In the 21st century, which country has won more international chess Olympiads than any other? Russia? USA? China? None of the above — it’s Armenia, which won gold three times (2006, 2008 and 2012). Despite a population of just 3 million, the country has a healthy number of top flight grandmasters, and Levon Aronian (the
Is working from home the future of a productive society, or a fleeting aberration? Nobody knows yet, but a significant minority (at the very least) have found it viable, and even desirable. The shift in perception creates possibilities that weren’t there before. Similarly, chess organisers are discovering a strong appetite for ‘play from home’ events,
Diamonds are forever, they say. Likewise, brilliant games of chess have an everlasting sparkle. I will never tire of replaying the combination from Steinitz–von Bardeleben, Hastings 1895. So I’m a huge fan of tournaments which award brilliancy prizes, in recognition of these achievements. Fide recently organised an Online Olympiad for People with Disabilities. This excellent
If there was one ingredient which separated the two finalists of the Opera Euro Rapid, it was confidence. The third event of the Meltwater Champions’ Chess Tour, which concluded last weekend, saw Wesley So take on Magnus Carlsen in the final. That was the same match-up we saw in the final of the Skilling Open
In 2005 Steve Jobs gave a commencement address at Stanford University. The late Apple CEO kicked off with a story about a calligraphy course he took after dropping out of college in the 1970s. He was fascinated by the artistry of it, but what seemed like a whim of idle curiosity found a practical application
Are you not entertained? The climax of this year’s elite Tata Steel tournament was as riveting as it was vulgar. After two weeks of sublime classical chess played over-the-board in the Dutch town of Wijk aan Zee, the winner was decided by two blitz games and an armageddon playoff — crash, bang, wallop. Surprisingly, neither
‘I began my escape from the communist Czechoslovakia 42 years ago, on Sunday, September 1, 1968. According to Wikipedia, I bought several crates of vodka with my winnings at the Akiba Rubinstein Memorial in the Polish spa of Polanica Zdroj, bribed the border guards and drove to West Germany.’ Thus began an article written by
The Hastings International Chess Congress hasn’t skipped a year since the second world war, so I was delighted to learn that the tradition would be honoured by a strong online event which took place earlier this month, featuring a dozen top British players. For the second year running, the event was sponsored by Caplin Systems,
In game 1 of his Airthings Masters Final against Radjabov, Aronian’s pawn push 21 e4-e5 (shown in the first diagram) created a tactical explosion. This was rapid chess at its best — stylish and exuberant. And yet, as thrilling as this game was, it was a pity that the players had so little time to
It is one of life’s comforts to see a forgotten trinket being dusted off and appreciated afresh. So in chess, I am gently heartened to see a chess opening pass through that same phase of life. The game has its share of magpies, for whom a shiny new opening gambit is irresistible. Their approach has
This Christmas, government guidance says that board games are out and quizzes are in. Thus, 12 questions for Christmas. Answers here. 1. The Candidates tournament decides a challenger for the World Championship. Seven rounds were played in Yekaterinburg in March, but scheduling the second half is proving difficult. Which player declared ‘I’m ready to play,
The Magnus Carlsen Chess Tour is back. This time, the series of online events is rebranded as the Champions Chess Tour with a total $1.5 million prize fund. It marks an ambitious step forward for the Play Magnus group, which floated on the Oslo Stock Exchange in October and is currently valued in the ballpark
The juicy prospect of improvement constantly dangles above a chess player. Those morsels of knowledge one has acquired whet the appetite for others which lie just out of reach. Even players at peace with their ambient proficiency can’t help but acknowledge that their better games coexist with lousy ones. Once you admit that, it’s a
Put yourself in the shoes of Aryan Gholami, the teenage master from Iran who was paired with an Israeli opponent in Sweden in January 2019. It’s a blitz tournament, so you’re due to begin in minutes. For political reasons, your country expects that you will refuse to play the game, and there may be repercussions
Writing in January, I described internet bullet chess, where the players have one minute for all their moves, as ‘popular, addictive and pointless’. Bullet games are shallow and unwholesome because if you stop to think, you lose the game on time. Never mind a junk food tax: taxing bullet chess is the real social imperative
I own a few chess books that could serve as a murder weapon, but none so hefty as Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations and Games. Nicknamed ‘The Brick’ by its fans, its thousand-odd pages forgo instructional text in favour of an escalating procession of puzzles, mostly mates in 1, 2 or 3 moves. These illustrate the
‘It’s chess. We’re all prima donnas.’ You can hear it spoken with a wink in the Netflix miniseries The Queen’s Gambit, released two weeks ago in seven episodes of about an hour. My heart swelled to hear the game’s essence so appreciated: of course nothing else matters when you’re playing chess. So yes, we are
Geometry shmometry. The pirouette of a knight may be pleasing to the eye, but sometimes what I really crave is a demolition. I don’t mean a smash-and-grab king hunt. I want to see a crumbling edifice, a colossal concrete barrier wilting beneath a torrent of water, as in The Dam Busters. On the chessboard, diagonal
It’s over. Magnus Carlsen’s undefeated streak in classical chess has finally come to an end, after 125 games. It is hard to exaggerate what an unlikely accomplishment this is: Carlsen faced top-flight opposition in almost every game, winning 42 and drawing 83. He was beaten by the Polish grandmaster Jan-Krzysztof Duda at the Altibox Norway
We are what we do. Alas, in its zeal to suppress the virus, this government would have many people doing not very much. Since March, many musicians, actors, sportspeople and more have had precious few opportunities to perform. In his 2008 book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell claimed that the hundreds of live performances played by the
