It is traditional that in my first column of the new year I review the previous 12 months and select the most outstanding game played at elite level to receive the accolade of game of the year. This time, there is little doubt that the most spectacular game of 2017 was the win by the Chinese
The London Classic is over and full reports in this column will follow in the new year. Meanwhile, we now know the line-up for the World Championship candidates tournament, which is to be staged in Berlin next March and will determine the challenger to Magnus Carlsen for the supreme title. Leading results in the Fidé (World
The English Chess Federation has awarded its Book of the Year prize to Timman’s Titans: My World Chess Champions by Jan Timman (New in Chess). This is a good choice for a present: Timman’s book is aimed at both the expert and the general chess enthusiast, and describes his interactions with many world champions.
The London Classic gets underway this weekend in Olympia. The line-up is formidable, including the world champion Magnus Carlsen, his predecessor Viswanathan Anand, and Sergei Karjakin, who challenged Carlsen for the title last year. The remaining contestants are as follows: Lev Aronian, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Fabiano Caruana, Wesley So, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Hikaru Nakamura and Michael Adams.
Garry Kasparov was without a doubt Alekhine’s creative heir. The 1985-2000 world champion said himself that he became entranced at an early age by Alekhine’s dynamic style, and that he was particularly impressed by Alekhine’s sudden attacks which came like lightning from a clear sky. This week some further examples of Alekhine’s genius, and a
Alexander Alekhine was one of the two world champions (the other being his fellow native Russian Mikhail Botvinnik) who won, lost and regained the supreme title. In fact 2017 represents the 90th anniversary of Alekhine’s victory over the Cuban world champion José Raúl Capablanca at Buenos Aires 1927, and the 80th anniversary of his revenge
While researching some early games in the Bf4 version of the Queen’s Pawn openings favoured by world champion Magnus Carlsen, I came across an epic publication which called to mind that fine, seminal and instructive writer, Polish grandmaster Savielly Tartakower. His 500 Master Games of Chess, co-written with J. Dumont, contains readable annotations to virtually
Nigel Short, who challenged Garry Kasparov for the world title in 1993, has made a reputation for employing slightly offbeat openings in order to derail opponents who are unused to non-standard situations. As part of his repertoire, Short has a penchant for the ancient Chigorin Defence, and has even employed a version of this in
Books on the world championship matches used to appear regularly, with some having multiple written accounts. In recent years, though, these have declined, not least because of the decision by Fidé, the World Chess Federation, to keep reducing the length of the matches. When Labourdonnais and Macdonnell clashed in London in a series of contests
The American grandmaster William Lombardy died last week (4 December 1937–13 October 2017). He was an amazing talent in his youth, winning the Junior World Championship of 1957 with a 100 per cent score. During the early 1960s Lombardy had the potential to rival the American genius Bobby Fischer, but he decided instead to abandon chess
Twelve-year-old Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa scored a sensational result in the recent Isle of Man Masters. At the age of ten years and ten months, he achieved the extraordinary distinction of becoming the youngest official international master in the history of chess. The youngest ever grandmaster is last year’s world championship challenger Sergei Karjakin, who was elevated
Congratulations to the organisational team of the Isle of Man Masters, which concluded last weekend. They assembled what must have been the strongest ever field for an open tournament in the history of international chess. Magnus Carlsen showed the kind of dominance he can achieve when he moves into overdrive. Leading results were: Carlsen 7½/9,
The triskelion, or three-legged emblem, has been on the coat of arms of the Isle of Man since the late 13th century. The Isle of Man has now attracted one of the strongest ever lineups for an open competition in the history of formal chess tournaments. The lists include world champion Magnus Carlsen, former champions
Last week I focused on the games and somewhat tragic career of the ingenious David Bronstein. Before his time the King’s Indian Defence was viewed with a certain degree of suspicion, not least because of the early and gigantic concessions it makes to White in terms of occupation of central terrain. It was Bronstein who
Genna Sosonko is a writer and grandmaster who straddles two great chess cultures, Holland and the USSR, his chosen and native lands. His latest book, The Rise and Fall of David Bronstein (Elk and Ruby Publishing House), does not contain any actual chess analysis but instead focuses on Bronstein’s decade-long obsession with his narrow failure to
The overall scores of the exceedingly strong combined rapid and blitz tournaments in St Louis were as follows: 1. Aronian 24½; 2= Karjakin and Nakamura 21½; 4. Nepomniachtchi 20; 5= Dominguez, Caruana and Le 16½; 8. Kasparov 16; 9. Anand 14; 10. Navara 13. As an indication of the elite nature of this competition, the
Hou Yifan, the leading female grandmaster, is beginning to place strain on Judit Polgar’s record as the best woman chess player ever. At the Biel Grandmaster tournament, Hou seized first prize ahead of a phalanx of elite male rivals. Her win against the veteran grandmaster Rafael Vaganian (see below) was outstanding. There have been occasional controversies,
There was a time when France was the dominant power in world chess. When Howard Staunton commenced his remarkable series of match victories in the mid-1840s, his ascent was seen as an assumption of the sceptre wielded by that great 18th-century master of the game, André Danican Philidor. After Philidor came Labourdonnais, who was succeeded by St Amant,
A new book on the ingenious Hungarian master Gyula Breyer ranks, in my opinion, at the very top of chess publications, along with Kasparov’s various mega series, Nimzowitsch’s My System, and Alekhine’s books of his best games. It is a compendium of games, discursive digressions, notes, discreet modern corrections, scholarly research, history, theory and perhaps
Last week I pointed to the fact that games played at accelerated time limits are acquiring an official imprimatur that threatens to rival the well-established ratings, rankings and titles of chess played at classical time controls. This year’s British Championship (the 104th) last weekend concluded in Llandudno with a four-way tie for first place. In
