5/16/2013 – Christian Hesse is a PhD from Harvard and Professor of Mathematics at the University of Stuttgart. He is also an avid chess fan and has written a number of articles for our news page. As a book author he has been successful with instructive and entertaining works on chess. Now one of his best is available in English. We bring you an interesting chapter on refutations and counter-refutations. Enjoy.

12/21/2011 – Christian Hesse is a PhD from Harvard and Professor of Mathematics at the University of Stuttgart. He is also an avid chess fan and has written a number of articles for our news page. As a book author he has been successful with instructive and entertaining works on chess. Now one of his best is available in English. We bring you an interesting chapter to study and enjoy.

11/18/2011 – Two books, one new and one a classic, bring us a compilation of chess stories, biographical sketches, games and fragments with references to art and science. One, The Joys of Chess, is by a professor of mathematics, the other, Chess Curiosities, by a writer and cyclist. In this week's Huffington Post column GM Lubomir Kavalek gives us samples from both.

3/28/2011 – On Saturday the Schachgesellschaft Zürich celebrated the anniversary of someone who had done more for chess in Switzerland than any other player. Viktor Korchnoi, born on March 23 1931, kicked things off with a clock simul and then attended a gala dinner in his honour. Guests included Mark Taimanov and Garry Kasparov. We bring you a big pictorial report by Frederic Friedel.

7/4/2009 – The city of Dortmund has been struck by a heatwave. Problem is you do not have much air-conditioning – in Germany you need it for just a couple of weeks per year. All of the players in the Sparkassen GM tournament seemed fazed by the temperature and all three games ended in more or less rapid draws. Meanwhile Sofi Leko, wife of Peter, discussed literature with a German professor. Pictorial report.

3/24/2009 – In Germany 2008 was the “Year of Mathematics”, and at the same time there was a Chess World Championship and a Chess Olympiade in the country. Reason enough to take a look at an interesting problem at the interface of these two intellectual activities. It is a fascinating paradox which seems to prove that 64 is equal to 65 simply by cutting up a chessboard. Prof. Christian Hesse explains.

12/5/2008 – Mehrdad Pahlevanzadeh is imaginative, innovative, eccentric. In other words: our kind of person. Once a year he approaches us with a radical idea – last year it was video cameras and intelligent object recognition software tracking games and replacing sensor boards. This year at the Olympiad in Dresden he had a proposal to change how a chess game ends. Judge for yourself.

11/17/2008 – Talk about home advantage: the German Olympiad team is in the lead, a few tiebreak points ahead of Russia, both teams having won all their matches so far. Israel beat Egypt in a somewhat charged political match. In the women's section China and Poland have won all their matches and lead with 8/8. We bring you results, games and once again a giant pictorial report.

10/23/2008 – Did you miss the commentary of game six by IM Malcolm Pein? He was on his way back from Bonn to London and could only send us the notes today. Together with them we bring you a pictorial report of some of the many interesting personalities we keep running into at the World Championship, including a wealthy grandmaster, an actor-singer and a quantum physicist. Enjoy.

9/28/2008 – July 15, 1972. Reykjavik, Iceland. After threatening to abandon the World Championship match and leave Iceland, Challenger Bobby Fischer appears for game three, in a back room of the theatre. There he discovers a closed-circuit television camera for the audience in the main hall. “No cameras!” he roars. Prof. Christian Hesse recounts the harrowing events surrounding the match.

4/17/2008 – July 13, 1972. Reykjavik, Iceland. Challenger Bobby Fischer attributes the loss, two days earlier, of the first game of his match against World Champion Boris Spassky to disturbances by the TV cameras in the playing hall. He wants them removed. But there is a deal with an American producer that cannot be broken. Will Fischer appear for the game or default? Prof. Christian Hesse narrates.

1/15/2008 – Reykjavik, July 11, 1972. Of the 3000 spectators at the "Match of the Century" 500 have already left, since the position on the board has no winning chances for either side. But then Bobby Fischer plays 29...Bxh2. Gudmundur Thorarinsson, President of the Icelandic Chess Federation, says: "One move and we hit every front page everywhere in the world." Prof. Christian Hesse narrates.

11/27/2007 – It’s 7 minutes past 5 o’clock in the afternoon on July 17th, 1972. The place is a small backstage room of Laugardalsholl in Reykjavik, Iceland, the venue for the Fischer versus Spassky World Championship Match. It’s Game 3 of their titanic struggle which has been called the Match of the Century. Fischer, playing black, had just made his first move. Prof. Christian Hesse narrates.

10/9/2007 – Sigmung Freud had a psychoanalytical theory of humor – and a repertoire of jokes that said more about him than about humor in general. The Scottish poet and essayist James Beatty came closer to a definition, but even today humor remains a subtle, not well understood phenomenon. So what about chess? Is there humor in the Royal Game? Prof. Christian Hesse has a positive answer.

8/23/2007 – Chess is mostly an invisible game, in which the spectator sees very little happening. But that, of course, is only the tip of the iceberg. The overwhelming part of activity lies underneath the surface. This can be felt when you try to visualize a game without a board or pieces. Christian Hesse, a professor for mathematics, shows us a brilliant example and gives us a task in blindfold chess.

7/11/2007 – Imagine an endgame database, in which the result for every position with all 32 men has been calculated up to mate. We would have an algorithm that defines perfect play in chess. We would also have to conclude that while objective truth is impossible in life, it is, in general, possible in chess. Professor Christian Hesse ponders this question and combines it with a logical chess puzzle.