1/31/2018 – In 1886 Johann Hermann Zukertort played the first official match for the World Championship and lost to Steinitz. But at that time Zukertort already suffered from severe health issues which two years later led to his early death. Stephan-Oliver Platz takes a look at the health of Zukertort in the final years of the chess legend.

11/6/2017 – In chess the goal of the game is to checkmate the enemy king. However, most chess games are not decided by elegant mating attacks but because one side is materially superior. You first take the pieces of the opponent, then you mate. Sacrifices suspend these brutal rules of materialism, that makes them so enchanting. And some sacrifices seem to be almost magical.

8/10/2017 – American Frank Marshall was born 140 years ago today. Marshall was an ingenious chess gentleman who enriched opening theory with gambits and immortalised himself with many splendid combinations.

7/14/2017 – The "Exercises in Style" invite readers to have a fresh look at the games of the World Champions. Part 1 presented four games, one each by Steinitz, Lasker, Capablanca and Alekhine. However, the information who played when and where against whom was hidden. Instead, you were asked to guess which World Champion played which game. A surprisingly difficult task though each game to a certain extent was typical for the World Champion who played it. Here are the solutions.

7/6/2017 – World Champions have style. At least, this is often claimed. Kasparov loved to attack, Karpov excelled in prophylaxis, Capablanca liked positional play crowned by a "petite combinaison", Tal loved intuitive sacrifices while Botvinnik preferred clear strategic plans. But do you recognize the style of the World Champions when you see only the moves of their games? Try it out!

10/16/2016 – "I have always been hooked on the game’s history," writes IM Craig Pritchett, a leading Steinitz authority, in the British magazine CHESS. In part one he took our readers through the history of the game’s so-called ‘Romantic Age’. In this second part Craig expands on Steinitz’s more nuanced, strategically based chess understanding and primacy, and the ways in which his greatest games and writings substantively helped move chess forward towards a radically new and long-lasting, early ‘modernity’.

10/5/2016 – "I have always been hooked on the game’s history," writes IM Craig Pritchett, a leading Steinitz authority, in the British magazine CHESS. "As I struggle to keep my FIDE rating afloat into my chess-playing seniority, I have taken to writing books on great players, their styles, times and significance. I have never had the slightest doubt that striving to understand the contribution to the game’s development made by Wilhelm Steinitz (1836-1900) and others is not just intrinsically of interest, but that it also positively benefits our own chess.

5/18/2016 – 180 years ago, on 17th May 1836, Wilhelm Steinitz was born in Prague. In 1886 Steinitz won the first official match for the World Championship in chess against Hermann Zukertort to become the first World Champion in chess history. Steinitz is also considered to be the founder of the scientific approach to chess. A short biography and three games.

6/1/2010 – It is over five years since Kasparov’s dramatic announcement that he was giving up serious chess play. Such declarations, or intentions, are by no means rare, and the Editor of Chess Notes recalls a number of decisions, often surprising and mostly fleeting, by greats of the past: Botvinnik, Capablanca, Euwe, Fine, Harrwitz, Lasker, Marshall, Pillsbury and Steinitz. Retirement.