Who still studies the basic endgame?

Last week, a club member of mine (rating around 2250) told me that he almost never studies the endgame nowadays, whereas he used to do this on a regular basis. When games were still being adjourned, he always used to “grab the books” but these days he rarely takes the time to “dive into the endgame”. And I suspect this is the case with many chess players. full story »

Rajlich, Research, Rybka

An interview with the Rybka team on the future of computer chess

Computer chess is everywhere. Chess engines reign supreme. Their expertise ranges from endgame tablebases to amazing tactical resources in the middlegame to surprising opening novelties in well-known variations. There is only one aspect of chess that is still mainly dominated by humans: the understanding of the fundamental opening moves.
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Not exactly Topalov’s tournament

Caissa is not on Veselin Topalov’s side these days. At the end of January he was the glorious co-winner in Wijk aan Zee, but in Linares everything goes wrong. Today against Morozevich, the only player so far he managed to beat, he played well and reached a very promising knight ending. But after some miscalculation he suddenly saw himself defending a worse queen ending (that was still drawn aaccording to the tablebases, by the way). Morozevich was very accurate in this ending and after one more mistake by Topalov, Moro collected the full point. (But OK, which human would find 70… Qh1+ 71. Kg7 Qg2! 72. Qxe5 Qf3=.) The other three games ended in a draw. full story »

A theoretical endgame in group C

At the end of the fourth round of the Corus Chess Tournament, when almost everybody had gone home already, something unsual happened in the C-group: in the game between Stellan Brynell and Mihail Krasenkow, after 66 moves the ending of two knights agains pawn arose. full story »

The game of chess as the universe

Every chess player knows the comparisons between the game of chess and war, between the game of chess and ‘life’. But computers show that the game of chess should actually not be compared to real life combat or life itself, but rather to… the universe. full story »

Kramnik-Deep Fritz starts today

Today the match Kramnik-Deep Fritz starts. Six games will be played in the federal art hall in Bonn, Germany. The start fee for the world champion is 500,000 dollars; the same amount will be added by sponsor RAG (a chemics company) if he wins. If Kramnik wins. Because is that still a serious possibility that we should consider? full story »