Women's World Chess Championship in a crisis

4/18/2004 – FIDE has announced that the Women's World Championship, originally planned for Tblisi, would be held in the fiercely independent Ajaria region on the Black Sea instead. But there are doubts whether the plan can go ahead, and Russian newspapers are speculating that the Championship may be cancelled. The venue is, well, simply too dangerous.

Let Boris show you some good moves

4/17/2004 – Boris Alterman is a grandmaster, computer expert and former advisor to Garry Kasparov. He is also a renowned chess teacher, as good as they come. Every Sunday Boris will be holding a didactic audio lecture on Radio ChessBase, and on Mondays he will play a simultaneous exhibition. The first lecture is entitled 'Meeting the Sicilian with the Morra Gambit'

Svidler qualifies, Super Friday on Playchess

4/16/2004 – What a day! Top seed Peter Svidler led the field to qualify effortlessly in the fourth ACP qualifier, with Almira Skripchenko putting in a plucky effort. The finals are on Saturday, but you should not miss the Friday action on Playchess.com. With the stars taking a break this is a golden chance to test your mettle. Go for it – the prize fund is 20,000 ducats!

A fistful of questions

4/16/2004 – Sometimes it's not the big things that have you stumped when you're learning about a software program -- oftentimes it's the little things that get you. Steve Lopez looks at a "fistful" of these little questions in the latest edition of his ChessBase Workshop.

The French-American chess challenge

4/15/2004 – What a lovely idea! ChinaCom, the company sponsoring the current ACP Inaugural Tournament, has just announced that they will stage a rapid chess match between the two strongest women players in France and the US. It will be held in a beautiful ambient, quite appropriate when you see who the players are. Press release...

Creating user keys in ChessBase 8 - part 2

4/13/2004 – In part two of our series on creating user keys in ChessBase 8, we provide tips on how to structure your key list with two different methods for displaying your user-created keys. It's all in this week's ChessBase Workshop.

The calm after the storm

4/12/2004 – In recent Playchess lectures Dennis Monokroussos has been showing us some fairly insane games. Tonight things are going to be more sedate and historical. But what his examples lack in fireworks they make up for in instructional value, in this Radio ChessBase lecture.

Von Kempelen's Chess Turk recreated

4/12/2004 – In 1769 the Hungarian engineer Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen built a chess playing machine for the amusement of the Austrian Queen Maria Theresia. It was a mechanical device, shaped like a Turk, and it became the most famous automaton in history. Now the Heinz Nixdorf Museum in Paderborn has produced an incredible working replica of the Turk.

Meet the Muzychuk sisters

4/11/2004 – At the European Women's Championship in Dresden we met a charming young lady, just 14 and close to 2400 Elo points in weight. Anna Muzychuk is one of the super chess talents that are appearing in Ukraine on a yearly basis. Now we discover that Anna has an equally talented younger sister. Here's the story...

'You must take a stand or leave the place'

4/10/2004 – Garry Kasparov is not holding back. In a recent 11-minute interview with CBC television he talked very forcefully about the current political situation in Russia. "Within a few years Russia will be fully authoritarian state with elections just being called for the sake of the rest of the world," he says. Here's a transcript of the interview.

ACP Internet Inaugural with 54 GMs

4/9/2004 – Like to watch a to GM blitz tournament live? With 78 participants, 54 of whom are GMs, 22 rated over Elo 2600? See every move they make as it is played? Cheer on Svidler, Grischuk, Bareev and Dreev? Watch Almira Skripchenko and Natalia Zhukova take on their male counterparts? All from the comfort of your home? Then you will definitely not want to miss the ACP Inaugural on the Playchess server.

Endgame – the mating habits of homo sapiens

4/8/2004 – On Monday we showed you a chess film that explored the dating habits of a young woman. Now we find another longer and racier one that goes a step further. Luis Camara Silva uses chess to illustrate the mating habits of humans. Watch his film and quit chess forever. Here's the disturbing movie...

