End September, when we last visited the chess blogs, the World Championship Unification match was in crisis. Vladimir Kramnik had forfeited game five, the cheating accusations were getting the kind of negative attention that the mainstream press often accords to chess (remember Bobby Fischer in the Japanese jail?), and game six had been postponed.

Some blogs posted about the match almost daily. Among the most insightful was The Daily Dirt, which covered the events from game six ('Yay for Kramnik, who is playing under protest'), through the exciting tiebreak games ('KKRRRRrrrrrramnik Wins!'), and beyond ('Our thanks to Stopwatch Danailov for this ongoing humiliation'). It is all in the Dirt's October 2006 archive (www.chessninja.com). Outside of Topalov's home turf in Bulgaria, Kramnik's victory was well received. A typical reaction was Congratulations Vladimir Kramnik, 'Veselin Topalov is now beaten, not only over the board, but amongst chess fans as well.' (closetgrandmaster.blogspot.com)

Good, thoughtful posts about the match antics were everywhere. A few that we particularly liked discussed the long term consequences of the match.

• WC Notes • 'If only world championship matches were just about playing chess... with a few exceptions, that has not been the case for quite a long time. Off-the-board shenanigans really kicked off with the 1972 Fischer-Spassky match and that set the trend for the Karpov-Korchnoi and Karpov-Kasparov matches of subsequent decades.' (BCMchess.co.uk blog)
  
  
• Instant Book on Elista • 'Any bets on who will write the first book on Elista?' (closetgrandmaster.blogspot.com)
  
  
• It's a Mad, Mad, Mad Chess World • 'It's a crazy place, the chess world. In the old days - at least those between the reigns of Patriarch 1 (Botvinnik) and Patriarch 2 (Karpov) - a new world chess champion could rest easy in his bed, knowing that he wouldn't have to lift a finger to defend his title for three whole years.' (BCMchess.co.uk blog)
  
  

The blogs also reported on other World Chess Championship events held during the month: the World Junior (Under 20) Championship, in Yerevan, Armenia, won by Zaven Andriasian (open section) and Shen Yang (girls); the World Youth Championships (12 sections), Batumi, Georgia; and the World Blind Championship, in Goa, India. Other events included the four-player double round robin Essent Tournament in Hoogeveen, Netherlands, won by Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Judit Polgar; and the European Club Cup, held in Fuegen, Austria.

The biggest news involving the world of chess blogs was the end of Dennis Monokroussos's 'The Chess Mind': The Blog is Closed (chessmind.powerblogs.com). Its demise was noted by other top blogs, including the BCC Weblog: And in the end... (boylston-chess-club.blogspot.com). Another top blog, The Kenilworthian, had announced an extended pause starting September, but returned more quickly than expected with a Review of ChessLecture.com, among other posts (www.kenilworthchessclub.org).

One of the strong points of the blogs is reporting on unusual news that mainstream news sources never encounter. A good example in October was Fischer vs. Karpov - It could finally happen! (susanpolgar.blogspot.com). The topic was picked up in The Next Big Match - Fischer vs. Karpov !!! (rookvanwinkle.blogspot.com), which added some references to info on Gothic Chess, a chess variant rumored to be the playing field for the 11th and 12th World Champions.

Here are a few other October posts that we thought were worth special mention.

• Pictures of Grand Masters • 'Since I've invested a huge amount of limited space to supplying historic photos of some of the greatest players, I wanted to make it easier for those interested in such things to locate the pictures.' (batgirl.atspace.com) • Batgirl, aka SBC, aka Sarah, is a specialist in Paul Morphy. The page of Morphy images is particularly interesting.
  
  
• E-Vote Machine Plays Chess • This story was picked up by several blogs. (closetgrandmaster.blogspot.com)
  
  
• Classification of chess problems • 'CT-ART problems are classified two ways: Tactical Methods and Combinational Motifs . There is a dewey decimal type system that divides these into various themes.' (takchess.blogspot.com)
  
  
• Empty Squares • 'Polgar Brick: Amongst the thousands of words written about how GM's play the game versus amateurs, it's been noted that GM's spend more time looking at empty squares than they do looking at pieces, while the opposite is true of amateurs.' (megaskins.blogspot.com)
  
  
• USCL - Takebacks are allowed • 'Rocky Rook started the debate and BCC picked up on it - Should takebacks be allowed?' (megaskins.blogspot.com)
  
  
• Don't reassess your chess until 2007 • 'Jeremy Silman is going to radically alter his book Reassess Your Chess, fixing many of its problems (some of which stem from lack of computer checking).' (chessconfessions.blogspot.com)
  
  
• Chess Search Engine • 'The Online Chess Blog now hosts a Chess Search Engine, powered by Google.' (satishtalim.blogspot.com) • This isn't the standard Google search service that all Web users know and love. This is a new service that Google calls Co-op.
  
  
• Saying What is NOT being said: simple, middle, or complex • '"Everyone wants to notice who is here; I want to know who is NOT here". Fast forward, to our Blogger and blogspot. We cannot really say a lot about who is not here, so instead get to ask what is not here, or, if not here, [here] to a lesser extent' (dk-transformation.blogspot.com)
  
  
• CHESS VIDEOS OF KRAMNIK VS TOPALOV, NIGERIAN CHESS TEAM, KASPAROV, KARPOV, BOBBY FISCHER AND MUCH MORE • The title says it all : links to chess videos on YouTube. (nigerianchessplayers.blogspot.com)
  
  

For previous posts in this series, see our ChessChrono on Chess Blog Tripping.