This week we look at two fine commercial products. One is a CD covering tactics. The other is a book covering a theoretically important opening in the exclusive domain of the world's top players. Want to know more?

• Anthology of Chess Combinations (3rd edition) by Chess Informant; and
• Beating the Petroff by GM Vassilios Kotronias and IM Andreas Tzermiadianos.

See also our Graphic Index of all our reviews.

Tell us we're not dreaming: Topalov - Kramnik in September. 'Al Ain City, 13 April 2006 • To All National Chess Federations & Media • Dear chess friends • Today is a historic day for our sport! After months of consultations with both players, I am pleased to announce that the World Championship match Topalov vs Kramnik will be held 21 September - 13 October 2006 in Elista, the capital of Kalmykia.' See you in September!

We normally don't pay too much attention to the world top-10 chess rankings. They change all the time and the rating differences between the players can be too small to be statistically significant. Moreover, we normally don't use the word 'historic', because it tends to be overused in our world of constant breaking news.

Even curmudgeons as hard boiled as us can't deny that the FIDE top-10 rankings for April 2006 are historic. For the first time in more than 20 years, Garry Kasparov is not the world's top rated player. That honor goes to FIDE World Champion Veselin Topalov (BUL, 2804), who finished a single point ahead of Viswanathan Anand (IND, 2803) for the first three months of 2006. Levon Aronian (ARM, 2756) ranked third, ahead of Peter Svidler (RUS, 2743) and Peter Leko (HUN, 2738). Read more...

February 1993: Only a few days after FIDE President Campomanes awarded the forthcoming World Chess Championship match to Manchester, England, World Champion Garry Kasparov and challenger Nigel Short announced that they would play their title match outside the jurisdiction of FIDE. Their decision and subsequent events created a schism in the World Championship which continued long afterwards. It was a defining event in the chess world. Read more...

Since the end of February, we've been discussing the upcoming election for the FIDE Presidency, including an analysis of the national federations claimed by each side. Did you know that Afghanistan has been claimed by both sides? Or that while the Ilyumzhinov ticket claims the support of more federations, the Kok ticket has the support of federations representing more FIDE rated players? • For background information, see Elsewhere on the Web, FIDE Presidential Election, 4 March 2006.

Sharp eyed visitors to About Chess might have noticed a new 'Related Blogs' link box (called a widget in About.com terminology) on many of the pages across the site. These are the chess blogs that we consult most frequently, some of them daily.

We know there are a lot more blogs than are listed there. While we will never have as complete a list as you can find on the Boylston Chess Club (BCC) blog, we will be adding a few more of our favorites from time to time. Read more...

SCG is an acronym which stands for 'Srbija i Crna Gora', better known to English speakers as 'Serbia and Montenegro', better known to many as ex-Yugoslavia. For years Yugoslavia was one of the world's top chess playing countries, behind only the USSR and the USA in the Olympiads. SCG continues the tradition. Read more... • See also our photo gallery from the 2006 SCG Championship.

In Who are the players?, we forward a question from a correspondent: 'Do you have any idea -who are the two players in the painting?' Despite our best efforts, we're stumped. Can you help?

Congratulations to Xu Yuhua of China, the new Women’s World Chess Champion! She defeated Alisa Galliamova of Russia in the final match of the 2006 Women’s World Championship, held at Ekaterinburg, Russia, 10-27 March 2006. Read more...

The opening 1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 is known as the Queen's Gambit Accepted (QGA). In contrast to the Queen's Gambit Declined (QGD, 2...e6), which gives Black a cramped game, the QGA promises a freer game at the cost of giving up the center temporarily. Everyone knows that after 2...dxc4, Black can't keep the Pawn, but there is a lot more to the QGA than that. Read more...