The Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot by Alexander Pope contains a memorable excoriation of his fellow wit and former friend Joseph Addison. When they fell out, Pope lampooned Addison as Atticus (Cicero’s Athenian correspondent) in The Epistle, the most telling phrase of which runs, ‘Willing to wound and yet afraid to strike.’ There could not be
As I write, the London world championship is tied at 3½-3½, after seven games. In striving to move ahead, the challenger, Fabiano Caruana, has been the victim of the awesome mathematics of chess. According to the statisticians there are more possible moves in chess games than there are atoms in the observable universe. Ten to
World champion Magnus Carlsen missed several chances to win with black in the first game of his title defence, currently continuing in London. A black win right at the start is by no means ultimately a match winner, but is rather like breaking serve in the first set of the Wimbledon final. Alexander
Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana, those two gladiators of the mind, will duel in London during the remainder of this month for the title of world chess champion. Twelve games will be played, and if no clear victor emerges there will be a rapidplay tie break on November 28. It is my prediction that
This year’s Isle of Man Masters, sponsored by Chess.com, could claim to be the strongest ever open chess competition. The line-up was formidable, with most of the English Olympiad squad participating, as well as former world champions Vladimir Kramnik and Viswanathan Anand. As it was, the championship titans failed in their bid to capture
The recently concluded European Club Cup, held at Porto Carras in Greece, resembled late medieval Italian warfare — populated by armies of mercenaries who seemed to have no allegiance to the geographical area of the clubs they were representing. Thus the British grandmaster David Howell was on the same Norwegian team as the world champion
The Evans Gambit was invented by a British naval officer of the early part of the 19th century, Captain W.D. Evans, who invented a form of ship’s lighting which was given an award by the Tsar of Russia. Captain Evans’s gambit is highly suitable at club and county level and in the 19th century it captured the
The Batumi Olympiad ended as a great success for the teams from China, which captured the gold medals in both the open and women’s sections. England finished a most creditable fifth in the open, behind USA (silver) Russia (bronze) and Poland, our best result for decades. Meanwhile the bitter contest for the Fidé (World Chess
World champion Magnus Carlsen is not competing in the Batumi Olympiad (of which more next week). Doubtless he is conserving his strength for his title struggle against Fabiano Caruana in London in November. This lull gives me the opportunity to mention a new book about the great Emanuel Lasker, champion from 1894–1921, a role
The Chess Olympiad for national teams is now underway in Batumi, Georgia. Over 200 teams are competing and the lavish opening ceremony was attended by 5,000 spectators. This is certainly an indication of the increasing popularity of chess, paradoxically fuelled by the advent of computer technology. There are now 11 million online chess games played worldwide
The only official interregnum in the reigns of the world chess champions was that between the death of Alekhine in 1946 and the accession of Botvinnik in 1948. There is, however, an unofficial interregnum which occurred when Bobby Fischer won the world title in 1972 but did not play a serious game of chess as
In the run-up to the Carlsen-Caruana World Championship match set for London in November, I will be previewing their prospects. The match pits Magnus Carlsen from Norway, the highest-rated player in the history of chess and world champion since 2014, against the top-ranked American grandmaster, Fabiano Caruana. Their chessboard styles could not be more different.
In the recent super-tournament in St Louis, Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana and Lev Aronian opted to share the laurels. According to the regulations, any tie for first place should have been resolved by a playoff. But the three co-victors decided that they would prefer to share the trophy. This peaceful solution was in line with the tournament
The Azeri grandmaster Shakhriyar Mamedyarov has been distinguishing himself recently at both classical and speed chess time limits. Last month he emerged as the overwhelming winner of the elite tournament in Biel, taking first prize and defeating world champion Magnus Carlsen in their individual clash. Mamedyarov went on to St Louis where he took the bronze
The mathematician Euclid once boldly informed King Ptolemy Soter I of Egypt that there was no royal road to geometry. However, a royal road to a UK visa does exist and it has just been granted to the family of nine-year-old prodigy Shreyas Royal, by means of the intervention of the Home Secretary himself.
Perhaps the outstanding clash of the recently concluded British championship in Hull, supported by Capital Developments Waterloo Ltd, was the last round battle between grandmaster Luke McShane and David Howell. The former has twice thwarted the latter at the finishing post in the past year. At stake was a final shootout for the title with
Nine-year-old Shreyas Royal, widely regarded as the UK’s best hope to become a future world chess champion, is being deported from the country next month because his father, although in regular employment, does not have earnings that reach the necessary threshold of £120,000 per annum. The chess world is in uproar about this, not least because
The recent successful revival of the musical Chess, by Sir Tim Rice and the men of Abba, featured some genuine extracts from play in the staged re-enactments of decisive games. One of the most impressive — and most easy to identify even from a distance without opera glasses — was Bobby Fischer’s infamous and very loud
This year’s British Championship commences today in Hull. Among a powerful field, which includes Michael Adams and defending champion Gawain Jones, Luke McShane stands out as a supremely dangerous tactician, who at his best can overrun any opponent. This week’s game shows him outmanoeuvring a leading contender from last year’s championship. McShane-Howell: British Championship, Llandudno
Sporting commentators frequently resort to chess metaphors to convey the flavour of a particular contest. In the case of football, chess tends to be wheeled out as a comparison when nothing much is happening. Tennis commentators, in contrast, and somewhat more perceptively, deploy the chess metaphor to convey mental toughness. I have for some time regarded Judit
