Chess with Errol

The Philidor Defence is named after François-André Danican Philidor, the leading chess master of the second half of the 18th century and a pioneer of modern chess strategy.

Over time the column will aspire to publish the ten most remarkable chess games ever played.

During the pandemic persons took up chess as a hobby and as a challenge.

Recently, the column delivered some insights into chess openings and the middle game.

Grandmaster and the tenth world chess champion (1969-1972 ) Boris Spassky of Russia died two Thursdays ago.

Many of the chess games which I have replayed were decided in the middle game; either from material advantages, passed pawns, successful combinations or unimaginative blunders.

In any chess game there is an opening, a middle game and an ending.

There is this unending discussion in chess about whether the players of yesteryear could have matched the champions of today.

Prize funds in chess seem to have settled at US$1 million or US$2 million for a world championship match, US$500,000 for a Candidates tournament, US$300,000 for the Sinquefield Cup, the Magnus Tour majors, or the World Cup, in recent times.

There has been speculation about the lifetime earnings of elite chess players since last week’s article on the top earners of 2024.

Last week I wrote on the importance of owning a chess set for various reasons.

A cardinal principle of chess is that an active player should own, and treasure his or her individual chess set and chess clock.

In 1997, in New York, humans suffered an enormous blow to their chess ego when Deep Blue, a chess computer, outplayed Garry Kaspa-rov, a reigning world champion.

In mid-October last year, an elite chess player was expelled from a team championship in Spain after being accused of cheating by using a cell phone during bathroom breaks between moves.

The world witnessed the regrettable blunder the champion made during the final endgame of the 2024 World Championship Chess Match.

Guyana’s big moment in chess for 2024 was the Olympiad in Hungary.

Gukesh Dommaraju, 18, of India, captured the undisputed World Championship Chess Crown by beating Chinese world champion Ding Liren two Thursdays ago 7.5 to 6.5 in Singapore as was reported in the Chess Column last Sunday.

The world has a new chess champion. Grandmaster Gukesh Dommaraju, 18, on Thursday became the youngest person to attain this goal when he won the last game of the 14-game match, taking the title for India.

At the conclusion of round nine of the 2024 FIDE World Chess Championship on Thursday, the players were tied at 4.5-4 .5 in the 14-game encounter.  The first player to reach the 7.5 points mark wins the contest.

Scores were tied after the first three games of the FIDE 2024 World Championship Tournament between challenger Gukesh Dommaraju, 18, a rising chess star from India and champion Ding Liren of China.