German Bundesliga – grudge match on Sunday

5/6/2005 – The world's strongest team championships has come down to a tiebreak match. Two bitter rivals, Werder Bremen and SG Porz, are facing each other in a final showdown, which you can watch live this Sunday on the Bundesliga site and Playchess.com. Bremen scored a 6:2 upset victory in the regular matches, so Porz is understandably out for sweet revenge.

Fischer Random World Championship

5/5/2005 – After introducing a chess clock that has gained universal acceptance, the reclusive former world champion Bobby Fischer in 1996 proposed a form of randomized chess that is designed to eliminate today's over-emphasis on openings preparation. In August there will be a first computer chess world championship in this variant.

The FIDE World Championship Cycle 2005-2007

5/5/2005 – With its 2005 World Championship scheduled for late September in San Luis, Argentina, FIDE has published details of the cycle that is to follow this event. The knockout world championship is still there, but serves as one of the qualifiers for the next world championship. We bring you the full regulations and a quick-read summary.

Radio ChessBase: Team tournaments ending

5/4/2005 – Glasgow 3rd Floor Chess Radio, presented by IMs Jacob Aagaard and John Shaw on Wednesday at 20:30h Central European Time on Playchess.com, looks at summer holidaying with or without chess, and the end of the larger team tournaments.

Indian chess professionals speak out

5/4/2005 – As previously reported the Indian Chess Federation has a new leadership. After the original officers were restrained by an Indian court, however, they refused to close shop, and the chess superpower seemed to be ruled by two federations. Now the Chess Players' Association of India takes a stand.

Making your own playbook -- part three

5/4/2005 – In the final installment of our ChessBase Workshop series on building and maintaining an opening "playbook" database, we tend to a bit of housecleaning. We'll show you how to organize and trim analysis lines that may become a bit unwieldy after numerous game additions. Workshop...

The fake Heroes of Chernobyl

5/3/2005 – From April 14 to 26 an interesting GM tournament called "Memorial Heroes of Chernobyl" was held in Óity a Slavutich, Ukraine. The official tournament site has games, results and pictures. All very nice, except that apparently the event never happened, as TWIC's Mark Crowther reports.

Attention all GMs: Köfte tournament in Turkey!

5/3/2005 – Kofte Kebab or Shish köfte are minced lamb meatballs, spiced with herbs, most often including parsley and mint. They are delicious and they are thematic for a tournament that is being staged in an idyllic thermal resort in Turkey. If you are 2600+ on the list you are welcome to apply. But be quick, only the first nine will be invited.

The Dark Secret to Promoting Chess

5/2/2005 – "I can't believe you only published articles supporting Susan Polgar's criticism of the ESPN story," wrote William Shea from Hawaii. "I don't want candy-coated stories about chess, I want to hear the big stories. Congrats ESPN for bringing chess to the forefront." He has a point, as the following article by Jamie Duif Calvin suggests.

Monokroussos on Viktor the inimitable

5/2/2005 – When a chess player ages, he often quits the game, or plays a far weaker brand of chess. That’s true for most of us, but not for the inimitable Viktor Korchnoi. In his mid-70s, he still continues to play a fighting brand of chess that ought to shame those quick-draw artists less than half his age. Dennis Monokroussos elucidates.

Dortmund 2005 – something to look forward to

5/1/2005 – The strongest tournament in Germany, the yearly Sparkassen Chess Meeting in Dortmund, will be held from July 8 to 17, 2005. The ten participants include Topalov, Leko, Kramnik, Adams and Svidler, bringing the tournament category to 19. We bring you full information, including round-by-round schedules and pairings.

News feedback: your views and opinions

5/1/2005 – Every day, between generous offers to consolidate our loans or improve our lives in very personal ways, we receive a large number of genuinely interesting letters on the news items published on the site. We can only answer a small fraction of them. Rather let the others go to waste we have decided to share them with you.

FIDE world championship in Sardinia?

