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
At the Chennai Olympiad, the Indian team began as second seeds, even with former World Champion Vishy Anand absent from the lineup. But it is the host country’s privilege to field more than one team, and India used its second team to showcase the next generation of talent. This team, which included three 16-year-olds, even
I chatted to a spectator after one of my games at the Sparkassen Chess Trophy in Dortmund. ‘A close shave today, wasn’t it?’ he began. ‘Yes, I can’t believe my opponent escaped with a draw.’ ‘No, I think you were losing.’ ‘Oh, but didn’t you see my beautiful mating idea with b5?’ ‘There’s a fly
On International Chess Day, 20 July, Magnus Carlsen announced that he will not defend his world championship title next year. The Norwegian won the title in 2013 by beating Viswanathan Anand in Chennai, and went on to defend his title against Anand once more, then Sergey Karjakin, Fabiano Caruana and most recently Ian Nepomniachtchi. Carlsen
Modern chess computers, like the program ‘Stockfish’, are treated as oracles. Plug in a position, start the engine, and within a fraction of a second it will identify the best move and its numerical evaluation (+1.27 pawns!). So it is a natural misconception that an ambitious player must commit to endless clicking and memorising. On
The ‘English chess explosion’ that began in the 1970s produced a bumper crop of grandmasters, which meant that by the late 1980s, England was second only to the Soviet Union in international team events. Those days are behind us, but the march of time means that England is now a force to be reckoned with
Ian Nepomniachtchi is back for more. The former world championship challenger left his rivals in the dust at the Candidates tournament in Madrid, seizing victory with a round to spare. So he will once again challenge Magnus Carlsen, in a world championship match slated for 2023. Or will he? A few weeks after beating Nepomniachtchi
Forbidden things have a secret charm – that delicious paradox applies to the chessboard just as it does in life. Moves which appear to be unthinkable (for example, when the piece in question can be readily captured) can create a strong aesthetic effect. Composers of chess problems often make great play of this fact –
The Candidates tournament is underway in Madrid, where eight of the world’s best players vie for the right to challenge Magnus Carlsen in the World Championship. As the event began, Carlsen gave his judgment on each player’s prospects, dividing them into three tiers. Tier 1: Fabiano Caruana and Ding Liren are ‘the best and most
Returning to the board, Mamedyarov looks at Anand’s outstretched hand with bemusement. It can’t be a draw offer – that would be a rude way to do it, and besides, the tournament rules prohibit an early peace treaty. No, Anand is resigning! He looks crestfallen, like a child whose ice cream has fallen to the
Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela, ‘El Ajedrecista’, died in prison in the United States on 31 May. The Colombian drug lord, a leader of the Cali cartel in the 1990s, acquired his splendid nickname, which translates as ‘the Chess Player’, on account of his ability to stay a step ahead of his rivals and pursuers. Curiosity sent
Ding Liren took first place at last month’s Chessable Masters, the fourth event in the 2022 Meltwater Champions Tour. But it was his defeated opponent in the final, 16-year-old Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa from India, who stole the show. The teenager’s reputation is already well established, and he made headlines in the (non-chess) media in February when
Viswanathan Anand left the spectators in awe at the Superbet Rapid earlier this month. The ‘Tiger of Madras’, as he is sometimes known, was awarded a wildcard spot to the second leg of the Grand Chess Tour in Warsaw, which began just a couple of days after the first leg ended in Bucharest. At 52,
The Superbet Chess Classic in Bucharest concluded last weekend in a dramatic tiebreak between Wesley So, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Levon Aronian, who all took wildly different paths to finish the main event on 5.5/9. Wesley So was the tournament rock. He won two controlled games against Nepomniachtchi and Mamedyarov and otherwise never looked in danger.
Yuri Averbakh had a wry explanation for why he was made chairman of the USSR Chess Federation in 1972. There was a feeling that Boris Spassky, the Soviet world champion, would lose his title to Bobby Fischer in Reykjavik that year. Nobody else wanted to deal with the fallout, so Averbakh got the job. Whatever
There is a video in which a small group of students amble about passing a basketball back and forth. The instruction at the start is to count how many times the players pass the basketball. Then comes the punchline – did you see the gorilla? Halfway through, a figure in a gorilla suit walks through
