12/18/2025 – In his article IM Zoran Petronijević raises some fundamental questions: How relevant is Steinitz’s legacy today, does it still speak to modern chess, or does it belong to a bygone, almost “dinosaur” era? Does the analysis of his creative work possess genuine practical value, or do we study it merely for its historical significance? Equally important is the question: What, in concrete terms, did Steinitz contribute to chess?

9/3/2025 – Some time ago, we invited our readers to help us unravel a long-standing mystery in the famous game Botvinnik–Boleslavsky, played in 1943 (during World War II!). The response was overwhelming, and in a relatively short time, we reached a conclusion: Boleslavsky could have held the balance – a draw was within reach – despite Botvinnik’s claim in his (usually precise!) commentary that his position was winning.

8/17/2025 – Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik is undoubtedly one of the towering figures in the entire history of chess, from the birth of modern chess (circa 1495) to the present day. The subject of this article is a game Botvinnik played in 1943 (while World War II was still raging) against one of the great hopes of Soviet chess at the time - and a true innovator - Isaac Boleslavsky. Botvinnik awarded his pawn sacrifice in the middlegame an exclamation mark in all his annotations. But was he correct? | Help us unravel this riddle.

5/14/2025 – In the fourth world championship match between Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov, played in Seville in 1987, the score was 12–11 in Karpov’s favor, putting Kasparov in a must-win situation to retain his title. This game was the subject of our previous article. We invited our readers to analyze with us, to solve a historical riddle. Here are the results.

4/17/2025 – Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov played five matches for the world championship. The fourth match was played in Seville in 1987. After 23 games, the score was 12–11 in Karpov’s favor, putting Kasparov in a must-win situation to retain his title. The final game was adjourned after five hours of play, to be resumed the next day. The sealed position is the subject of this article.

2/17/2025 – Recently, the game Thomas-Alekhine, Baden 1925, from move 34...Qc4, was published on this site, with a request that readers get involved to help solve this riddle. Was the position really lost for White? And did Black maintain his winning advantage until the end of the game? Today we give the solution.

7/31/2024 – The tenth game of the 1921 match saw challenger José Raúl Capablanca gain an advantage with the black pieces, but with limited material on the board, World Champion Lasker had chances of survival. We gave our readers several interesting riddles we want to solve. Here is the definitive solution to the historic game.