2024 was full of great games. We had it all: surprising opening ideas, unusual tactical themes, unexpected defensive resources, devastating attacks. I had the pleasure of dedicating many hours during the past year to an in-depth analysis of the be...
How did Gukesh Dommaraju become the 18th World Champion? It took 14 grueling games for him to pull out a narrow victory against GM Ding Liren. Let's take a look back at the key moments that determined the match. The final handshake at the end ...
While the chess world is distracted by the FIDE World Championship, the Champions Chess Tour Finals are fast approaching. The in-person finals run from December 17th until 21st in Oslo, Norway. It's a fitting location, as the defending champion is...
Every chess player dreams of playing a brilliant move or a spectacular game. More serious players hope to put together a masterful tournament and claim first prize. Yet, it's only the best of the best who can lay claim to have played the best tour...
Stockfish is the strongest chess entity in history. In seconds, it can find deep variations that masters of that past could only imagine. Last time, we examined the most famous move of GM Bobby Fischer's career. Today, let's examine GM Garry Kaspa...
As GM Viswanathan "Vishy" Anand and Chess.com are about to embark on a Vote Chess journey together, we recall the first major event where a top grandmaster took on the world in a game of chess. Exactly 25 years ago, back in 1999, GM Garry Kasparov...
Chess engines have forced us to reevaluate many facets of the game. As each generation of engines grows stronger it's worth looking at some of the great moments in chess history to see which brilliancies hold up and which ones don't quite withstan...
The 2024 Speed Chess Championship is at full steam, with many impressive matches already in the cards. Every year the SCC features 16 top players from around the world competing in three ever-quickening time controls. While top GMs can play amazin...
While commentating in 2021, GM Vladimir Kramnik shared his candid opinion of bullet chess: Why do you use a chessboard? There is no point, just put the clock and push the clock, and the first one who wins on time wins. There's no point to h...
As eight of the strongest women in the world gear up for the Women’s Candidates Tournament in April, let’s celebrate brilliant games played by female players throughout time. What is a brilliancy? Is it the most visually aesthetic mo...
Last time we talked chess with ChatGPT, it had all sorts of weird ideas and terrible advice about chess. So, of course we left it at that, right? Au contraire. We doubled down—literally. We added another AI, Google's Gemini, into the mix a...
FIDE recently awarded honorary grandmaster titles to IMs Iivo Nei and Andreas Dueckstein. I think it is a very good practice to reward famous chess veterans for their past great results and lives devoted to chess. While reading this news, a questi...
"Does that even exist?" That was the response I got from my friend and coworker, GM Rafael Leitao, when I asked him to help me with this article about five perfect chess games played by humans. Now, you need to have seen a lot of chess to beco...
GM Anish Giri, for those of you without Twitter, is one of the best players in the game of chess. At the time of writing, he is the Dutch number-one and the world number-seven. Having earned his grandmaster title at the age of 14, he reached his p...
Today, the stage is set mainly for the young. Celebratory news pieces, including our own on Chess.com, often highlight the accomplishments of the next up-and-coming player. These days, there's lots of talk about GMs Alireza Firouzja, Nodirbek Abdu...
Today, half a century ago, was a historic day for chess, and the whole world was watching. GM Bobby Fischer had done it! He fought, almost single-handedly, against the Soviet chess machine, and emerged as the first American world champion of chess...
Game 13 was ultimately the most chaotic, bizarre, and epic game of what was a chaotic, bizarre, and epic 1972 World Championship match. From Alekhine's Defense on move one to the unusual final endgame position of three pawns overwhelming a piece o...
When we last left the 1972 World Chess Championship, GM Bobby Fischer had just won game six in brilliant fashion to take the match lead. By game 11, the situation was only deteriorating further for defending champion GM Boris Spassky, and his back...
The sixth game, described by GM Bobby Fischer as his best game in the match, was likely the major turning point of the 1972 World Chess Championship. The challenger, who started the match trailing by two points, began to take control. Losing the f...
After GM Bobby Fischer's dramatic loss in round one of the 1972 World Chess Championship, the next game two days later was a major turning point in one of the most important matches in chess history. In fact, game two was never played—GM Bor...
If there's one thing The Queen's Gambit proved, it's that chess can be dramatic. Just ask those who have played or observed the Candidates Tournament, where one game can be the difference between playing for the world championship or becoming...
No other tournament in chess combines the tradition and importance of the Candidates Tournament, which determines who plays the reigning champion in a match for the title. Depending how you count, it has been around for at least 70 years and up ...
Every player with internet access now has a 3500-rated-plus assistant for analysis. Switch on "Infinite Analysis," go to the kitchen, make yourself a cup of coffee, return, and voila: decades of analysis at your fingertips. Games of the no...
Sometimes we just want to sit back and be amazed by remarkable chess games. We've all looked at the games played by the strongest grandmasters and revered them for their unique technique and unparalleled ability. But what if I told you there's a "...
With the strongest engines playing each other 24/7 for the Computer Chess Championship, chess fans are graced with a virtually infinite supply of fascinating games. However, every now and then a game is SO extraordinary that even other computer ga...
