After a pause during the pandemic, the Hastings Chess Congress returned for its 96th edition in the days after Christmas, with renewed support from software company Caplin. A newly published book, The Chess Battles of Hastings by Jürgen Brustkern and Norbert Wallet (New in Chess, 2022), offers an enjoyable chronicle of the event’s rich history.
Doing your job, and not a jot more – ‘quiet quitting’ – became one of the buzzphrases of 2022. In The Spectator, Stephen Daisley lauded this as the philosophy of the clear-eyed pragmatist, not the layabout, and wondered when more young employees would cotton on. Was Magnus Carlsen thinking along the same lines? For the time
1. Who tweeted, in answer to the question ‘Do you still play chess?’: ‘I did as a child, but found it to be too simple to be useful in real life: a mere 8 by 8 grid, no fog of war, no technology tree, no random map or spawn position, only 2 players, both sides exact same pieces,
English grandmaster John Nunn was the top seed in the over-65 section at the World Senior Championship, held in Italy last month. A series of crisp attacking games put him in the lead with 6.5/7. But an uncharacteristic miscalculation in round eight saw him lose a miniature against Danish grandmaster Jens Kristiansen. Going into the 11th
The young team from Uzbekistan, who took gold medals at the Olympiad in Chennai, came close to repeating that achievement at the World Team Championship in Jerusalem last month. They cruised through the group stage, quarters and semis, and met China in the final, who got there despite fielding none of their elite players, such as
When Magnus Carlsen renounced his world championship title earlier this year, one of his stated goals was to focus on other events, without bearing the burden of preparation for a regular title match. The Meltwater Champions Tour is an important battleground for the Norwegian, and he showed devastating form at the Tour Finals in San Francisco
‘In fact it is now conceded by all experts that by proper play on both sides the legitimate issue of a game ought to be a draw…’ Those words were written by Wilhelm Steinitz, who became the first world champion after beating Johannes Zukertort in 1886. But their 20-game match saw 75 per cent decisive games,
The chess lexicon has adopted a useful word from German, fingerfehler, fehler meaning mistake or error. Sometimes, the hand does not obey the brain. Imagine that you are busy contemplating A, followed by B and then C, and engrossed by the consequences of C. Meanwhile, the hand is eager to get involved, and picks up the
Just a fortnight ago, I had the pleasure of introducing a friend to the ‘Immortal Waiting Game’, Michael Basman’s victory over the Swedish grandmaster Ulf Andersson, played at Hastings in 1975. Basman landed in a passive position out of the opening, and began to shuffle back and forth, so that at move 23 his pieces
Chess players tend to fidget while they think. They crack their knuckles, stir their coffee, and bounce their legs. I have watched Boris Gelfand and Daniil Dubov twiddling a captured pawn in their fingers, with notable dexterity, despite being deep in thought. It’s a common tic, so when Sam Sevian reached out to pick up
‘I can comprehend Alekhine’s combinations well enough; but where he gets his attacking chances from and how he infuses such life into the very opening – that is beyond me. Give me the positions he obtains, and I should seldom falter. Yet I continually get drawn games, even out of the King’s Gambit!’ Those words
Vishy Anand’s eyes lit up as he described a beautiful variation from his game with Shakriyar Mamedyarov, played at the European Club Cup in Mayrhofen, Austria this month. The first diagram shows a variation which could arise if Mamedyarov had tried 33…Bg5!? 34 Rxc4 Bxe3+. (See left game) 35 Kf1 is tempting, since 35…Bxc4 36
Judit Polgar, the strongest female player of all time, conducted an enchanting interview in the commentary room during the Chennai Olympiad. Her interviewee was Charvi Anilkumar, an eight-year-old girl from Bangalore. Asked about her dreams and ambitions, she announced confidently, ‘I need to play in men’s section and I need to be a grandmaster, and
The latest flashpoint in the Carlsen-Niemann saga took place in the sixth round of the preliminaries at the Julius Baer Generation Cup, one of the online events in the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour. Ten days earlier, 19-year-old Hans Niemann had beaten Magnus Carlsen over the board at the Sinquefield Cup. Carlsen’s shock withdrawal from that
The London Mindsports Centre in Hammersmith opened its doors in 2021, after it was converted from a Salvation Army building. The centre now hosts lectures and tournaments in Chess, Go and Bridge, besides other events. The Mindsports Masters all-play-all events, held earlier this month, were designed with title aspirants in mind. Among them was 13-year-old
In the third round of the Sinquefield Cup in St Louis, Magnus Carlsen was beaten by 19-year old Hans Niemann, the lowest seeded player in the event. The result was surprising, particularly since Niemann played Black, but certainly not inconceivable. The next day, Carlsen announced his withdrawal from the tournament on Twitter, appending a short
‘Plug the fucking laptop in!’ Hans Niemann, the lively 19-year-old from the US, was left fuming – understandably – after his loss to Jan-Krzysztof Duda at the FTX Crypto Cup in Miami. The organisers set up the equipment, but Duda’s laptop ran out of juice at a tense moment when both players had about a
They called it the Match of the Century. A full 50 years has passed since Bobby Fischer defeated Boris Spassky in Reykjavik, thereby becoming the 11th world champion. On 1 September 1972, Fischer won game 21 to win the match by 12.5-8.5. I enjoyed the perspective of a new book, The Match of All Time
Hats off to Harry Grieve, who took clear first place at the Chessable British Championships which concluded in Torquay last Sunday. I am in awe of the courage he showed in the final round game, against the international master Matthew Wadsworth. Grieve set the tone in the opening, sacrificing rook for bishop, but gaining long-term
Everyone remembers their first Olympiad. As I boarded the flight to Chennai last month, it struck me that two full decades have passed since my Olympiad debut in Bled, 2002. Respectable in the seniority stakes, though one of the charms of this biennial team event is that you can count on meeting someone excited to
