Now that I am an older player in my 60s, old age is creeping up on me (I can feel it in my knees), but I can still enjoy chess. Even after playing almost 50 years in hundreds of tournaments, I still like the chess tournament atmosphere and can al...
Best match player. William Steinitz played 27 chess matches from 1862 to 1896, and won 25 of the 27. He won 160 games, lost 70, and drew 57. Best Selling Chess Book. Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess has sold over one million copies. Best world c...
After Paul Morphy, the next great chess player was Harry Pillsbury (1872-1906). Harry Nelson Pillsbury was born on December 5, 1872 in Somerville, Massachusetts, located just north of Boston. His father, Luther Batchelder Pillsbury (1832-1905),...
Here is a list of chess terms and personalities and their pronunciation. Abramov (ah-BRAHM-ahf), Lev - Russian arbiter and Correspondence International Master (IM)Acs (larch), Peter - Hungarian GMAdorjan (A-door-yan), Andras - Hungarian Grandmast...
A few weeks ago, Joanne Addison, widow of International Master Bill Addison, saw an article I wrote at chess.com about players that quit chess. I used a statement that Pal Benko wrote in his autobiography that wasn't quite true, and Joanne correc...
Dr. Fernand Gobet is a professor of Cognitive Psychology and an International Master. He is a former Swiss Junior Champion and Swiss Champion, and was co-editor of the Swiss Chess Review from 1981 to 1989. He wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on the ...
Viswanathan (Vishy) Anand was born on December 11, 1969 in Chennai, India. Veselin Topalov was born on March 15, 1975 in Rousse (Ruse), Bulgaria. Anand is now 40.Topalov just turned 35. Topalov’s father taught him to play chess at the age of 8.A...
VASILY SMYSLOV (1921-2010) by Bill WallVasily (Vassily) Vasiliyevich Smyslov was born in Moscow on March 24, 1921 (March 24, 1946 was the day Alekhine died (1892-1946); Yasser Seirawan was born on March 24, 1960).In 1927, at the age ...
In 1968 the movie entitled The Thomas Crown Affair was released, starring Steve McQueen as Thomas Crown and Faye Dunaway as Vicki Anderson. Thomas Crown stages a two million dollar bank heist while Vicki is the insurnace investigator who suspects...
On November 26, 1892, future world chess champion (from 1894 to 1921) Emanuel Lasker (1868-1941), age 23, gave a simultaneous exhibiton in Quebec, Canada. There were 18 players. He won 15 games, drew 2 games, and lost one game to Nicholas Macle...
Asuka Nakamura was born on February 4, 1986 in Hirakata City, Osaka Prefecture, Japan. His mother is Carolyn Nakamura Weeramantry, a classically trained musician and former public school teacher. Hikaru Nakamura (pronounced Heh-CAR-uh NAH-kuh...
Here is a list of Nobel Prize winners who also play or played chess. Zhores Alferov (1930- ). He won the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics for developing semiconductor heterostructures used in electronics.. He invented the heterotransister. He is...
Chess is considered the “drosophila” of cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence studies because it represents the domain in which expert performance has been intensively studied and measured. In 1894, Alfred Binet demonstrated that go...
Chess came to Cuba with Columbus. Chess is mentioned as being played in Cuba in 16th century books. In 1838, Johan Maelzel (1772-1838) went to Cuba and introduced that country to The Turk chess automaton. As he sailed from Cuba back to Amer...
Harry Nelson Pillsbury (1872-1906) was one of the strongest chess players in the world and known for his blindfold chess play and mental feats of memorization. He suffered from tertiary syphilis which may have led to mental illness. Before he di...
Zsuzsanna (Susan) Polgar, former world women’s chess champion and a board member of the US Chess Federation (USCF), is being sued by the USCF for alleged unauthorized email access. She allegedly accessed email messages sent between other USCF boa...
Today (October 31) is Alexander Alekhine's birthday. Here is some Alekhine trivia. Alexander Alekhine was born on Halloween, October 31, 1892. This would have been October 19 on the Old Style or Russian calendar, which was in affect until 1918....
Who is the strongest chess player in the world? We can assume that it is Viswanathan Anand after he won the 2008 world chess championship, followed by Vladimir Kramnik, his challenger. But on the official world chess federation (FIDE) rating for...
I’ve never seen or heard so many chess references in a political campaign like this one for 2008. Here are some of the samples of what I have seen or heard so far from quotes or headlines. “McCain is playing checkers. Obama is playing chess.” ...
The Annenberg Foundation is one of the biggest contributors to chess in America’s public schools. The same foundation that sponsors the Annenberg Challenge that Barack Obama and Bill Ayers are linked to (Chicago Annenberg Challenge) also sponsors...
Alexander Tolush (1910-1969) was a strong Soviet chessplayer. He became a master in 1938. In 1950, he earned the title of International Master. In 1953, he earned the title of Grandmaster. In 1965 he earned the title o...
Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian (1929-1984) was a Soviet Grandmaster (1952) and 9th world chess champion (1963-1969). He was Armenian champion at the age of 17. In 1964, he won the championship of the Trade Unions in Moscow. Be...
The opening 1.e4 c5 2.f4 has several names. It is known as the Grand Prix Attack, the Larsen-Santasiere Variation, the McConnell Attack, and Philidor's Variation of the Sicilian. Whatever it is called, it can be a strong opening.&n...
Machgielis (Max) Euwe (May 20, 1901-Nov 26, 1981) was a former FIDE President (1970-1978) who was twice world champion - 1935-37 and for one day in 1947. In July 1947, the FIDE Congress, held in The Hague, voted for Euwe to be world champion...
Bernhard Horwitz (1807-1885) was a German-born painter (specialized in miniatures) and chess study composer. In 1845, he settled in England and began teaching chess. In 1846, he lost an unofficial world championship match w...
