All-star chess festival in Benidorm

11/27/2003 – Benidorm is a town located in the Spanish region of Alicante on the Costa Blanca. It became famous in 1953 when the mayor convinced General Franco to lift a ban on bikinis. Today a rapid chess tournament starts in Benidorm with Anand, Judit Polgar, Topalov, Karpov, Radjabov, Karjakin, and other stars. More...

Law of diminishing returns

11/27/2003 – Cramming the ChessBase search mask full of search criteria should result in plenty of "hits", right? Not exactly – the more you put in, the less you get out. In this week's ChessBase Workshop, database expert Steve Lopez explains the "law of diminishing returns".

ICGA disqualifies chess program 'List'

11/27/2003 – The International Computer Games Association (ICGA) has disqualified one of the participants at the world computer chess championship in Graz. The program List is suspected to be a clone of the program Crafty. Author Fritz Reul failed to prove otherwise and allowed a final deadline to pass. He is banned from ICGA events until 2006. Here are the details of the disqualification.

Live from Graz – Fritz and Shredder lead

11/27/2003 – Which is the most boring program at the world computer chess championship in Graz? Shredder, says one wag. The German program, written by Stefan Meyer-Kahlen, just goes in there, outplays the opponent and wins in fantastic style. Game after game after game. Shredder and Fritz are in the lead, followed by Junior and Brutus. Here's a full report.

Karpov: 'I don't understand these idiots'

11/27/2003 – Former world champion Anatoly Karpov is out of the Benidorm All-Star tournament. His plane from Brazil was delayed and Karpov claimed he was too exhausted to play his first round game against 16-year-old Teimour Radjabov. When his request to postpone the game was denied he angrily withdrew from the tournament (some sources say he was disqualified). Here's the full story and the results of the first day.

Searching for Bobby Fischer XII

11/26/2003 – Yet another mission to find the reclusive American chess genius, this time conducted by a Sydney Morning Herald reporter in Tokyo, was unsuccessful. In his article Shane Green explains why this was in fact a bit of a relief. Here are the relevant links.

A weapon against the Trompowsky

11/25/2003 – After 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5 Black players often face difficulties. The opponent usually knows more about the "Trompowsky" than they do. On Thursday our GM trainer Dorian Rogozenko will provide you with "anti-Trompowsky" strategies that will stand you well. Here's how you can attend his lecture.

Kramnik: ‘I know for sure that Kasparov admires me’

11/25/2003 – Three years ago beat Garry Kasparov, since then the chess world has been waiting for his first title defence. In an interview with a German newspaper Vladimir Kramnik talks about his match against challenger Peter Leko ("I could have had a $2 million match against Kasparov at any time, but it is a question of principle and not money") and his role in the world of chess. Remarkable stuff.

A goodbye to chess

11/25/2003 – Just when the game is starting to boom the world's oldest and largest news organization, Associated Press, has decided to cut back drastically on its chess reporting. Only big Kasparov events will be covered, and instead of trusted correspondent Robert Huntington local staff reporters will struggle to file coherent stories on a game they do not comprehend. Rob lays the blame squarely on FIDE in this open letter to the chess world.

Computer Championship: Shredder stops Brutus

11/25/2003 – In round five at the Computer Chess World Championship in Graz saw ex-world champion Shredder dominate Brutus, never really giving the hardware program from Austria a chance. Meanwhile the other favourites Fritz and Junior drew their game. Here's a full report and video clip.

Workshop: Pocket Fritz2

11/24/2003 – If you're watching the televised chess match but don't have your TV in the same room as your PC, Pocket Fritz2 can give you some useful analysis during the broadcast. This week's ChessBase Workshop shows you how to do it.

Scrumpy evaluates chess programs

11/24/2003 – Recently GM David Norwood decided to test the latest chess software. Unfortunately his puppy-dog Srumpy got at the CDs first. The review took on a different focus: which of the programs could survive a canine onslaught? Here are this and other stories by the very entertaining Telegraph columnist.

