Looking for one of our reviews? See our Graphic Index of reviews showing the book, CD, or DVD cover. If you just want a quick text list of the same reviews, see the associated Text Index. Read more...

See also our latest review : 'The Scandinavian Defence' by GM James Plaskett.

In Sacrifices, 123aku345 asks, 'Does anyone know of a few GM games where the winning side has sacrificed a LOT of material? Basically I want to know what single game (and a few runners up) wins the crown of the most sacrifices.' • If you have a good game in mind, let us know!

St. Petersburg, 1914: During one of the greatest chess tournaments of the pre-World War I era, murder is the theme and Avrom Chilowicz Rozental is somehow involved. • 'Then 32 years old, Rozental was at the height of his powers. He had defeated Lasker in 1909, Capablanca in 1911. The year 1912 was his alone: his spectacular run of triumphs at San Sebastian, Bad Pistyan, Breslau and Warsaw transformed him into one of the most talked-about celebrities of the age.' • The U.K.'s Observer is publishing Zugzwang, a serial novel by Ronan Bennett, available online. Read more...

Where did chess come from? The most widely accepted scenario is that chess appeared in India around 600 A.D., was adopted in Persia around 700 A.D., and was absorbed by Arab culture around 800 A.D. Just as chess is a difficult game, its origin is a difficult puzzle. We may never know the truth of its birth. Read more...

No, we're not talking about 8-time U.S. Champion Bobby Fischer in Iceland. We're talking about GM Max Dlugy, who spent months in a Russian prison. Find the full story in Former U.S. champion free.

No sooner had Veselin Topalov won the FIDE World Chess Championship than the pundits started speculating on a possible unification match between the new FIDE World Champion and the non-FIDE World Champion Vladimir Kramnik. (For background on the FIDE World Championship, held from 28 September to 14 October 2005; see ChessChrono, 2005 FIDE World Championship, San Luis, Argentina.) Let's track the progress of these speculations through the reporting of ChessBase.com, the world's premier source of news about the world's top chess players. Read more...

The year 2005 in chess saw Garry Kasparov's retirement, a new FIDE plan for the World Championship, a new FIDE World Champion, and Bobby Fischer's release from Japan to Iceland. Read more...

Has it really been 50 years since computer chess was only a dream of a handful of visionaries? • In Today, xplorxplor informs us that 'In a Jan. 3, 1956, letter to Adriaan de Groot, Herbert A. Simon wrote: "You will be interested to learn, I think, that Allen Newell and I have made substantial progress on the chess-playing machine'.

Chess and art have their closest relationship in the 32 pieces of wood, glass, or just about any other material used to make chess sets. The Imagery of Chess Revisited, one of the current exhibits at the Noguchi Museum, Long Island City (Queens), New York, is the latest look by the art world at that relationship. The exhibit opened in October 2005 and runs until March 2006. Read more...

Here is a selection of our favorite photos from the 2005 FIDE World Championship, San Luis, Argentina. • GMs Michael Adams, Viswanathan Anand, Rustam Kasimdzhanov, Peter Leko, Alexander Morozevich, Judit Polgar, Peter Svidler, Veselin Topalov. • Courtesy 'Prensa Mundial / World Chess Championship Press', used with permission. Read more...