The man who has spent his whole life in the game

A fighter and a survivor - Obituaries and Reminiscences

More than 220 wins in tournament, match and team career events for Viktor Korchnoi (always strictly chess contests of grandmaster strength)

Chronological summary of all First Prizes won in adult GM competitions (not counting club level, exhibitions, etc., without junior or senior events)

Compendium: International tournament series

A wrap-up of all past and present major recurring individual international chess tournament *serials* in classical chess (closed invitational round robin all-play-all and open swiss system)

More than eighty tournaments (past and present events) are presented in detail, among them the full story on the former supertournament series of Las Palmas and Palma de Mallorca. Exclusive in the Web: Banja Luka

Special: International tournament series in Switzerland

Major recurring international open or closed chess tournament series held in Switzerland - past and present, featuring Basel, Bern, Biel / Bienne, Geneva, Lausanne, Lucerne, Lugano, Zurich all incl. Horgen

Player biographies, a selection

Featuring uncrowned chess giants, and players who achieved a special cult character, who have become national heroes and / or worked with Viktor Korchnoi as a second (assistant). Sometimes a strong current player is portrayed, too.

On a zero-sum ranking system and Elo rating inflation

In historical comparisons, ranking matters, not nominal rating, referring to top-level. A provocative essay and empirical research

The legendary film icon Arthur Cohn is 90 years young

La diagonale du fou, produced by Arthur Cohn won the Academy Award Best Foreign Language Film in 1985: The first Oscar for Switzerland :)

From Russia with Love - James Bond 007: A famous film scene!

Exclusive in the Web: Open Superseries, an overview

Register of about twenty recurring international Open Supertournament series (named "Superopen" in analogy to the closed "Supertournament") in classical chess, from past and present.

A Chess Superopen series is big and diverse (strength and largeness of the top participating grandmasters and the status of the tournament in continuation), mixed in gender and ages, with players representing not only various countries, but also different continents.

Closed elite series, an overview

A selection of strong international invitation chess tournament *series*. By definition, the overview is focussed on series.

Note: Three countries, Spain, The Netherlands, and former Yugoslavia organised the most invitation tournament *series* in the modern era of chess since WWII. Tournament series held from there, are summarized under the corresponding chessdiagonals web sites.

Great Britain (international tournament tradition since 1851) and Belgium (the chess centre of the world in the mid- and late 1980s) are presented in full history in their section respectively.

International Chess Festival of Biel / Bienne

The 51st Festival edition took place from July, 21 to August, 1, 2018

Magnus Carlsen from Norway, the reigning World Chess Champion and the World's Number One, and his father Henrik Carlsen in the Open, met the International Biel Festival again.

Seven undisputed World Chess Champions played at Biel Chess Festival (Interzonals included):

Smyslov, Tal, Petrosian, Karpov, Kramnik, Anand, and Carlsen, a seven-time participant who played in 2012 as no. 1 of the world, and again in 2018 as no.1 of the world and reigning World Champion.

Chess is a game for all ages: Magnus Carlsen is the youngest winner in the history of the Biel GM Invitation Tournament, at age of 16 in 2007; Viktor Korchnoi is the oldest winner ever at Biel at age of 70 in 2001 (above Svidler as second and Gelfand as third, followed by joint Grischuk, Lautier, Pelletier).

The Biel GM Invitation Tournament 2018 was won in a double round robin by Mamedyarov ahead of Carlsen. Vachier-Lagrave and Svidler finished third / fourth, Navara was fifth, and young Nico Georgiadis from Switzerland placed sixth and last.

The Modern Monuments: World Elite Tournament Series in Classical Chess