Interzonal Tournament News Today

Herman Grooten is an International Master, a renowned trainer and the author of several highly acclaimed books on chess training and strategy. In the 175th episode of his ChessBase show "Understanding before moving" Herman continues his series "Chess history in a nutshell" and takes a look at the career and games of Bobby Fischer, World Champion from 1972 to 1975. | Photo: Pascal Simon

It came as something of a surprise that Toronto was chosen by FIDE as host of both Candidates Tournaments, but Canada has a rich chess history and has produced some great players over the years. Here's a brief outline:

Herman Grooten is an International Master, a renowned trainer and the author of several highly acclaimed books on chess training and strategy. In the 172nd episode of his ChessBase show "Understanding before moving" Herman continues his series "Chess history in a nutshell" and takes a look at the chess legacy of Boris Spassky, World Champion from 1969 to 1972. | Photo: Pascal Simon

In this pictorial Quiz for Easter, you need to guess who is in the photograph. Ten chess players in rare and unusual photographs. Some are easy, others are less easy, some include a hint. Check it out! At the bottom you will find the solutions and photo credits. Happy Easter to everyone!

Klaus Darga was one of the best German players in the 1960s and 1970s. Darga represented Germany in team events multiple times and belonged to the extended world elite before he gave up his career for professional reasons around 1970. He later worked as a national coach for the German Chess Federation. Today he is celebrating his 90th birthday, making him the oldest chess grandmaster in the world.

During his long career Viktor Kortschnoi (23 March 1931 - 6 June 2016) won against Botvinnik, Smyslov, Tal, Petrosian, Spassky, Fischer, Karpov, Kasparov and Carlsen. He never became World Champion himself, but you might think that "he could beat anyone". But this is just a cliché. For although Kortschnoi played a total of 17 games with classical time control against Anand and Kramnik in the course of his life, he never scored a full point against either of them. | Photo: Kortschn...

In 1971 Bobby Fischer was on his way to the World Championship, but agreed to take part in a blitz tournament in New York, organised by the Manhattan Chess Club. Fischer won the tournament 25.5 - 0.5. But in round 1, Fischer came close to losing against the well-known and popular author GM Andrew Soltis, but managed to turn the tables. On Twitter/X Davide Nastasio shared a picture of this encounter - and here is the story behind the picture.

The name Erich Eliskases is familiar to only a few chess enthusiasts today. However, the Austrian was one of the best players in the world in the late 1930s. In 1941 he was supposed to play for the World Championship with Alexander Alekhine. But things turned out differently. 15 February 2023 is the 110th birthday of Eliskases, who was born in Innsbruck, Austria, and died in Cordoba, Argentina.

On Friday last week, Croatian grandmaster Miso Cebalo passed away in Zagreb. In his younger years, Cebalo was one of Yugoslavia’s best bridge players. He was also a linguistic genius. Cebalo was a national player for Yugoslavia, then Croatia, and in later years was active as an author, commentator and coach. Miso Cebalo was 77 years old.

Efim Geller, one of Ukraine’s greatest chess talents, would have turned 97 years old on March 8 this year. An extraordinary player, he also had a doctorate in Physical Education, and worked as a second to Tigran Petrosian, Boris Spassky and Anatoly Karpov. Experts estimate Geller was among the top ten players in the world for about twenty years.