Our readers reply to Kasparov

11/24/2003 – The discussion of Garry Kasparov's book "My Great Predecessors" continues. In our previous column we discussed his assessment of Alekhine's famous queen sacrifice against Mieses. Our readers put a lot of effort into analysing the position, as well as Anderssen vs Dufresne. GM Karsten Müller presents the results.

Brutus defeats Fritz in round four

11/24/2003 – Round four at the Computer Chess World Championship in Graz brought a first clash of the titans: the two leading programs, Fritz and Brutus, faced off with three points each on their scorecards. Running on eight parallel FPGA cards the hardware machine Brutus, programmed by Chrilly Donninger, overcame Fritz in an aggressive attacking game. Details...

Chess moves in Iraq

11/23/2003 – Last week the game between grandmaster Saidali Yuldashev and the Uzbek TV audience, assisted by visitors to this site, brought a moving letter from a child in India. This time two British soldiers in Iraq sent in a move and a picture. Isn't it amazing what a game of chess can do? Here are the details...

Chess in a cave – live from Graz

11/23/2003 – The second round in Graz, Austria, saw Fritz beating Sjeng with a spectacular queen sacrifice. The other favourites Shredder, Junior and Brutus also won their games. In round three Fritz overcame many-time world champion Shredder in a fine effort. Tomorrow the program faces Brutus, which also has three points. Here are results, games and pictures.

Man vs. Computer: it's still a match (and a news story)

11/22/2003 – "Scoff if you will, but I stayed home Tuesday to watch a chess game," writes Charles Krauthammer (picture), the influential columnist of the Washington Post. He had to stay at home because in his office he did not get ESPN, where the final game of the Garry Kasparov vs X3D Fritz match was being shown. Krauthammer and his colleagues all over the world covered the event in broadsheets and news portals.

Live from Graz: Computer Chess World Championship

11/22/2003 – The first day (and round) brought us a first shocker: titel holder Deep Junior lost to the amateur program Ruy Lopez. Fritz, Shredder and Brutus won their games. The event is being covered live, with audio commentary by Peter Wells, on the Playchess.com server. Here is an illustrated report .

Workshop: with hash tables size matters

11/22/2003 – Time and technology march onward. The newer machines with faster processors and higher amounts of RAM have made the old formula for setting hash tables obsolete. In this week's ChessBase Workshop by Steve Lopez you can get the latest information on setting the proper hash table size for the Fritz family of playing programs. More...

Back to reality after the virtual reality battle

11/21/2003 – Garry Kasparov was in a fine mood when he sat down to go over the games and the match in an exclusive press conference. We filmed the entire remarkable session as Kasparov dissected the games and discussed the differences between X3D Fritz and Junior, anti-computer strategies, comp-comp chess, possible improvements for the next match, and much more.

Kasparov vs X3D Fritz match finishes 2-2 after game four draw

11/19/2003 – Things cooled down as quickly as they had heated up in game four of the Man-Machine World Championship in New York City. Kasparov worked out of a difficult opening to reach a draw with black against X3D Fritz. The match ended in a two-two draw with a win for each player and two draws. Early report and game with notes here.

Pictures from Manhattan

11/18/2003 – With the match between Garry Kasparov and X3D Fritz tied 1.5:1.5 after three games the tension is very high in New York, where the ESPN coverage of the event is drawing more viewers than anyone anticipated. Before the critical fourth game we bring you a pictorial report and new analysis of game three.

Kasparov strangles X3D Fritz in game three

11/17/2003 – Just in case you thought the rise of the machines was inevitable, Garry Kasparov stood up for humanity in game three against X3D Fritz in New York City. Actually, it was more a case of X3D Fritz lying down while Kasparov rolled over it like he was the Terminator instead of the human. The match is now tied 1.5-1.5. The final game is Tuesday and X3D Fritz will have white. Report and full analysis.

It is in the news

11/16/2003 – Everybody is talking about it – the coverage in thousands of newspapers all over the world comes in addition to the massive cable TV coverage on ESPN and TV news reports in stations around the world. Even Al Jazeera is following the progress of "Chess czar Gary Kasparov" in his New York match against X3D Fritz. Here are links to a small sample of the international media coverage.