Bernhard Horwitz
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...
Mark Taimanov
Mark Taimanov was born in the Ukraine in 1926. In 1952, he became a Grandmaster. He was also a concert pianist. In 1970, he was accused of buying a point from Matulovic for $400 at the Palma de Mallorca Interzonal in 1970. ...
Fridrik Olafsson
Fridrik Olafsson was born in Reykjavik in 1935. In 1952, at the age of 17, he was Icelandic Champion. In 1953, he took 3rd place in the World Junior Championship. He was Iceland's first Grandmaster (1958) and the fourth FI...
Sozin's Attack
Veniamin Sozin (1896-1956) was a strong Soviet master. He played in several USSR championships. He was also an opening expert. The Sozin Attack in the Sicilian was analyzed and played by him in the 1920s and became popular in the...
MacHack Attack
In 1957, Alex Bernstein created the first really complete chess program at IBM. It ran on an IBM 704, one of the last vacuum tube computers. It took about 8 minutes to make a move. In 1958, Alan Newell, John Shaw, ...
More on Morra
The Morra or Smith-Morra Gambit (1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4) is an interesting gambit in the Sicilian Defense. I co-wrote two books on the Smith-Morra with Ken Smith a few years ago and collected as many examples of the Smith-Morra Accepted and the S...
A Fine Draw
Reuben Fine was born in New York City on October 11, 1914. He learned to play chess from his uncle in 1923 at the age of 8. He began tournament level chess at the Marshall Chess Club. He won the 15th Marshall Chess Club Ch...
Rudolf Spielmann - Master of the Sacrifice
Rudolf Spielmann was born in Vienna on May 5, 1883. He was a Viennese professional chess player who spent most of his adult life in Germany. He played over 100 tournaments and 55 matches in his career. He earned the nickna...
The First USCF National Rating Lists
The first United States Chess Federation (USCF) National Rating List was published in Chess Life magazine on November 20, 1950. The first list had nine classifications and rated 2,306 players. A Grandmaster was anyone with a rat...
Alekhine and Lasker
Emanuel Lasker and Alexander Alekhine met eight times in their career. Seven of the games were from tournament games. Their first game was considered an exhibition game. Lasker and Alekhine first met in an exhibition ...
Lasker the Lesser - Edward Lasker
Edward (Eduard) Lasker was born in Kempen, Poland (near Breslau and part of the German Empire at the time) Germany on December 3, 1885. He learned chess at the age of 6 from his father. He earned degrees at the University of Berlin in mechanical...
Bronstein's Brilliant Game - confronting the Latvian Gambit
David Bronstein was born in 1924. He was a master at age 16 and was playing in the USSR championship semilfinals at age 17. In 1941, the USSR semifinals was held in Rostov. Bronstein was 17 when he played in it, defeating veteran...
Oscar Pomar - Former Chess Prodigy
Arturo Pomar-Salamanca was born in Palma de Mallorca, Spain on September 1, 1931. He was a child prodigy, learning the game at age 4, and pupil of Alexander Alekhine during World War II (Franco’s regime in Spain paid Alekhine to...
Georg Marco - the strongest player in the world
Georg Marco was born in what is today Cernauti, Ukraine in 1863, and was raised in Romania. He was a medical student before he gave that up to become a journalist and professional chess player. He moved to Vienna from Romanai in the 18...
Edmar Mednis
Edmar (Edmars) John Mednis was born on March 22, 1937 in Riga, Latvia. He and his family escaped from Latvia in 1944. They lived in several displaced camps in Germany before coming to the United States in 1950. In 1949, at ...
Terrific Tips on Ten Tricky Traps to Try
So you want to get better. You are a beginner or weak player, or just want to beat a certain player. But you keep on losing. You fall for traps or play a bad opening or make bad moves. You overlook unprotected pieces or miss comb...
Forgeries in Chess
Since Bobby Fischer's death, there have been at least three forgeries of his signature on eBay and other auction sites. One must be careful of these forgeries. Lawrence Totaro, a Las Vegas collector and researcher, wrote a very ni...
Treasure Chess - A Review
When an author, under the Acknowledgment section writes, "For a book like Treasure Chess it is not easy to cite where all my references and impressions came from, so I'm not even going to try," I became intuitively doubtful that ...
Who Was Fischer's Father?
Who was Bobby Fischer’s father? Was it Dr. Paul Nemenyi or Hans-Gerhardt Fischer? Robert James Fischer’s surname could just as easily have been Nemenyi or Wender. Paul Felix Nemenyi (ne-MEN-yi) was born on June 5, 1895 in...
Fischer's First Published Game
In July, 1956, Bobby Fischer, age 13, played in the 57th US Open in Oklahoma City (101 players in the event). He was the youngest player in the event. As a publicity stunt, he was paired with the oldest player in the event, 78 year old A. Shank....
Fischer's First Rated Tournament
Bobby Fischer played in his first rated tournament in May, 1955. He was 12 years old at the time (born in March, 1943). Carmine Nigro, President of the Brooklyn Chess Club took Bobby up to the 5th Amateur U.S. Championship (the last Am...
Fischer's First Memorable Game
By August, 1957, Bobby Fischer, age 14, played over 200 match and tournament games. His first rated event was in May, 1955 when he played in the U.S. Amateur championship in Lake Mohegan, NY. He won 2, drew 2, and lost 2 for a first ti...
Classifications of Chess Openings
Here are some classifications of chess openings.Open games are usually double king pawn games (1.e4 e5).The most common response is 2.Nf3 (King's Knight Opening). However, White can play:2.a3 - Mengarini's Attack2.Bb5 - Portuguese Opening 2.c3 - ...
Marshall Burns Burn
Frank Marshall was one of the top ten players in the world during the early 20th century. Amos Burn was one of the top ten players in the world at the end of the 19th century. Both players met at a grandmaster tournament in Ostend, Bel...