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Tags

Chess

The Joys of Being an Absolute Beginner—For Life

The phrase ‘adult beginner’ can sound patronising. It implies you are learning something you should have mastered as a child. But learning is not just for the young.

Tom Vanderbilt Guardian Jan 2021 15min Permalink

The Man Who Brought ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ to Life

Walter Tevis, the author of the book upon which the Netflix hit is based, spent his life gambling and drinking in pool halls before turning to chess.

David Hill The Ringer Nov 2020 15min Permalink

Travel

The Ghost of Capablanca

Chess in Cuba.

Brin-Jonathan Butler Southwest the Magazine May 2016 15min Permalink

Best Article Sports

The Day Bobby Blew It

Bobby Fischer unravels before the 1972 World Chess Championships, a.k.a. the “Match of the Century.”

Brad Darrach Playboy Jul 1973 1h10min Permalink

World

Vladimir Putin’s Chess-Master Nemesis

A profile of Garry Kasparov, who exiled himself from Russia last year and is running for president of FIDE, the governing body of chess. The election has become the dirtiest in FIDE history and a proxy debate over freedom and Russia’s future; Kasparov’s opponent has the full backing of Vladimir Putin.

Steven Lee Myers New York Times Magazine Aug 2014 20min Permalink

How To Catch A Chess Cheater

A profile of Ken Regan, a computer scientist, chess master, and world champion at detecting cheaters in chess.

Howard Goldowsky Chess Life Jun 2014 30min Permalink

Rooked

The evolution of cheating in chess.

Dave McKenna Grantland Sep 2012 15min Permalink

The Mysterious Disappearance of Peter Winston

A chess prodigy vanishes.

Sarah Weinman The New York Observer Jul 2012 Permalink

$5 Chess Game, Best-of-Three, Zuccotti Park

On playing chess and waiting to get arrested.

David Hill McSweeney's Nov 2011 10min Permalink

World

Planet Kirsan

Inside a chess master’s fiefdom.

Michael Specter New Yorker Apr 2006 25min Permalink

Grandmasters in Guayaberas

How a commuter college in Miami became a chess powerhouse.

Josh Schonwald The Miami New Times May 2006 25min Permalink

The Bobby Fischer Defense

“If genius is hard to define, madness is even more so.” One chess champion’s take on the tortured life of another.

Garry Kasparov New York Review of Books Mar 2011 20min Permalink

Best Article

The Chess Master

A grandmaster on the computers that have bested him and how we have misunderstood the implications of artificial intelligence.

Garry Kasparov New York Review of Books Feb 2010 15min Permalink