Ideas, Openings & Improvement

A dispute over bathroom trips led to a forfeited game, a boycotted rematch, and the ugliest week in modern World Championship history.

Thirteen years after Kasparov split the title in two, one rapid game put it back together, and ended on one of the most infamous blunders in championship history.

From Bobby Fischer's story to the Queen's Gambit, these are the chess films and documentaries worth your time.

There are approximately 2,000 living Grandmasters. Here is the breakdown by country and era.

Modern chess engines are rated ~3600, about 800 points above the best humans. Here is what that gap means.

There are more possible chess games than atoms in the observable universe. The Shannon number explains why.

The longest chess game lasted 269 moves and took over 20 hours. Here is the story.

Chess was invented in India around the 6th century AD. Here is the complete journey from chaturanga to modern chess.

Fischer finished fourth and accused the Soviets of fixing the tournament against him. Decades later, the consensus is that he was right, and it changed the format forever.

One side brought a man trained to stare. The other brought mirrored sunglasses to stare back. Somewhere underneath the theatre, a genuinely great match was being played.

Six frames of videotape, a quarter of a second, and a silence that lasted three years. Inside the most quietly devastating rules controversy in modern chess.

The United States had won four straight Olympiads. Then, over four days of radio transmissions, the Soviet Union announced it was about to own the sport for fifty years.