Your first task in a chess game is to get a good position. To do that you need to know something about the openings. We updated our popular Essentials: Openings feature (found on the left of every page) by converting it to tutorial format. • We also added two new features

• Chess Openings at a Glance, to browse the openings by diagrams of the most important positions; and
• Index of Opening Tutorials, to browse all of our opening tutorials by diagrams.

Hope you like them!

In Classifying combinations as easy, your chess guide forwards a question asking, 'Is it possible to make a program than can evaluate a chess combination with an Elo figure (or range)?' • It turns out that just such a program is available!

The Shaun Alexander Foundation and Sprint sponsored a chess tournament for 2nd and 3rd grade students participating in the AF4C's (America’s Foundation for Chess) First Move™ chess program at Madrona Elementary School, Seattle, Washington, USA. The winners received an all expenses paid trip to Hawaii, donated by Sprint, to see Seattle Seahawks' running back Shaun Alexander play in the 2006 Pro Bowl. • Read more and see photos by John Henderson in our Shaun Alexander at Madrona photo gallery.

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...