Congratulations to Viswanathan Anand of India, who captured the undisputed title of World Chess Champion by finishing ahead of seven other top grandmasters in Mexico City. Leading by one point with two rounds to be played, Anand drew his last two games to win the coveted title.

Anand first captured the World Championship in 2000 by winning a FIDE knockout tournament split between New Delhi and Tehran. Through no fault of his own, the victory was marred by a schism in the World Chess Championship that lasted from 1993 to 2006, when two competing factions claimed ownership of the world title. He had twice achieved challenger status and qualified for the final match, the first time in 1995 playing for the non-FIDE title and the second time in 1998 for the FIDE title, but lost the deciding match on both occasions.

Shortly after Anand's victory in Mexico, FIDE confirmed his status as the world's leading player when he topped the latest rating list at 2801, ahead of Vassily Ivanchuk (no.2, 2787) and Vladimir Kramnik (no.3, 2785). It was Anand's third consecutive appearance at the top of the quarterly list. Read more...

A few weeks back we posted a three part series called Getting Started with Chess.

• Learn to Play Chess
• Strategy and Tactics
• Learn the Openings

Thanks to everyone who responded to What Am I Missing?. We've incorporated several of your comments into the series. • Do you know someone who wants to learn to play chess, but doesn't know where to start? Consider steering them to our two introductory email courses.

• Chess 101 - How to Play Chess
• Chess 102 - Beyond Beginner

It's never too late to start playing the world's greatest game!

If chess were on television, it would be something like World Chess News. An English language introduction explains that the Swedish news reports are subtitled in English. In the latest episode (no.165), three charming young women -- Adriana, Amelia, and Antonia -- spotlight the World Championship in Mexico, a demand to standardize time controls, and a chess puzzle to solve (not too difficult!). There is also a segment on chess history. If you want to catch up on recent news, see the archive under 'Previous Episodes'. • TWIC with a twist. It's worth a watch.

In Jackson Whipps Showalter, Gingersaker informed us that a photo on the forum of 19th century U.S. Champion Jackson Showalter with his wife and daughter was labelled incorrectly: 'He did not have a daughter, and we don't think that was his wife. We have various photos of him, his wife, and their three sons.' • Who were the two women in our photo?

Tiebreak for the 2007 World Chess Championship, taking place in Mexico City, is scheduled for Sunday, 30 September, but with two rounds to go in the world's premier chess event, playoffs shouldn't be necessary.

India's Viswanathan Anand, the world's top ranked player, leads by a full point with 8.0 after 12 games played over second place Boris Gelfand (ranked world no.13, Israel). Gelfand is a half-point ahead of reigning World Champion Vladimir Kramnik (no.3, Russia). The other five players trail in negative territory with more games lost than won.

Barring a major upset, Anand will be crowned World Chess Champion this weekend. The Indian grandmaster first won the FIDE World Championship at Tehran in December 2000.

Forum Discussion: 2007 FIDE World Championship • Official Site: ChessMexico.com • For more about the World Championship tournament in Mexico City, see our ChessChrono, 2007 World Championship.

August was an exceptionally rich month for chess events. The chess blogs were packed with news about these (and many more): 40th Biel Chess Festival, where the top event was won by Magnus Carlsen; U.S. Open; MonRoi Womens' Grand Prix, won by Pia Cramling; Arctic Challenge (Tromso, Norway), won by Sergei Shipov; 5th Gyorgy Marx Memorial (Paks, Hungary), won by Peter Acs; 5th Staunton Memorial, won by Michael Adams; 94th British Championship, won by Jacob Aagaard; Chess Classic Mainz, won by Viswanathan Anand over Levon Aronian, with Aronian taking revenge over Anand to win the Chess960 event; French Championship, won by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave; Euwe Stimulans (Arnhem, Netherlands), won by Amon Simutowe; 4th China vs. Russia match; NH tournament of 'Rising stars' (Amsterdam); and the start of the U.S. Chess League's (USCL) 2007 season. • Of special interest to the chess blogosphere was the first Chess Blog Carnival, hosted by jacklemoine.blogspot.com. Appearing on the 1st September, it featured blog posts from August and earlier. Read more...

Regular visitors to About Chess know that we regularly update the links to external web sites listed in the left hand column under 'Topics'. Our goal is to keep the links up-to-date by confirming that each link still works, by deleting links to sites that have gone stale or disappeared, and by adding new links from our 'watch' list. This month we tackled the links for Beginning and Intermediate players...

• Chess for Beginners - Learn to Play
• Chess Instruction - Improve Your Game

...This included several related topics...

• Teachers / Trainers
• Improve Your Openings
• Improve Your Tactics
• Improve Your Endgame
• Tips for Better Results

...Along with our usual link snipping, we pruned links that offer little more than similar material found on About Chess. If we send you to another site, it's for a good reason.

For more about how we maintain our links, see our Reviews of Online Chess Resources. • If you have a favorite site that's not listed, just click on 'comments', mention your suggestion, and we'll consider it.

In What are EPD files for?, hessonchess asks, 'I know that many programs can create and open an "epd" file which I believe is just of a chess position and not a game, right? Just wondering what they're good for.' • If you know something about the use (or abuse) of EPD files, how about letting us know.

At the halfway point in the 2007 World Chess Championship, being played 13-29 September in Mexico City, world no.1 Viswanathan Anand leads the eight player, double round robin event with 5.0 points out of seven games played, a half point ahead of second place Boris Gelfand (4.5).

Third in the overall standing and a half point behind Gelfand, is reigning World Champion Vladimir Kramnik (4.0). Rounding out the field are Alexander Grischuk (3.5), Peter Leko and Levon Aronian (both 3.0), plus Peter Svidler and Alexander Morozevich (both 2.5).

Anand's score of +3-0=4 includes wins over Grischuk, Aronian, and Svidler. The Indian grandmaster first won the FIDE World Championship at Tehran in December 2000.

Official Site: ChessMexico.com • For more about the World Championship tournament in Mexico City, see our ChessChrono, 2007 World Championship.

To become a better chess player, improve your endgame. It's a paradox, but some of the most difficult positions have the fewest pieces. How can you expect to handle 32 pieces when you have trouble with 5 or 6? Read more...