Nathaniel Green is a staff writer for Chess.com who writes articles, player biographies, Titled Tuesday reports, video scripts, and more. He has been playing chess for about 30 years and resides near Washington, DC, USA.
Especially in this era of social media, it seems like everyone's got something to say at almost all times. This has always been true of chess, about which a lot of stuff—some of it more useful than others—has been said. But of all...
What makes a photo "iconic" and not simply interesting or even outstanding? If you find that a difficult question to answer, you are not alone. The two leading dictionaries in the world can't exactly agree either. Merriam-Webster: iconic, ...
As eight of the world's very best grandmasters—GMs Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura, Alireza Firouzja, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, Gukesh Dommaraju, Vidit Gujrathi, and Nijat Abasov—descend on Toronto, Canada for the...
Last time we talked chess with ChatGPT, it had all sorts of weird ideas and terrible advice about chess. So, of course we left it at that, right? Au contraire. We doubled down—literally. We added another AI, Google's Gemini, into the mix a...
Artificial intelligence is well on its way to controlling the world, or so the computers would have us believe. In reality, computers on their own are still pretty dumb things, even when they appear smart. We spent some time asking ChatGPT some ...
If you haven't heard of Guinness World Records, either you're a time traveler who departed sometime before the idea was developed in 1955, or you're even less aware of popular culture than I am. And I don't know which of those possibilities is mor...
For more than 50 years now, chess players have been statistically rated and ranked based on their record of wins, losses, and draws. These ratings give us a nice set of historical statistical data to use for various purposes. Sometimes, that purpo...
In 2023, GM Magnus Carlsen became the first chess player to eclipse $10,000,000 in lifetime winnings just from major tournaments alone—never mind from sponsorships or royalties or helping to run a business. After winning more than $700,000 i...
The Collegiate Chess League (CCL) began in 2020 and allowed top college chess teams to compete while over-the-board chess was inactive during the pandemic. It has quickly become a premier event in the space, joining the much longer-standing Pan Am...
Who is the best? It's a question we ask about almost every competitive endeavor, and chess is no exception. For many years, we here at Chess.com have bestowed the Chess.com Awards at the end of every year. But it's time to think with longer timesc...
PogChamps is a series of chess tournaments that Chess.com began in 2020. What is PogChamps, where did it come from, and what has it meant for chess? Answers to these questions and more. Origins PogChamps PogChamps 2 PogChamps 3 PogCh...
The game of chess didn't have a world championship until 1886. It took an additional 41 years for there to be a women's world championship, first held in 1927. Despite the shorter time period, there have been as many women's champions, 17,...
If you've enjoyed our previous data visualizations of the most accurate chess players over time and the countries with the most grandmasters over time, then you'll want to check out our latest: The top women over time! With the 2023 FIDE Women's...
What unites us as chess players? No matter where we live or what we do for a living, we have a game that each of us enjoys. In fact, every chess player is a little bit like Batman: It's not who we are underneath, but what we do that defines us. An...
By now you've seen our ranking of every opening move and our ranking of every possible response by Black to 1.e4 from White. Naturally, here comes every possible response by Black to 1.d4 from White. As in the e4 article, moves are given with th...
You sit down at the board or your computer and wait to see how your opponent will start the game. As they reach for the e-pawn, in your mind you roll your eyes and mutter, "Here we go again." With that quick sulk out of the way, it's...
There are 20 possible first moves in chess: each of the eight pawns can move one or two squares forward, and each of the two knights has two squares it can go to. But not everything that is equally legal is equally advisable as a course of actio...
The month of May brings with it the Pro Chess League playoffs! An exciting regular season that began with 16 teams is down to eight playoff squads. It is now time to crown a champion, who will receive a $25,000 first-place prize. Of the original $...
GM Magnus Carlsen won't be the official world champion of classical chess for much longer, but he has proven again and again in events outside of the FIDE-managed classical world championship that he is the best player in the world. Carlsen's re...
GM Ian Nepomniachtchi entered the 2023 FIDE World Championship as the number-two player in the world. You don't get to that position or win two Candidates Tournaments in two years (2021 and 2022) by only playing mundane moves. Sometimes you have t...
The Main Event of the Pro Chess League begins on February 14. Sixteen teams will vie for a championship worth $25,000 for first place and $150,000 overall. Each team has six to ten players on the roster. Four will play each week, including at le...
Today we bring you the players who won the most prize money in the major international chess events of 2022. Back in August, we revealed which chess players had won the most prize money throughout history for their performance in major matches and...
Chess is a simple game, really. Queen moves here, horsey moves there, checkmate. Okay not quite, but it is true that the hard part is playing well, not learning how to play. At least, in most cases. Some rules in chess are easy to get wrong&mdas...
As we approach the year 2023, the same distance from the year 2000 as the original theatrical release of Star Wars, the chess world chugs forward to the next world championship and another year of fun, excitement, and growth. They say that age i...
Chess, like any form of competition, has always seen its fair share of unfair play. From prearranged draws to computer cheats, where there's the will for ill-gotten gains, players have found the way. Whether the side being cheated can prove it or ...
