1 Feb 2008 - Fischer & bits and pieces

 

Death Of The Most Famous Chess Champion

 

Robert James (Bobby) Fischer, the American chess superstar who won the World Championship title in 1972, has died, aged 64.

 

He dedicated his early life to climbing to the top of the chess world but after achieving his aim he retired from the game.  Apart from an exhibition match with old foe Boris Spassky in 1992, he never played competitive chess again.  Indeed, he repeatedly claimed that 'old style chess' was dead and he advocated a variation of the game in which the pieces started in random initial positions.

 

Fischer was a secretive and extremely private man but he was never afraid to share his outspoken and controversial views on a number of subjects.

 

Chess fans around the world continued to dream that he would return to play classical chess but he consistently turned down the vast amounts of money match sponsors tired to tempt him with.

 

The internet will soon be full of Fischer facts and news so to keep up with the breaking news I'd suggest a regular Google search.

 

He will be remembered as the boy loner who took on the might of the Soviet chess  machine and broke their lonmg-held dominance of the chess World Championship.

 

 

Top Players In Action

Follow The Games - Live!

 

The Corus Chess Tournament, one of the biggest annual highlights of the chess world, is now well underway.

 

Players include the current World Champion, Viswanathan Anand, plus former champions Vladimir Kramnik and Veselin Topalov.  British interest is enhanced by the inlcusion of Michael Adams.  The world's strongest woman chess player, Judit Polgar, is also playing.

 

To follow the games live, follow the link to the Corus homepage  

( http://www.coruschess.com/ )  and then click on the 'live games' link.

 

Links Updated

 

Our list of links is slowly but surely growing and you should be able to locate virtually anything chess-related you seek using one or more of those found at:   http://www.chesslinksproject.btik.com/links/all.ikml

More will be added on a regular basis.

 

Three more chess puzzles added - and answers to the first set are now available!

http://www.chesslinksproject.btik.com/p_Puzzles_and_Problems.ikml