The Isle of Lewis chess pieces are one of the proudest possessions of the British Museum and also the National Museum of Scotland, which shares the hoard discovered on Uig in 1831. They represent the oldest complete chess sets in the world, with only a few pawns and a rook missing from one set. Now the rook
An unusual tournament has taken place at the Lindores Abbey Whisky Distillery in Scotland, namely a double-round competition between four of the world’s elite, including world champion Magnus Carlsen. The final scores out of six were as follows: Magnus Carlsen 3½, Ding Liren and Sergey Karjakin 3, Viswanathan Anand 2½, and this week I focus
Gawain Jones has fought his way to the no. 1 position on the UK ranking list by a series of recent successes in the world team championship, the Reykjavik Open, and now by scoring first prize in the Sigeman closed invitational tournament in Malmo, Sweden. Gawain’s live rating is now 2,709, ahead of Howell and Sadler
One of the most irritating defences to meet when playing 1 d4 as White is the Benko Gambit (1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 c5 3 d5 b5). It was foreshadowed by a Ruy Lopez between Nimzowitsch and Capablanca from St Petersburg 1914. In that classic game, White won a queenside pawn in ingenious fashion, only
This year’s Grand Chess Tour kicked off in the Ivory Coast with a significant innovation, the first ever tournament in Africa involving a reigning world champion. Magnus Carlsen duly triumphed in the overall scores of a combined rapid and blitz event. The champion, however, did not have it all his own way. Carlsen easily won
The French Defence appears to be somewhat cautious in nature but can in fact lead to disruptive middlegame clashes. It was a favourite of such aficionados of counterattack as Aron Nimzowitsch, Mikhail Botvinnik and Viktor Korchnoi. One of my favourite lines was espoused by world champion Tigran Petrosian, for example in the following win against
In my column of 20 April I reported on the overwhelming victory by world champion Magnus Carlsen in the elite Gashimov Memorial tournament at Shamkir, Azerbaijan. Almost immediately he went on to repeat his annihilation of the world’s best by taking first prize at the Grenke tournament in Baden Baden and Karlsruhe, in Germany. After
India is quite possibly the birthplace of chess, with the four branches of the ancient Indian army, infantry, cavalry, chariots and war elephants, morphing into the pawns, knights, rooks and bishops of the modern game. The most celebrated protagonist of Indian chess is former world champion, Viswanathan Anand. Nevertheless, behind him are surging younger generations
I cannot conceal the feeling over the years of Magnus Carlsen’s leading position at the head of world chess, that his victories were to be ascribed to his powers of Sitzfleisch (endurance at the board) or opposing errors, rather than his own enterprise, dynamism and genius. The result of the London world championship last year
Last week I wrote about Cyrus Lakdawala’s new book, which provides an aggressive repertoire based on the solid move 1 d4. This week I focus on what might be termed a companion volume by the experienced chess coach grandmaster Neil McDonald, Coach Yourself (Everyman Chess), which aims to provide a training programme for those who
One way to improve your results is to develop a specific opening repertoire and learn it thoroughly so as to be prepared for most eventualities. This might seem like common sense but it is a lesson which many amateurs neglect to observe. A new book by the prolific author Cyrus Lakdawala (Opening Repertoire 1 d4 with 2
A favoured line of the great Bobby Fischer was to meet both the French Defence (1 e4 e6) and the Caro-Kann Defence (1 e4 c6) with 2 d3, introducing what is known as the King’s Indian Attack. Fischer won celebrated games with this line against such powerful opponents as the Argentine grandmaster Oscar Panno and
The World Team Championship in Astana, Kazakhstan, finished last week with a victory for Russia but with an outstanding team silver medal for England — our best result for decades. The final scores at the top (out of 18) were as follows: Russia 16, England 13, China 12, India and USA 11, Iran and Azerbaijan
The annual Varsity Match between Oxford and Cambridge ended in a surprisingly narrow victory for the dark blues. Their team was led by the former women’s world champion Hou Yifan from China, and the rating difference on virtually every board was massively in favour of Oxford. Cambridge put up a stout fight and it was
The Bunratty tournament in Ireland is one of the highlights of the chess year and always attracts an impressive field. This year grandmasters Luke McShane and Mark Hebden shared first prize on 5/6 in the main event. It is traditional in Bunratty that, although prize money can be shared, the title must go to a
This Saturday (2 March) sees the annual varsity match between the teams of Oxford and Cambridge. Oxford are strengthened this year by the addition of China’s Hou Yifan, the former women’s world champion, and are likely to be the favourites. As usual, the match starts at noon in the traditional venue of the RAC in
This year’s Gibraltar Masters saw some surprising results at the top, chiefly the victory by the young Russian, Vladimir Artemiev, who netted £25,000. He came in ahead of a host of established grandmasters, including Levon Aronian, Vassily Ivanchuk, Michael Adams and Wesley So. The winner’s style was marked by restless aggression with both black and
The former world champion Vladimir Kramnik recently announced his retirement from competitive chess. He is one of the greats of the modern game, winning three World Championship contests — against Garry Kasparov, Peter Leko and Veselin Topalov — and retaining the title from 2000 to 2007. This tenure puts him on a par with other champions such as José Capablanca,
A notable feature from the recently concluded elite tournament at Wijk aan Zee was the abject failure of former world champion Vladimir Kramnik, who finished in equal last place. I have been conjecturing that it might be time for him to put his pieces back in the box, in the style of the Rubaiyat of
The start of the year sees the elite of the chess world divided between Wijk aan Zee in Holland and the Gibraltar Masters. In Gibraltar, from where I am writing this column, grandmasters such as Wesley So, Lev Aronian and Hikaru Nakamura cross swords with the British aspirants Michael Adams, Gawain Jones and Nigel Short.
