Introduction Back in my student days, I used to be a big fan of pub quizzes. Every Friday, I would go to a nearby cinema where a weekly pub quiz competition was organized. Eventually, I…
Posts tagged Chess Players
The Rise and Fall of Soviet Chess?
The cover photo was taken from a tweet by Douglas Griffin. A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled upon a very interesting Quora question titled: “Why has Russian chess faded so badly? They haven’t held…
Educator, teacher, podcaster – Ben Johnson Interview – Part Two
This is the second part of the interview, in which we talk about Ben’s trading years, his transition back to chess teaching, about Perpetual Chess Podcast and his family. The first part of the interview,…
Educator, teacher, podcaster – Ben Johnson Interview – Part One
This is the first part of the interview, in which we talk about Ben’s early years, his adulthood and time in college and how he got into poker. The second part of the interview, in…
Ivan Sokolov Birthday
„ If I don’t kill myself tonight, I’m gonna live a thousand years!“ These immortal words were uttered on 13.01.2013. during the 2nd round of Tata Steel 2013 chess tournament by a famous grandmaster and…
Sir George Alan Thomas Birthday
I first stumbled on the name of Sir George Alan Thomas in my favorite childhood chess book, The Art Of The Checkmate. I am not even sure whether the book included his victory over an…
Nigel Short Birthday
„It will be Short and the match will be short!“ When asked about the potential challenger during the Candidates matches before the 1993 matches, Kasparov rattled this remark. The World Champion showed great insight, especially…
Richard Reti Birthday
New York. 1924. The reigning World Champion Jose Raul Capablanca who hasn’t lost a game in 8 years appears. Richard Reti uses 1 Nf3. It is super effective. Richard Reti was a born in a…
Krunoslav Hulak Birthday
Even though Croatia is a relatively small country, it is continuously producing players who manage to place themselves on the chess map of the world. In the last 20 years, the most notable examples are…
Anatoly Karpov Birthday
“The boy has no clue about chess, and there’s no future at all for him in this profession” Once upon a time, back in 1963, a talented 12-year-old boy was accepted in the prestigious Botvinnik…
Max Euwe Birthday
Chess history is full of big and surprising upsets: • Harry Nelson Pillsbury winning Hastings 1895 • Vincent Keymer winning Grenke Open 2018 • Vjekoslav Nemec winning a won endgame somewhere back in 2015 In…
Wilhelm Steinitz Birthday
I once read somewhere that there are three ways of becoming successful in a particular field: – Be the first – Be the best – Be the only Great people have managed to become the…