Mark's Chess Blog

After 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3, the most common responses are 2...Nc6, 2...Nf6, and 2...d6. These three moves are the 'good' moves in the position after White's second move. What about the ... Read More

The question of chess as sport is with us to stay. Since our last look at the subject (see Issues on the Chess Table Chess as Sport, April 2007, for an overview), ... Read More

A recent announcement from the world federation, titled FIDE has Global Training Headquarters, caught our attention. After inquiring about it, we received the following answer: 'Thank you for your interest ... Read More

The results of the 2007 U.S. Chess Federation Executive Board (USCF EB) Election were posted 26 July, on the 'USCF Issues' forum (access for USCF members only): Frank Camaratta, Chief Teller, ... Read More

A few months ago we assembled a small list of Chess Books to Read Without a Board, which garnered more feedback than we usually receive on a blog post. Here are reviews ... Read More

Chess is a complicated game with its own vocabulary and a long history. The job of maintaining chess dictionaries and encyclopedias isn't trivial, and there aren't very many of them ... Read More

In Chess and Art, JMRW gave us a link to his page about 'paintings on the subject of chess'. SarahCohen mentioned that she was 'researching the relationship of the origins of modern ... Read More

The big chess news this week wasn't a chess story at all: Taking the fun out of checkers • 'It's taken dozens of computers humming away for almost 18 years, but a University ... Read More

Every move of the chess game played at the 1962 Varna Olympiad between Mikhail Tal and Dieter Mohrlok is explained move by move. Tal was 25 years old at the ... Read More

After preparing one of our Blog Trekking features, we always have many good posts left over. It makes us unhappy leaving this much chess entertainment on the cutting floor. Here are a ... Read More

Are you a 1.e4 player or a 1.d4 player? Whichever you prefer, two opening variations getting attention in the forum are Sicilian Dragon: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 ... Read More

The closely timed release of the fifth Harry Potter movie, 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix', with the publication of the seventh Harry Potter book, 'Harry Potter and ... Read More

Just like the previous month, the Candidate Matches garnered a large share of blog posts in June. There is something about the day-after-day, head-to-head, heart-to-heart, mano-a-mano struggle that makes a ... Read More

GM Vladimir Kramnik won the Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting, a category 20, eight player round robin tournament held 23 June to 1 July 2007, at Dortmund, Germany. Winning the tournament for the ... Read More

In Chess in Chicago, giziti says, 'I'm in Chicago and I'm sure there are chess clubs somewhere, I just don't know where or how to find them.' In researching the question, we ... Read More

Q: When was the last time you saw chess on the evening news? A: In 2004, when Bobby Fischer was arrested in Japan. • Q: And before that? A: In 1992, when Fischer played ... Read More

At the end of each year, we do a special review of the most important chess events in that year: Best Players, World Championship, International Events, National Championships, Opens, Computers, ... Read More

Rybka won the 15th World Computer Chess Championship (WCCC) held in June at Amsterdam. The chess computer, developed by Vasik Rajlich, finished first (+9-0=2) in the 12-player round robin, one ... Read More