Chess days and nights in Antalya and Bangkok

4/7/2004 – The European Championship is to be held in Antalya, Turkey; while the Asean Masters will be staged three times a month in Bangkok. We predict there may be some glitches, described in our tournament calendar.

Ruslan Ponomariov's Open Letter to the ACP

4/7/2004 – "I am not trying to hold on to my title whatever it takes," writes the still-reigning FIDE champion, "but I can’t put up with the absolute dictatorship of FIDE. I am ready to defend my title on the conditions that were clearly set at the time I won it." He also attacks Garry Kasparov for the "exclusive privileges" he has received. Here's the letter and relevant links...

The dawn of a new era

4/6/2004 – Sunday Telegraph columnist Nigel Short was enchanted. "For the first time people could watch the European Women's Championship on TV, with the charming participants themselves presenting their strategic masterpieces – often in delightfully Russian-accented English." Nigel calls this development 'a new era in chess.'

FIDE ratings – Anand in place two

4/5/2004 – It's been a while, but Indian superstar Vishy Anand has regained place two in the world rankings. Anand gained eight points and Kramnik lost 13 to switch places. Perennial Garry Kasparov lost 14 points but still remains at the top, 43 points ahead of Anand. Here's a list of the top 100.

CheckMating – the chess dating game

4/5/2004 – The subject of the little (6 min 33 sec) movie is tantalising: a woman tests her dates over games of chess, with each contest taking on the mood of the relationship. She's in full control, knowing exactly what she wants in a man – until she finds it. More...

The 2004 European Women's Chess Champion

4/4/2004 – She narrowly missed the Women's World Championship in December 2001. Then she embarked on a career in beauty, glamour and movie making, appearing in countless magazines and TV shows as an "ambassadrice" for chess. Just when people were counting her out Alexandra Kosteniuk returns with a thumping victory in Dresden. We bring you games, results and pictures.

Kimo unmasked – a misleading approach to chess

4/4/2004 – It turns out that our April 1st review of a knowledge-based chess program from Russia, while not directly false, seems to have been written in a way that could create false impressions. Apparently some prankster had once again engaged in the pagan ritual of deceiving our readers on a certain day of the year. Here is the truth, which we hope you can handle.

The Minister and the chess champion

4/3/2004 – During his five-day stay in Dresden Garry Kasparov had an important meeting. It was with a number of FIDE vice-presidents, the Lord Major of Dresden and the German Minister of the Interior. The reason for this illustrious get-together: Dresden is bidding for the 2008 Chess Olympiad. Here's a pictorial report.

Peng and Kosteniuk in the lead

4/2/2004 – One round before the end of the European Women's Chess Championship in Dresden Russian vice champion of the world Alexandra Kosteniuk has caught up with leader Peng Zhaoqin, with a bunch of other girls in hot pursuit. We bring you games, results, standings and a spectacular picture gallery.

Kramnik and Morozevich win Amber

4/2/2004 – The 13th Amber Blindfold and Rapid tournament in Monaco ended yesterday with an overall victory for the two Russian players. Anand, who won the Rapid section, trailed by a point. We bring you all the games and plenty of pictures in our wrap-up report.

Kimo – an 'intelligent' approach to chess

4/1/2004 – Traditional chess programs blindly search millions of positions to find good moves. A new chess program due for release this month breaks with the tradition. It works with chess knowledge derived from 20,000 master games. Tests with a beta version show that in spite of some glaring defects Kimo is able to hold its own against the world's strongest programs. Details...

Creating user Keyes in ChessBase 8.0

4/1/2004 – Do you do a lot of the same searches repeatedly on the same database and wish you didn't have to manually enter the same search criteria over and over? If so, there's an easy way to save yourself a lot of work: create your own user keys to index your database. We show you how to do it in this week's ChessBase Workshop.