Web Watch

19 August 2003

Chess FM is fast becoming a very valuable online chess resource. I recommend you to check out Opening for Amateurs by Pete Tamburro and Great Games in Chess History by NM Dennis Monokrousssos, which currently shows the critical game Keres-Smyslov from Zurich 1953.

I already mentioned in Chess Today a hilarious British magazine Kingpin, which has several articles online. One of them is a Letter from Hungary, from a mysterious ex-US player - good laugh! Another funny page is called Readers' Letters to New in Chess.

A friend recently asked me about books in which chess played an important part. I knew of quite a few such books. Nabokov's The Luzhin Defence and Zweig's The Royal Game were easy candidates, but there are many more stories and novels with chess motifs. For example, I like that theme in Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading. After some research I found a useful page listing many (but certainly not all!) books with a chess theme.