8/27/2002 – In France the national championship, with a total of over 1000 players, has men and women playing on the same stage in Val d'Isère. For the first time ever one of the women, Almira Skripchenko, is even playing in the top men's section. The women's section is being led by the young and very talented Marie Sebag (2344, picture right). More

8/26/2002 – Europe's largest computer magazine, ComputerBild, has tested board games for PCs. The winner is Fritz 7. The editors were deeply impressed by the program's clarity, functionality and playing strength. "This is what a board game should look like!" they write. The only puzzling thing is the illustration to the article, which seems to compare Fritz to having sex. Judge for yourself in our synopsis here

8/22/2002 – After signing the Prague agreement to unify world chess Vladimir Kramnik still has some residual doubts about it. "Why not include Anand and Ivanchuk in the cycle," the classical chess world champion says impassionately, "It is still not too late." He speaks eloquently and in carefully enunciated English on this and a new system he is proposing for FIDE which involves a very interesting double knockout tournament mode. Read and listen to this exclusive Kramnik interview.

8/8/2002 – On Thursday our GM trainer Dorian Rogozenko will present part two of his lesson on the "Karlsbad" pawn structure. This time tomorrow he will show Black's counter-measures against White's plans (which were showed last Thursday). The lecture will be held on the Playchess server on Thursday, August 8th, 19:00 GMT = 21:00 Berlin/Paris, 3 p.m. NY. You will find more about Rogozenko here.

8/5/2002 – The weather outside was frightful, but the chess action at the Lost Boys tournament was delightful. Especially for Loek van Wely, who won it with 8.5/9! Unfortunately the tenth edition of this famous tournament will probably be the last. Reason enough for Anna Dergatscheva to pack up her digital camera and set out on the 250 km journey in her old car. From Amsterdam Anna send us this illustrated report.

8/4/2002 – He tried it for the first time – and managed to beat three-time Advanced Chess champion Vishy Anand. "This form of chess is easier to play," says Vladimir Kramnik, "because you have to just find the right direction and the computer does the entire tactical work for you,"  The classical chess world champion also talks about his upcoming match against Fritz in this exclusive audio interview.

8/4/2002 – ...they become porn sites. The The Seattle Chess Foundation was originally to be reached under, logically, www.seattlechessfoundation.com or .org. Then they changed the name to America's Foundation for Chess and the URL to www.af4c.org, allowing the original to expire. The original URL was snapped up by an aggressive adult site which now greets chess hungry surfers. Before you go investigating this snafu you should read a little more about it here.

8/3/2002 – Programming games like chess has been a "relative snap" and has "succumbed to the power of the processor", says this New York Times article. "Go is different. To date, no computer has been able to achieve a skill level beyond that of the casual player." You will need to register (free of charge) to read the original piece. We have also prepared a summary of the NYT article with some points of discussion. You can join the debate here...

8/1/2002 – In the end it was a flesh-and-blood player, Bernardo Roselli of Uruguay, who won first place in the Republica Chess Master in Argentina by the narrowest of margins – ahead of Hiarcs 8.0, which wrapped up second place with one of the best games of the tournament. "It played like a grandmaster", writes our reporter Roberto Alvarez in his final report from Argentina.

8/1/2002 – Chess was probably invented in the fifth century in northern India and came to Europe in the 12th century. At least that is what scientists have assumed. Now a team of British archaeologists has unearthed evidence in the ancient city of Butrint suggesting that Europeans were playing chess as early as the sixth century. More

7/31/2002 – The Swedish Chess Computer Association, an independent organisation, has published its July 30 rating list, based on a total of 87,452 games (!) played by 242 computers. Fritz leads the field. In the last 24 lists it has been on top 17 times. Of the 20 leading programs 16 (including the top seven) are distributed by ChessBase and can be bought in our online shop. Here's the latest SSDF list.

7/30/2002 – One round before finish the Republica Chess Master in Argentina has three participants vying for first place. One is our computer program Hiarcs 8.0, which also entertained the Argentinian crowd with a remarkable blitz session. Playing with black in 70 games, and with only one minute for all moves (vs 6m + 3s for the human opponents) Hiarcs won all the games, with not a single defeat or draw. Report on rounds nine and ten.