India began their women’s Chess Olympiad title defence in Samarkand as the top seeds, ahead of Georgia, Kazakhstan, China and the United States. The leading teams made a comfortable start, with nine of the top ten seeds winning 4–0 and no major upsets on individual boards. England’s 11-year-old top board Bodhana Sivanandan also opened with […]
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The 46th Chess Olympiad began in Samarkand with 206 teams in the open section, where the United States, India, Uzbekistan and China are the leading seeds. The top 30 teams all won their opening matches, though a few strong grandmasters dropped points. Botswana produced the only team upset by holding Brazil to a draw, while […]
The 1992 Chess Olympiad in Manila was the first held after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Suddenly, instead of one dominant USSR team, there were several very strong teams representing former Soviet republics. Russia continued the Soviet Union’s run of success. The surprise team from Uzbekistan, with just one grandmaster, took silver ahead of […]
The 46th edition of the Chess Olympiad is taking place on 16-27 September at the Silk Road EXPO in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. A record 208 teams in the open and 191 in the women’s category are fighting for collective and individual medals. | Follow the games live with expert commentary starting at 12.00 CEST (6.00 ET, […]
FIDE Press Officer Michael Rahal writes: “By now, I have attended my fair share of opening and closing ceremonies: Grand Prix events, several World Cups and Olympiads, and even the opening and closing ceremonies of the Barcelona 1992 Olympic Games. But none of them comes remotely close to what the chess community witnessed this evening […]
GM Jon Speelman returns to the theme of opening preparation in the computer era, examining how engine-assisted novelties can unsettle even the strongest players. His examples begin with Fabiano Caruana’s preparation from the recent Grand Chess Tour final, before moving to an earlier attacking idea by Hikaru Nakamura and, finally, the famous gambit introduced by […]
The first major international tournament after the end of the Second World War took place in Groningen in August and September. It was the anniversary tournament of the Staunton Chess Club, founded in 1871. For the first time ever, a group of Soviet players also took part in a tournament outside the Soviet Union. Before […]
Georgios Makropoulos, FIDE Vice President and a longstanding figure in Greek and international chess, has died at the age of 72. A seven-time Greek champion and former Olympiad player, Makropoulos later became one of the most prominent administrators in the game. He served in senior FIDE roles for four decades and also played a central […]
On 15 August 2026, the publisher, renowned author and chess historian Anthony Gillam died at the age of 83. He was one of the leading figures of the Chess History & Literature Society. In his obituary, Michael Negele recalls many moments from their shared research and the joy of discovery.
At the end of August, the chess historians of the Chess History & Literature Society met in Copenhagen to exchange new findings from their research into chess history and chess literature in talks and lectures, and to present interesting new books. Herbert Bastian, Michael Negele and Frank Hoffmeister report. | Photo: The conference venue, Skakkens […]