4/30/2005 – We are receiving word that there is a new bid for the eight-player FIDE world chess championship scheduled to be held in Argentina for one million dollars in September this year. Now the city of Alghero in Sardinia has offered to put up US $1.5 million in prize money. What will FIDE do?

Brainpower drugs – doping in chess

4/30/2005 – In an effort to become an official Olympic sport FIDE has instated drug testing for chess. But what exactly are the authorities testing for? What legal or illegal substance could a player take in order to enhance his or her performance in a game of chess? The Washington Times has some startling revelations.

Chess and the media – a discussion

4/29/2005 – Ten days ago we published an article by former women's world champion Susan Polgar, decrying the tendency of the media – in this case ESPN – to harp on the negative stories in chess, when there are so many positive developments that are equally newsworthy. Hundreds of letters from our readers show that the article apparently touched a chord.

Kramnik to shun FIDE championship

4/29/2005 – Garry Kasparov, who has withdrawn from competitive chess, will not be there. Now Vladimir Kramnik, classical chess world champion has announced that he will not participate in the FIDE world championship planned for September in San Luis, Argentina. But he is willing to proceed with reunification. Press release.

The Greatest Chess Player of All Time – Part II

4/28/2005 – What was the greatest chess performance of all time? Fischer's 6-0 6-0 whitewash of Taimanov and Larsen in 1971? Karpov's 11/13 in Linares in 1994? And which player dominated his contemporaries at the most advanced age? These are questions that must be answered if we want to find the greatest player of all time. Jeff Sonas explains.

Sasikiran and Timman win, Landa shines

4/28/2005 – A Dutchman, who was leading in Sweden, was caught from behind in Denmark by an Indian. A Ukrainian and an Israeli are battling it out in the Russian Team Championship. There are lots of strong females playing there. All of this in our special tournament review, with results, games, pictures and a truly spectacular combination.

A massive match in the Baltics

4/27/2005 – A match on one hundred boards between Estonia and Latvia was held on the 24th of April in the Estonian city of Pärnu. This event has a history of almost 30 years; the first such a match was held back in 1976. Since then nine more matches were fought out, but which nation is the strongest is yet to be determined.

It filleth and troubleth men's heads?

4/27/2005 – The recent Time Magazine essay by Charles Krauthammer, which searched for the connection between chess and madness, has brought a lot of feedback from our readers. Most disagree with the Pulitzer Prize winner's conclusions, while one authority, a 16th century monarch, seems to support him. Olimpiu Urcan reports.

Krauthammer on chess: just how dangerous is it?

4/26/2005 – Charles Krauthammer is an award-winning syndicated journalist of conservative ilk. He is also a dedicated chess player. In an essay in the latest issue of Time Magazine he searches for the reasons behind Bobby Fischer's "mad chess genius" behaviour, citing a number of real and present dangers that emanate from a monomaniacal dedication to the game.

Radio ChessBase: the good, the bad and the funny

4/26/2005 – Glasgow 3rd Floor Chess Radio, presented by IMs Jacob Aagaard and John Shaw on Wednesday night on Playchess.com, will peruse all that is interesting in the week's chess: strong tournaments in Russia, fake tournaments in Ukraine, Scholar's Mate in Sweden. Details.

Double-checking your opening -- part two

4/26/2005 – In Part Two of our latest ChessBase Workshop series on creating and maintaining your own "opening playbook" in ChessBase 9, we show you how to add analysis to your preferred lines with just a few mouse clicks. It's not exactly magic, but it's pretty close...

Mir Sultan Khan vs José Raul Capablanca

4/25/2005 – One of the great enigmatic phenomena during the mid-1920s was the Indian menial Mir Sultan Khan, a virtual illiterate who came to England and demolished some of the strongest chess players in the world, amongst them the great Capablanca, who called him "a genius". In his Monday night lecture on Playchess.com Dennis Monokroussos will show us this incredible game.