Chess returns to Afghanistan

5/26/2003 – The infamous Taliban had stricly forbidden the game, possibly simply to prevent intellectuals from getting together. Now members of Holland's oldest chess club have got together with the Dutch Embassy to revive chess activity in the capital. With great success. 300 players, male and female (!) have registered for the first tournament. Here are some remarkable pictures from Kabul.

Press release: Kramnik vs Leko in jeopardy

5/26/2003 – The "Prague Unity Plan" for world chess requires that classical chess world champion Vladimir Kramnik play a match against challenger Peter Leko. The winner must play for the unified title against the winner of FIDE's Ponomariov-Kasparov match. The former now looks in danger of collapse, whereas the latter has just received firm confirmation. John Henderson reports.

So what is going to happen now?

5/26/2003 – The announcement this morning by the Einstein Group in London that it had been unable to secure sponsorship for the Kramnik-Leko match has sent tremours through the chess world. How does this affect the Prague Unity Plan, what alternatives are the organisers and players considering? We discussed the matter with a man who, as the manager of both Kramnik and Leko, is deeply affected. Here is our interview with Carsten Hensel.

Viva Fidel? Viva Granda!

5/24/2003 – The first editions of the Capablanca Memorial in Havana, Cuba, were won by legends like Najdorf, Korchnoi, Smyslov, and Larsen. 2003 marked the third consecutive win by a Spanish-speaking player, to the delight of the fans. Peru's Julio Granda Zuñiga took clear first in Latin America's premier tournament and you could say that his return from farming is complete. Now it's his opponents who want him back on the farm. Report and games

A star rising in the east

5/24/2003 – Our babe watch has spotted a new star on the chess firmament: Ksenya Rybenko, 18 years old, green eyes, blond hair, 5' 2" tall, 97 pounds, 33-24-35 (information taken from her web site). She lives in Novokuznetsk, loves animals, and, we almost forgot, and she is also a Women's IM and a many-time chess champion of Siberia. Here on special demand by a GM fan is a portrait of Ksenya, with (hey, no pushing!) lots of pictures!

Monstra mihi pecuniam!

5/23/2003 – That's Latin for Show me the money! We are talking about "Ducats", the virtual currency used on the Playchess.com server. You can get ducats in the ChessBase shop or win them in games and tournaments. Then you can use them to buy ChessBase products or pay for grandmaster training. Read all about the exciting new possibilities for online chess players.

Practical rook endings

5/21/2003 – When we talk about rook endings we usually mean theoretical positions in which one side must know precisely how to win or hold a draw. In This week's lecture (Thursday, 21:00h on the Playchess.com server) GM Dorian Rogozenko will deal with the practical aspects of rook endings. You can learn a lot about general endgame principles as well. More...

Soccer moms and Chesster

5/20/2003 – "The US is going to become the world's powerhouse of chess, I can guarantee that," writes star journalist Rudy Chelminski (Smithsonian, Wired, Life, et al.). "How? Why? Because of the soccer moms and Chesster." After some experiences with our program Fritz and Chesster Rudy is convinced that the next Morphys, Fischers and Polgars are at their computer screens right now. More...

Child prodigies and the Art of Chess

5/20/2003 – Sergei Karjakin is the youngest grandmaster in the history of the game, and David Howell is the boy who at the age of eight beat a grandmaster in an official blitz game (at 11 he drew a game against Vladimir Kramnik). On June 28 the two will face each other in an exhibition match to celebrate the opening of The Art of Chess exhibition. We bring you full information and some beautiful pictures.

Fabulous Fabiano

5/19/2003 – He's just ten years old, has trophies that are taller than himself, and travels to Europe to play in chess tournaments. Recently Fabiano Caruana of Brooklyn jetted to Nashville to win his section of the National Elementary Championship. Yet that is not his greatest triumph. Last September Fabiano beat a full-grown, certified grandmaster. More...

Confessions of a Chess Dad

5/14/2003 – What makes a 12-year-old student from a New York private school babble with joy? Author James Traub reports from the "Nerdfest in Nashville", with its atmosphere of hopeless uncool. His well-written article reminds us of Fred Waitzin's book and Hollywood movie. Here are some other interesting news reports.

Milan Vukcevich, 1937 – 2003

5/14/2003 – He was a professor of metallurgy who was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Also an over-the-board International Master in chess, playing at Olympiads and US championships. But Milan Vukcevich was best known as a grandmaster of chess problem composition. He died at 66 this weekend. We bring you a short biography and examples of his compositions. More...

