To an outsider, we chess players might seem a rather uniform breed. Studious and contemplative, we spend hours absorbed in a board game to no apparent end. It is the archetypal thinker’s hobby. But within the subculture, there are many, perhaps even a majority, who identify as pragmatists, not thinkers. Results are the driving motivation.
Garry Kasparov retired from competitive chess in 2005, but has proved that at the age of 61 he remains competitive at the highest level. That is an extraordinary achievement in an time when just five of the world’s top 100 active players are older than 50. The former world champion joined a powerful field in
In 2016, the naming of a polar research ship was put to a public vote, and ‘Boaty McBoatface’ was the overwhelming winner. Should humanity’s fate ever be staked on a game of chess against alien invaders, I hope we don’t get a vote. If the internet has taught me anything, we would end up playing
Two of England’s brightest prospects received a golden opportunity to play at the WR Chess Masters Cup, an elite knockout tournament held at the Langham Hotel in London last week. WR is Wadim Rosenstein, a keen chess player and CEO of the German WR logistics group, which last year partnered with Fide to organise the
Congratulations to Sir Demis Hassabis, who last week was awarded a Nobel prize for his work on AlphaFold, which uses artificial intelligence to predict the structure of proteins. Developed by DeepMind, AlphaFold belongs to the same family of work as AlphaZero, which revolutionised computer chess when it was released in 2017, and before that AlphaGo,
There’s a piece of chess clickbait which occurs with tiresome regularity. The players are deep in the endgame, but have so little time remaining that the game cannot be concluded with dignity. Pieces land in between squares, or get dropped and clatter across the board. In their final seconds, players will attempt to move before
Mistakes in chess come in pairs. Last month, and not for the first time, that nugget of wisdom thumped me on the nose. Representing England at the Olympiad in Budapest, my game against Luca Moroni was proceeding rather pleasantly. It was clear the Italian grandmaster had underestimated my sacrifice of rook for bishop in the
The Gaprindashvili Cup, named after the Georgian former women’s world champion Nona Gaprindashvili, is awarded at the biennial Chess Olympiad to the country with the highest total standings between the open and women’s events. In Chennai in 2022, that honour went to India, who won the bronze medals in both sections. The 45th Chess Olympiad,
When I select puzzles to accompany this column, I stick to the plain vanilla. The stipulation must be short and sweet, and one move solutions must be accepted (though I like to include a few further words of explanation). Alas, a thousand such puzzles can never do justice to the wondrous ingenuity of chess composers.
‘I don’t think it will be decided on the chessboard… I broke him in the Sinquefield Cup… as long as I can look him in the eyes and understand that there is absolutely nothing he can do to even enter my mind space then I believe that victory will be mine.’ Thus spake Hans Niemann
Polishing an opening repertoire is essential for top chess players, who must have variations prepared to meet all the standard openings. Those may be selected on grounds of stylistic appeal or rarity, hoping to catch an opponent off-guard. There are standard responses in turn, and a well-prepared player will have counter-ideas locked and loaded. Vast
Earlier this month, at the Kingston Invitational, Peter Lalic won a game against 12-year-old Billy Fellowes in 272 moves. Published in full, it would take up most of this article and resemble a cryptographic message more than a game of chess. But it earns a place in the record books as the longest over-the-board game
For the irrepressible Hans Niemann, August is no time to chill. The 21-year-old American grandmaster began the month by defeating his compatriot Wesley So by 13-10 in the quarter-final of the Chess.com Speed Chess Championship. He gave a vitriolic interview after the match, railing against the ‘chess establishment’ and those he perceives as trying to ruin
The British Championships, which concluded in Hull earlier this month, saw a notable achievement for 15-year-old Shreyas Royal, whose stellar performance was his third and final qualifying result to earn him the grandmaster title. He becomes the youngest British player to reach that milestone, beating David Howell’s record which had held since 2007 (and before
The stench of burning rubber hung in the air as I trudged back to my hotel in Hull city centre last Saturday evening. A wheelie bin lay in the street, with a fire flickering out next to it. Everywhere there were tired-looking policemen, obviously relieved the yobs had dispersed. I too was spent, and a little
All eyes are on the Games in Paris, where an estimated 10,000 athletes from more than 200 nations will compete. This comes 100 years after the Paris Olympics of 1924, a milestone event when the number of competing nations jumped from 29 to 44. That same year, Fide, the international governing body of chess, (Federation
I have a pet theory, based not on hard data but on insights from postmortem chitchat. My theory says that novices and experts, when facing evenly matched opponents, make roughly the same number of screw-ups in a game. The difference is that the novice’s oversights will be far more significant. The novice walks into checkmate,
If you visit the English Chess Federation’s website hoping to become a member, you will be confronted with a comprehension test. You will scroll past walls of text before appraising your membership options. Would you like to be a Supporter, Bronze, Gold, or Platinum member? Perhaps you are eligible for Junior Bronze, Free Junior Bronze,
Garry Kasparov endorsed the slower time control which was used at the Superbet Chess Classic. That event, which concluded this month in Bucharest, was the latest leg of the Grand Chess Tour, the annual series of events for elite players which comprises a mix of faster and slower formats. In the words of the former
There is a sublime satisfaction in a good detective thriller. We will, of course, have accessed the same facts as our sharp-witted sleuth. The fleck of yellow paint on the raincoat meant little to us, as did the creaking door and the page missing from the notebook. But at last the alibi is dismantled, and
