1/1/2026 – Chess has played a subtle but persistent role in English intellectual life, serving less as a pastime than as a lens through which writers and thinkers have examined reason, language, power and uncertainty. From Victorian debates on culture to literary modernism and twentieth-century philosophy, this article traces how chess has functioned in England as a symbolic structure, a narrative device and a reflective model of thought under rules. | Image (AI generated): Uvencio Blanco

7/23/2018 – Jonathan looks at his own agony / ecstasy pair of games from the recent World Senior Team Championship near Dresden. In two weeks he'll be back to looking at reader submissions — and Jon can always use more material from readers. If your games are selected for the Agony column, not only will you get free detailed commentary of your games by one of chess’s great authors and instructors, and former world no. 4 player, but you also win a free three-month ChessBase Premium Account!

2/8/2018 – Carl Portman is an English chess player who wrote a unique book on chess. This is not another theoretical book, this is a legacy book as he likes to call it titled 'Chess Behind Bars' by Quality Chess. In his interview with Amruta Mokal for ChessBase India, Carl talks about why he decided to start Chess in Prison voluntarily in England, what motivates him to continue working on this project, how successful he was in this unique project, how he tries to push this in governors' prison agenda, different situations he had to face and how he dealt with it.

2/5/2018 – On Sunday January 14th 2018, something very unusual happened in England. A chess tournament took place with upwards of 260 players, all of whom were female. The southern semi-final of the ECF National Schools Girls’ Championships was made up of eighty seven separate teams of three. Thirty two schools took part. This may be commonplace in countries such as Turkey, India, the USA and others, but in the UK it is almost unique. IM Andrew Martin has the story. | Photo: Jasmine Andrews