Not many chess careers are as long, as varied, and as successful as GM Susan Polgar has crafted. Not only was she the first woman to become a grandmaster via norms, the eldest of the famed Polgar sisters later became an Olympiad gold medalist, a w...
If you are wondering why I would talk about the blockbuster movie from the 1990s on a chess website, don't worry. This article is about the tenth World Champion, Boris Spassky, who passed away on February 27. While I saw Spassky on numerous occa...
The first official World Chess Championship occurred in 1886, with the first Women's World Championship following in 1927. The World Rapid Championship and World Blitz Championship are much more recent developments. FIDE held a one-off World Rapid...
His family envisioned a career as an accountant for him, but GM Wesley So defied expectations to become a chess world champion and one of the strongest players in the world. In a new Chess.com documentary on So's life, the 31-year-old grandmaste...
From 1974 until 1984, the Manhattan Chess Club (MCC) was located at 155 E 55th St. in Manhattan; FM Jeff Kastner, manager of the club during that time, reports that his office was near this old-timey Coke machine: Mark Ginsburg, old MCC, 1983....
Have you heard of the 2025 Chess Improvement Challenge? It's a massive group of chess players supporting each other and working on their goals for the year. Members gain access to our Improvers Club, study guides, and year-round content. They...
GM Koneru Humpy won the 2024 FIDE Women's World Rapid Chess Championship, her second time winning the world-class event. The 37-year-old also finished ninth in the Swiss portion of the FIDE Women's World Blitz Chess Championship 2024, just barely ...
GM Gukesh Dommaraju recently became the youngest ever undisputed classical chess world champion, at just 18 years old. He joins a long line of amazing chess prodigies dating back more than a century. You may have seen this famous photo of a young ...
Are you a dedicated chess player? If so, meet Darryll Alke, whose commitment to online chess might just leave you in awe. With more than 180,000,000 people from every corner of the world on Chess.com, we occasionally come across someone whose ac...
On November 25, World Champion Ding Liren will aim to defend his title in a match against GM Gukesh Dommaraju. IM Rakesh Kulkarni has analyzed the match and its place in chess history. Here's what we can look forward to. Match Details The 2024 ...
Credit for this article goes to Pavel Lint, a senior developer at Chessable. The article is part of a series on Garry Kasparov, the rest of which is available at the Chessable blog. You know what’s interesting about GM Garry Kasparov? Ever...
The 45th Chess Olympiad in Budapest featured 381 teams, but only one winning country. India totally dominated the event, winning both the Open and Women's sections with an unprecedented performance. A very impressive double gold achievement by...
In a heartwarming meeting, GM Judit Polgar welcomed the nine-year-old British chess prodigy WFM Bodhana Sivanandan to her home city, Budapest, for a day of lessons and mentorship. Bodhana, currently among the world's highest-rated players und...
The 45th FIDE Chess Olympiad runs September 11-22 in Budapest, Hungary. In many ways, this is the biggest chess event of the year with 1,893 players representing a record 381 teams across the Open and Women's sections of the competition! IM Rakesh...
Credit for this article goes to Torsten Blass, a professional data analyst who runs The Data Digest, a YouTube channel. You can visit his channel at https://www.youtube.com/@TheDataDigest. The weekly Chess.com event Titled Tuesday has long...
A few weeks ago, NM Todd Bryant analyzed the speed of everyone who had ever taken part in the Speed Chess Championship. Since then, the 2024 edition has narrowed down a field of 16 participants to four finalists to compete in P...
FM Faustino Oro recently made news by becoming the youngest International Master in history. As amazing as that accomplishment is, what he's demonstrated in online play is even more impressive. Let's take a look at Faustino's most amazing achievem...
For more than 50 years now, chess players have been statistically rated and ranked based on their record of wins, losses, and draws. These ratings give us a nice set of historical statistical data to use for various purposes. Sometimes, that purpo...
Do you still remember when you were bitten by the chess bug? Followed by that feverish desire to improve in the game? Only to realize that you started “too late” to amount to anything? In this era of prodigies and 12-year-old grandma...
There have been many attempts to estimate ratings of chess players, both past and present, by looking at their game scores and comparing the moves with a top engine's choices, including one notable study here on Chess.com in 2017. These at...
Who is the best? It's a question we ask about almost every competitive endeavor, and chess is no exception. For many years, we here at Chess.com have bestowed the Chess.com Awards at the end of every year. But it's time to think with longer timesc...
The game of chess didn't have a world championship until 1886. It took an additional 41 years for there to be a women's world championship, first held in 1927. Despite the shorter time period, there have been almost as many women's champio...
If you've enjoyed our previous data visualizations of the most accurate chess players over time and the countries with the most grandmasters over time, then you'll want to check out our latest: The top women over time! With the 2023 FIDE Women's...
GM Magnus Carlsen won't be the official world champion of classical chess for much longer, but he has proven again and again in events outside of the FIDE-managed classical world championship that he is the best player in the world. Carlsen's re...
GM Ian Nepomniachtchi is making his second attempt at winning the FIDE World Championship and is just three draws away from becoming champion. During last year's Sinquefield Cup, Nepomniachtchi sat down with Chess.com's GM Daniel "Danya" Narodit...
