Tension has always existed between games of skill, such as chess or draughts, and games seemingly based on chance, like backgammon and poker. The Russian grandmaster and chess historian Yuri Averbakh has suggested that different kinds of games mirror changing human attitudes towards life, the universe and everything. So games of chance indicate the idea of
The irrepressible Fabiano Caruana has added to his laurels by sharing first prize in the Baku Grand Prix, which finished earlier this month. The surprise was that in the process of doing so he lost two games. Caruana had started to seem invincible after a run of wins, yet the fact that he only participated
Tigran Petrosian seized the world championship from Mikhail Botvinnik in 1963, defended the title against Boris Spassky in 1966 and only relinquished it against the same dangerous opponent three years later. In individual play he defeated every other world champion whom he met over the board and in chess Olympiads he twice earned the gold
Good news. Fabiano Caruana will be coming to London this December to participate in the sixth London Classic. This will be a great privilege for the London audience since Caruana is, in my opinion, now creating the best, most exciting, most aggressive and most accurate chess that we have seen since the glory days of
Recently Professor Jackie Eales gave a lecture in Canterbury on ‘Queenship in the Age of the Enraged Chess Queen’. (The title of course refers to the new powers conferred on the queen as a piece after the transition from the slower Arabic and medieval games.) In 1560 the bishop of Limoges, the French ambassador in
This week, a tribute to the one major Scottish contribution to chess, the invention of the Scotch game, later to become a favourite of Garry Kasparov. The following game, one of the earlier chess encounters whose record has survived, sees play devolve into a complex endgame. Ultimately the London side lose their footing, miss the
The importance of pawn structure cannot be overestimated when planning chess strategy. Although Philidor (18th century) understood the importance of pawns in chess, in the 19th century the health and safety of one’s pawns was often thrown to the wind in the interests of tactical advantages. However, as chess thinking became more sophisticated and was
Fabiano Caruana has dominated the Sinquefield Cup in St Louis in a way that almost defies belief. The Italo-American grandmaster, just 22 years old, reeled off seven straight wins against an elite field which included the world champion, Magnus Carlsen, as well as two Olympiad gold medal winners. The final scores out of 10 were as
Despite occasional evidence to the contrary, I have persisted in the belief that the ability to play chess well indicates a powerful intelligence. Goethe wrote that chess was a touchstone of the intellect, while Pascal called it the gymnasium of the mind. Arthur Koestler romanticised the mental power of chess devotees, writing: ‘When a chess
To round off my coverage of the chess Olympiad in Tromsø, which saw a total of 313 teams in the open and women’s sections, thus making it the greatest chess gathering on earth, here are a number of notable and brilliant conclusions from the approximately 6,000 games played in this mega competition. Michael Adams
China have won the Olympiad in Tromsø. I believe that we can now look forward to a sustained Chinese dominance in international team events, reminiscent of the Soviets. The Chinese take sporting success very seriously and in China international competitive chess is most definitely regarded as a sport, with all the benefits in state backing
The Tromsø Olympiad finishes on Thursday 14 August, too late for any definitive conclusions to be drawn here as to the likely medallists. The parallel great contest in Tromsø, Norway, where the Olympiad is taking place, was the election for the presidency of Fidé, the World Chess Federation, between the incumbent, Kirsan Ilumzinov (who won),
The British Championship, which finished in Aberystwyth last week, has been shared by international master Jonathan Hawkins and the defending champion David Howell. Curiously, this is the first occasion on which a tie at the top has resulted in a shared title, rather than some sort of tie-break or play-off, as occurred with Hartston and
As I write, young Jonathan Hawkins has stormed into the lead in the British Championship in Aberystwyth with the tremendous score of 6/6. This is not quite a record since in the British Championship of 1976, won by Jonathan Mestel, the new champion won his first nine games, a record unlikely to be surpassed.
The ever reliable Steve Giddins has just published a new book on that great strategist Aron Nimzowitsch. This is the third tome on Nimzo in the last few years, and in many ways it is the best. Giddins has overturned conventional thinking about Nimzowitsch’s celebrated games in the light of the latest computer analysis and
I am very sorry to report the death of International Master Andrew Whiteley, a friend of mine for half a century and a well-loved character in British chess. Andrew represented Oxford on top board on two occasions in the annual Varsity match against Cambridge, won both the British Junior and English senior titles, took second
This was the watchword of Grandmaster Dragoljub Velimirovic, one of the leading players of the former Yugoslavia. I first encountered Velimirovic when he represented Yugoslavia on top board in the Students’ Team Championship of Harrachov 1967. He already enjoyed a reputation as a ferociously aggressive player, and he went on to win both individual and
Petrosian Move by Move is a new book published by Everyman Chess written by the Swedish international master Thomas Engqvist. The book consists of 60 closely annotated games, all wins, by Tigran Petrosian, world champion from 1963 to 1969 and an inspiration for the recent successes of the Armenian team, who have won the Olympiad
Chess, unlike football, appears to confer little or no home advantage. In a recent article for Kensington & Chelsea Today, my esteemed colleague Barry Martin, who enjoys more space than any other chess columnist in the UK, and possibly even the world, inveighed against the psychological pressures which seem to afflict great players operating on
For the second year running, 24-year-old Sergei Karjakin has won the Norway International, on both occasions ahead of Magnus Carlsen. The final scores, out of 9, were as follows: Karjakin 6; Carlsen 5½; Grischuk 5; Caruana and Topalov 4½; Aronian, Svidler, Kramnik and Giri 4; Agdestein 3½. Of the world elite, only Anand and Nakamura were absent.
