Wilhelm Steinitz was dethroned in 1894, in a series of games played across North America. There are some grumbles about the man who would beat him, Emmanuel Lasker, namely that he hadn’t played either of the other potential challengers before squaring up to Steinitz. However, this seems to be sour grapes as the other two […]
We’re going through our series of world chess champions from first to last, but as the current world championship begins this month it’s perhaps a good idea to have a quick peek at what’s going on. The current holder is an Indian national, Vichy Anand who is being challenged by Boris Gelfand. Vichy is one […]
For a game with a long and rich history it took a long time for Chess to produce a world champion. It can be argued that many historical greats were the world champions of their day but the first official champion was crowned in 1886 and he would remain champion for a further 8 years. […]
When the Oxford Press put together a series of “Top 10 Chess Players” from a series of different professions, they came to an extraordinary conclusion. Scientists aren’t very good at chess, in fact they couldn’t find 10 great chess playing scientists at all. One particularly notable omission from the (shortened) list was Einstein. Despite his […]
For top chess players, the FIDE rating is the most important aspect of the game. Fide stands for Federation Internationale des Echecs, or World Chess Federation in English. It has been in existence since 1924 and, in 1999, it was recognized by the International Sports Federation and the International Olympic Committee. One may hear an […]