The man who saved Fischer-Spassky

5/13/2003 – On May 10th German grandmaster Lothar Schmid turned 75. We congratulate him with a short biography. Lothar is not just a very strong player, who has beaten the likes of Bogoljubov, Keres and Botvinnik. He is also a publisher and owns one of the most remarkable chess collections in the world. But he is most famous as an international chess arbiter who was in charge of many world championship matches. Read all about it here.

Computer tournament in Leiden

5/13/2003 – Once a year the Dutch Computer Chess Club CSVN stages an international computer chess tournament in Leiden, Netherlands. In the last two years it was Fritz that took first place; this year the German-Dutch co-production has to defend its title against the likes of Shredder, Tiger and The King. The action lasts from May 16-18. More...

Chess at the top of the world

5/12/2003 – What do you do at 17,000 feet above sea level, when the weather is inclement and you cannot climb to the peak? Rest and recuperate, wait until conditions improve. "Today was filled with chess battles between the French and American team," report MountainZone in their 50th Anniversary coverage the historic first ascent of Mount Everest. In general there seems to be a lot of chess activity going on in the snow-filled areas of the world.

Bronstein's fateful 23rd game

5/10/2003 – Bobby Fischer was teary-eyed when lost a game to Boris Spassky in 1960. "Listen," said Soviet GM David Bronstein, "they forced me to lose an entire match to Botvinnik, and I didn't cry." In 1951 Bronstein narrowly failed to beat Mikhail Botvinnik and become the 7th world champion. But was he pressured into losing, as the Moscow Times suggests? Let us take a closer look.

Just what the doctor ordered

5/10/2003 – What is the appropriate birthday present for a grandmaster who loves exotic presents? A book on helpmates? A large tub of ice-cream? A new line in the Najdorf? John Nunn solved the problem all on his own and got himself a Pocket PC. We sent him a copy of Pocket Fritz 2. Thankfully John does not intend to use the device to produce weapons of mass destruction. What are we talking about? Find out here.

Kasparov wins 2002 Chess Oscar

5/9/2003 – It's gone from a woman under an umbrella to a man in a boat: it's the Chess Oscar, awarded by the Russian magazine 64. After polling hundreds of chess journalists from around the world they have announced that Garry Kasparov has won the 2002 award, making it three out of the past four and five since the award was revived in 1995. Leko took 2nd, Anand placed 3rd. More..

Cheer up, Vassily, you won!

5/9/2003 – The 11th Sigeman & Co Tournament was the strongest of the series. Ukraine's Vassily Ivanchuk more than lived up to his top-seed status in the Scandinavian round-robin. His 7/9 score gave him clear first by a full point ahead of Nielsen. In a twist of international cooperation the event was split between Malmo, Sweden, and Copenhagen, Denmark. Report and games.

Bobby Fischer to play in Mainz?

5/7/2003 – The Chess Classic will be staged from August 14 to 17 in Mainz, Germany. As reported it includes a "Fischerandom" match between Peter Svidler and Peter Leko, as well as a Chess960 Open in which the players start each game with a random shuffle position. Now the Mainz-Rheiner newspaper is speculating that Fischer himself may be present at the event.

Boys and girls in Uzbekistan

5/5/2003 – The Fergana Valley, the "Garden of Uzbekistan", was recently host to the Asian Under 16 Boys and Girls Championship. Event though a number of countries did not participate – China, for instance did not send anyone because of the SARS outbreak – there was a lot of fighting chess. Jamshid Begmatov has sent us a report with some very interesting photographs from this exotic region of the world. Here is his report.

Worldwide tournament wrap-up

5/4/2003 – Names like Poikovsky and Santos might not come to mind when you think of great chess tournaments, at least not yet. Get out your globe and check out this review of four recent events from around the world. We've got Svidler in Siberia, Jobava in Dubai, Najer in Moscow, and Morovic in Brazil. Linares who? Pack your bags.

All one can say is Wow!

5/2/2003 – Our favourite chess babe does it again. Alexandra Kosteniuk, the women's vice champion of the world, continues to prove that excellence in chess is not necessarily linked to nerdyness or an unattractive exterior, but can in fact display very high levels of elegance and glamour. We bring you Sasha's latest photo shoot with some of the sexiest pictures taken so far. Interested?

Fritz and Chesster get an A

5/1/2003 – Of course we are proud when ChessBase super-programs like Fritz and Junior bash Kramnik and Kasparov. And we're proud that just about every GM in the world uses ChessBase every day, as do thousands of other chess fans. But we're REALLY happy with our new Fritz and Chesster program that teaches chess to kids. And so was a Houston Chronicle writer, as you will see here.