Curiosities
The human, curious and historical side of chess — water, chairs, coffee houses and the eccentric geniuses behind the game.
Water on the Board: Hydration and the Hidden Athleticism of Chess
Why grandmasters lose weight sitting still — and what a glass of water has to do with how well you calculate.
The Throne at the Board: Why the Chair Decides Long Games
Bobby Fischer had a chair flown across an ocean for his title match. He wasn't being a diva — he was being an athlete.
The Lighting, the Cameras, the Chair: Bobby Fischer's Stranger Demands
How perfectionism nearly sank the Match of the Century — and then produced one of its greatest comebacks.
Coffee, Revolution and the Royal Game: the Café de la Régence
For two centuries, the center of the chess world wasn't a federation or an arena — it was a Paris coffee house.
The Sleeping Gambit: Rest, Stamina and the Physical Toll of Championship Chess
A world title match once ended not in checkmate but in exhaustion. At the top, sleep is a weapon.
Does Chess Keep Your Brain Young? What the Research Actually Says
The honest answer to one of the game's favorite promises.
How Chess Masters Remember: The Secret Is “Chunking”
A master can rebuild a whole board from a glance — but only if the position makes sense.
Why So Many Chess Masters Are Musicians
From an opera composer to a world champion who sang, the board and the keyboard keep meeting.
The Turk: The 18th-Century Chess “Robot” That Fooled Emperors
For 84 years a wooden automaton beat Europe's finest — including Napoleon. Its secret was hiding in plain sight.
When the Queen Went Mad: How Chess's Weakest Piece Became Its Strongest
For centuries the queen could crawl one square at a time. Then, around 1475, she conquered the board.
The Lewis Chessmen: The Brooding Viking Warriors Found in the Sand
Discovered on a Scottish beach in 1831, these 12th-century ivory figures are chess's most famous treasure.
Sixty-Four Squares of Cold War: When Chess Was a Superpower Battlefield
For decades the USSR treated world chess supremacy as proof of a system. Then an American showed up.
Who Was Elo? The Physicist Who Put a Number on Chess Skill
Every rating from beginner to world champion traces back to one quiet professor.
Why the Bishop Is a “Fool”, an “Elephant” and a “Runner”: Chess Pieces Around the World
Follow the names of the pieces and you retrace chess's journey across three continents.
A Masterpiece at the Opera: Paul Morphy's Most Famous Game
In a Paris opera box in 1858, the world's best player won immortality in 17 moves — while the music played.
The Artist Who Quit Art for Chess: Marcel Duchamp
One of the 20th century's most influential artists walked away from art — to push wooden pieces around a board.
The Woman Who Beat the World's Best: Judit Polgár
She refused to play in women-only events — and became the strongest female player in history by beating the men.
Vera Menchik and Her “Club”: The First Women's World Champion
The men who lost to her were inducted, half-jokingly, into a club named after her. One was a future world champion.
The Day a Machine Beat the Champion: Deep Blue vs Kasparov, 1997
It took 227 years to get from a fake chess automaton to a real one that could topple the world's best.
Before the Clock, Games Lasted All Day: How the Chess Clock Changed Everything
The single most important piece of chess equipment isn't on the board. It's beside it.
The Longest Game Ever: 269 Moves and Over 20 Hours
Two players sat down over a chessboard and didn't get up, in effect, for the better part of a day.
The 12-Year-Old Grandmaster: Chess's Ever-Younger Prodigies
The title of grandmaster once belonged to grizzled veterans. Now it can belong to a seventh-grader.
Checkmate in Orbit: The First Chess Game Played from Space
In 1970, two cosmonauts took on Earth — and needed a specially built board so the pieces wouldn't float away.
Playing Without Seeing: The Astonishing Art of Blindfold Chess
Some masters can play dozens of games at once without looking at a single board — and one did it for the most human of reasons.
Chessboxing: The Sport That Mixes Checkmates and Knockouts
Alternating rounds of speed chess and boxing. Win with your mind or your fists — you'll need both.
Lose in Two Moves: The Fastest Checkmates in Chess
It is possible to lose a game of chess before you have really started it. Here's how — and how to avoid it.
“J'adoube”: The One French Word Every Chess Player Knows
Touch a piece and you may be forced to move it. Here's the rule that makes chess honest — and the magic word that suspends it.
The Queen's Gambit Effect: How a TV Show Made the World Play Chess
In late 2020, a fictional orphan named Beth Harmon did more for chess than any champion in decades.
The Queen's Gambit: The Opening Behind the Famous Name
The move that gave a Netflix hit its title is one of the oldest ideas in chess — and not really a gambit at all.
Castling: The Strange Move That Took Centuries to Evolve
The only move where two pieces move at once — invented to fix a problem the powerful new queen created.
Chess as Pure Art: The Hidden World of Problems and Studies
Some of the most beautiful chess ever created was never played in a game — it was composed, like music.
Chess by Mail: The Slow, Deep World of Correspondence Chess
Imagine a single game lasting years, one postcard at a time. For over a century, that was top chess for many.
The Champion's Curse: The Tragic Fates of Chess Legends
Some of the greatest minds the game has known met startlingly hard endings. Is genius at chess a gift or a burden?
From Deep Blue to AlphaZero: How AI Reinvented Chess Strategy
In 1997 a machine out-calculated us. Twenty years later, one taught itself to play — and changed how chess is understood.
Did Ivan the Terrible Play Chess? He Died at the Board
The tsar under whose reign chess was banned in Russia collapsed in 1584 while setting out the pieces — and the eyewitness wrote one word that historians still argue about.
Did Napoleon Play Chess? Yes — and He Was Not Very Good
The greatest strategist of his age loved the game, lost to a machine with a man inside it, and left behind games that probably are not his.
Did Leonardo da Vinci Play Chess? The Manuscript Found in 2006
A lost chess book by Leonardo's closest mathematical collaborator turned up in a private library — and its elegant pieces may have been drawn by Leonardo himself.