Strategically, chess may not be the most complicated game, but it can be daunting to learn. Part of the reason is the vast literature about how to play chess - particularly about the opening phase, the first 15 moves or so

Chess requires exceptional reasoning ability, but problems besetting the game seem to defy logic. In the last few weeks, disputes within the World Chess Federation have led two top players to withdraw from the world chess championship selection process, while another player faces a two-year ban for failing to take a drug test - although he almost certainly did not take any since there are few if any drugs that can enhance a chess player’s performance. The episodes illustrate the struggles and foibles of a game that at times achieves immense popularity around the world and at other times - sometimes for reasons of its own making - falls by the wayside

Failure can be a great spur to improvement. This autumn David Howell, 18 and England’s best young chess talent, was in the gold-medal position at the start of the final round of the world junior (U20) chess championship, but played passively, got short of time, and was crushed

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

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.

The world chess championship semifinal match between Gata Kamsky of the United States and Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria has been set for February 16 to 28, 2009.

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 [...]