Chess
Gibraltar’s Battle Of The Sexes
The planet’s pre-emininent open chess tournament
Anand in Blunderland
Blunders happen even at the world championship level
Armenian Exceptionalism
Levon Aronian: Armenia’s world-title hope
Viking Versus Sepoy
The changing of the guard in the world of chess was achieved not by smash-and-grab play, but by herculean displays of patience
Radio Play
Chess may not seem suited to radio, but in the Sixties the BBC broadcast special programmes featuring the world’s greatest ever players
Twinkle Toes
Borislav Ivanov’s gadget-enhanced attempt to cheat his way to sporting success could have been lifted from a James Bond film
The Sublime Soviet
Leonid Stein was a virtuoso player whose unexplained death at 38 robbed the world of his otherworldly attacking brilliance
The Man in the Middle
Lothar Schmid was a great referee and a remarkable man: a former lawyer and grandmaster himself, he had the respect of even the respect of even the most temperamental of players
He Stood with Giants
Gennadi Sosonko’s intimate personal knowledge of the Soviet Union’s greatest grandmasters is unrivaled — and he was a useful player himself
Magnus Magnetism
London’s forthcoming Candidates tournament features the world’s best, including the highest-ranked player in history, Magnus Carlsen
Why Remoaners should back Boris
“Boris, ironically, now offers Remoaners the best chance of a soft Brexit, or at least a sensible one. And to those who want a second referendum—’the people’s vote’—there may even be a chance of that too.”
On the road
“In the summer of 1980, in the grip of some Kerouac-ish fantasy, I opted to hitch-hike from Laredo to New York”
Discovering the Great War of China
A third of a million Chinese labourers helped the Allies defeat the Kaiser, but their huge unsung contribution ended in betrayal