Imagine sitting down with the black pieces to face the most violent attacking player since Alekhine, who needs the full point to gain the right to play for the World Championship! That’s what baritone Vasily Smyslov did when he faced Paul Keres in the deciding game of the Candidates’ Tournament, Zurich, 1953. Watch Smyslov thread […]

 
¶ America Puts Brakes on Drive for More War

 
“I like pain.” –Steve McNair, Quarterback, Baltimore Ravens

 
Dear Abby:
You have often been asked where a single woman can meet a decent, eligible man.
I have a suggestion: Join a chess club. Women are always welcome. Furthermore, they will find that men outnumber women 10–1. Not bad odds. Also, from 25% to 40% of the men will be unmarried. Men who play chess on […]

 
“My Jesu swet I go to mete
His body is my soles delete.
Always I rise from the glomby earth
When Jesu sucketh me with his swet mouth.”
 
–attributed to St. Dorothea of Montau, ca. 1390
Dorethea was an ascetic, flagellant, ecstatic visionary, immured alive in the walls of the Marienwerder Cathedral, Danzig (nee Gdansk).

William “Stinkin’ Bill” Steinitz (1836–1900) was the self-proclaimed first World Chess Champion. He announced himself thus after a match with Anderssen in 1866, and nobody argued with him. He held the crown for twenty eight years, successfully defending the title against the likes of Blackburne, Zuckertort and Tchigorin. All accounts indicate that Stinkin’ Bill was […]

William Steinitz…………1866
Emanuel Lasker………….1894
Jose Raul Capablanca…..1921
Alexander Alekhine……..1927
Max Euwe…………………1935
Alexander Alekhine…….1937-1946–died as champion.
Mikhail Botvinnik……….1948–recognized as champion.
Vasily Smyslov………….1957
Mikhail Botvinnik……….1958
Mikhail Tal……………….1960
Mikhail Botvinnik……….1961
Tigran Petrosian………..1963
Boris Spassky…………..1969
Robert Fischer………….1972-1975–retired as champion.
Anatoly Karpov…………1975–recognized as champion.
Garry Kasparov………..1985
Vladimir Kramnik………2000

What better than to have a gander at one of the final encounters of two chess immortals, Emmanuel Lasker and Jose Capablanca? This game, played in Moscow in 1936, was one of the last in a series heralding all the way back to 1919. Both players were well past their prime, but this rivalry always […]

Everyman Press © 2006
This abominable series is almost worthless because there are hundreds of factual errors and the games are full of useless analysis. Ego-maniac Kasparov says: “I discovered this move which has been unknown for fifty years,” or forty, or thirty, etc. His “great” discovery is crap, leading to a “quicker” win […]

Vladimir Kramnik, Chess Champion of the World, accepted a challenge from Veselin Topalov, FIDE Champion, for a “12 game match”, beginning September 23. Kramnik is an honorable man but naive and gullible. He let the match be held under the auspices of FIDE, a corrupt organization ruled by a virtual dictator: Kirsan Ilyumzhinov.
Compounding […]