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.

Sunday, Dec. 21, was the solstice and the first day of Hanukkah. It also marked the date of the much anticipated grudge match between Santa Claus and Rudolph.

At first glance, hip-hop and chess may not seem like they go well together. But a local group is combining music, chess and martial arts to teach young people peace

Armenia won its second straight gold medal at the Chess Olympiad Tuesday by defeating China 2.5-1.5 in the 11th and final round. Israel took silver with 18 points after beating the Netherlands 2.5-1.5. The United States took bronze on a tiebreaker after upsetting second-seed Ukraine with a 3.5-0.5 drubbing, getting wins from Gata Kamsky against Vassily Ivanchuk on board one, Alexander Onischuk against Pavel Eljanov on board three, and Yuri Shulman against Zahar Efimenko on board four.

The Cap D’Agde Rapid Play chess event took place last month. The organisers obviously went to some trouble to invite plenty of exciting young chess players, including Magnus Carlsen, Teimour Radjabov and the young French (champion?) Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.

The mighty were brought low as the first-place chess teams in both the open and women’s divisions fell in round nine on Saturday. In the open division of the Chess Olympiad, Israel played the role of David, knocking off Armenia 2.5-1.5. On the women’s side, Serbia edged China 2.5-1.5

Russia’s chess team, hailed as the highest rated ever assembled for a Chess Olympiad, hit a bump Monday as 11th-seed Germany battled all four games against them to a draw in round five of the biennial chess tournament in open division play.

If you are like me you enjoy playing chess but hate losing more
often than you win. For me at least, winning often seemed more
of an accident than skill. Well, having many hours of trial and
error, studying moves my opponents made, looking at what I was
doing, etc. I came up with a few basic ideas on [...]