess overseen by arbiters not only helps preventing cheating, but also offers opportunities to play against distant opponents and teams in an environmentally sustainable way. The Mitropacup and the upcoming World Cup qualification rounds are the first major hybrid tournaments. However, according to Stefan Löffler, hybrid chess still requires further field testing. | Photo: Christoph Menezes (Photos: Stefan Löffler / Bernhard Riess)

5/5/2021 – France's top players, most prominently Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, have been on bad terms with their Chess Federation for years now. After the deselection of Bachar Kouatly, the association's new president Éloi Relange wants to put an end to the infighting. However, internal struggles within the Chess Federation still persist, as Stefan Löffler found out. | Photo: Bachar Kouatly, who remains Deputy President of FIDE. | Photo: FIDE.

2/25/2021 – Necessity is the mother of invention! Since the Corona crisis has limited travel possibilities, and many people don't want to play only online blitz and rapid chess, hybrid chess was created. On February 21 and February 22, the four cities of Barcelona, Malmö, Oslo and Bratislava played the first official Hybrid Chess tournament, the Hybrid Cities Cup. Almost like the old days...

2/1/2021 – Since the 1980s, the town of Alkmaar, twenty kilometres north-east of Wijk aan Zee, has been the home of "New in Chess", the best chess magazine in the world. A biography of its founder and long-time publisher Wim Andriessen (1938-2017) is now available. Stefan Löffler has read it. | Photo: Hidde Andriessen

12/4/2020 – Can the performance of world class players at online tournaments be used as an indicator for the quality of work done from home? Three economists, among them German IM Dr. Christian Seel, do think so. A report by Stefan Löffler highlights their sobering conclusions. | Image: Christian Seel (private)

11/25/2020 – The movie "Glory to the Queen" is a tribute to the four Georgian Grandmasters who once dominated womens' chess. At the Slobodna Zone movie festival in Belgrade, the Austrian-Georgian-Serbian co-production has now been awarded the audience prize. Over the course of the project, Stefan Löffler remained in touch with documentary filmmaker Tatia Shkirtladze. | Images: Berghammer Film