Veselin Topalov won the Fide world title in 2005, lost the bitter 2006 Toiletgate match to Russia’s Vlad Kramnik, was accused of computer advice via his coach’s hand signals, then dropped down the chess ratings. Now the Bulgarian’s chequered career has taken another strong upswing. His superb tournament form in the second half of 2008 this week raised him back to No1 in the rankings, ahead of the world chess champion, Vishy Anand.

Grand Master Sergey Karjakin might be the highest ranked chess player in the ongoing Asian Chess Champions League but he is still a teenager accompanied by his proud mother Tatania to all the international chess tournaments he takes part in. Sergey made history and headlines when he became the youngest ever chess Grandmaster at the age of 12 years and seven months. With an elo rating of 2730, Sergey is the highest ranked chess player and shoulders the hopes of the hosts to win the title.

Chess is not simple, but it can seem uncomplicated compared with the issues swirling around the governance of the game.

Paul Morphy is widely considered the greatest chess player of his era, and is often referred to as an unofficial World Champion.

Where to put the knights at the start of a chess game.   RSS feeds and News widgets on Feedzilla.com

The defending chess champion, the Dallas Destiny, won the 2008 United States Chess League, a 14-team Internet competition that ended this month. Dallas’s final match against the Boston Blitz was tied 2-2, but IM Davorin Kuljasevic won the title for Dallas, defeating former U.S.

It is inevitable that young phenomena and new champions hog the limelight, but sometimes ex-champions remind the world why they were, and in some cases still are, so great.

The 38th Chess Olympiad in Dresden set new standards for attendance (146 teams) and excitement. The shorter schedule (11 rounds instead of 14) and the glut of powerful chess teams helped to continually shuffle the leaderboard

Top-seeded Russia held off the United States in the 38th Chess Olympiad in round eight of open division play Friday, but the Armenian chess team crushed France and stayed in first place. In women’s division play, the U.S.

The Russian chess team — touted as the strongest ever assembled for a Chess Olympiad — was derailed in Thursday open division play in round seven of the chess tournament by the defending gold medal Armenian team 2.5-1.5, which took sole possession of first place.