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Editor: Dr Tim Harding |
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Editor: Dr Tim Harding |
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© Dr Tim Harding
Last modified:
27 April 2026
27 (previously 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 & 26) April: We made a second update today after round 8 in the World Senior Teams Championships (50+ and 65+) at Durres, Albania. We preview the fight for medals in tomorrow's final round which will start at 2pm local time.
Look on Lichess.org for live broadcasts of the top matches in each section.
There have also been several updates in recent days to our Seniors calendar, the general Seniors news page, the Seniors introduction page and to British Seniors. Also the Irish news and Irish Seniors pages are updated.
16 April: A minor update to the Seniors calendar has been posted today after our return from holiday.
31 (previously 30) March: Pages updated in the past two days include the Seniors calendar, the Seniors news page and Irish news.
30 March: Partial update of our Mark Dvoretsky Bibliography page, to correct the details about Dvoretsky's Analytical Manual thanks to an email from a reader. We have not checked whether new editions of other titles have appeared in recent years. If there should be further updates to this page, please let us know.
13 March: Pages updated today include the Seniors calendar, with some new additions, the Seniors news page, Irish news and Irish seniors.
4 March (previously 1 & 3 March): We have once more updated the Seniors calendar with several new tournaments added in recent days.
The Seniors news has an update on the upcoming World Senior Teams Championship for which two FIDE (i.e., Russian teams) are now entered in the 65+ tournament. Will there be protests or boycotts? Our Irish news page is also updated.
24 (previously 23) February: Again there are major updates to Seniors news and the Seniors calendar. The former page previews the World Senior Team Championships, for which team listings are now available, and the latter now has the regulations ready to download for the European equivalent event which starts in Crete in late August.
24 February: Our Irish news page is also updated.
18 February: Today there are major updates to Seniors news and the Seniors calendar. Our Irish news page is also updated.
13 February: Today we updated Seniors news and the Seniors calendar.
22 January: Today we again updated Irish news and the Seniors calendar. The latter now includes a link to the invitation document for the European Senior individual championships.
16 January: Today we made a major overhaul of our Seniors calendar with several new entries and links. Irish news is also updated.
8 (previously 7) January: Our Seniors calendar and Seniors news and the Seniors introduction pages are all updated. The dates and venue for the European Senior Team Championships have finally been announced; details to follow later.
7 January 2026: It was a busy weekend in Irish chess. We have now updated our Irish news and Irish seniors pages too.
31 December 2025: We have updated our Seniors introduction page with the new eligibility rules that take effect from 1st January 2026. There is also a small update to our Seniors calendar but we expect to do more updates next week.
Some people have emailed us recently about our correspondence chess game database. We have to inform you that there will be no new Ultracorr this year; the 2025 edition was withdrawn after a family bereavement. We have not yet decided whether to do a final edition in future but for now our research into the career of Carl Schlechter is top priority.
16 December: Now that FIDE have released the details of next year's World Senior Team Championships, we have updated our Seniors news and Seniors calendar. The Irish news and Irish seniors pages are updated too.
10 (previously 7) December: Several updates to the Seniors calendar.
1 December: The Seniors calendar had much new information. Our Seniors news page reports on the tournament we won last month in Germany. The Irish news and Irish seniors pages report on Kilkenny and Benidorm and look forward to upcoming events.
26 November: Our Seniors news page reports on the tournament we just played in Germany. The Seniors calendar has some new information. The Irish news and Irish seniors pages report on last weekend's popular congress in Kilkenny.
22 (previously 18, 19 & 21) November: There are updates this week to our Seniors news and Seniors calendar and also to Irish news and Irish seniors.
14 November: There has been little to report since the World Senior Individual Championships ended. Prior to travelling to Germany for next week's Forderkreis senior festival, we have a few updates to our Seniors news and Seniors calendar and the Seniors introduction page.
14 November: The Irish news and Irish seniors pages are also updated.
6 (previously 5) November: We have some updates to our Seniors news and Seniors calendar. A fuller review of the website may be made later this week or next Sunday but we are still waiting on FIDE decisions about next year's senior team championships.
2 November: We have now tidied up our report on the the World Senior Individual Championships with small updates to the main Seniors news, our Seniors introduction page and Seniors calendar.
1 November: Late this evening, after returning from an away chess match, we have posted the final results in the World Senior Individual Championships which finished today. Other updates to the website will probably follow on Monday or Tuesday.
31 October (evening): Our report on the senior championships has been updated with the round ten results and final round pairings. Congratulations to the new Women's 50+ world champion, Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant of Scotland (originally from Georgia).
31 October (lunchtime): This morning we updated our report on the World Senior Individual Championships after yesterday's round 9 and previewing today's tenth round.
29 October: We updated our report on the World Senior Individual Championships after the completion of round 8 and the posting of the pairings for Thursday's round 9.
28 October: We have a major update to our Seniors calendar with many new 2026 listings.
28 October: We have posted a late update to our report on the World Senior Individual Championships after the completion of round 7 and the posting of the pairings for Wednesday's round 8. Our next update will probably be on Wednesday evening.
28 October: Also updated are Seniors news, our Irish news page and Irish seniors.
24 October: We report on the siuation in the World Senior Individual Championships after three rounds. Round 4 is being played this afternoon. Our calendar and other seniors news will be reviewed over the weekend.
24 October: We also report on our recent visit to the Royal Dutch Library, and outline our plans for research on the career of Carl Schlechter and on clearing up issues with the record of the Hastings 1895 tournament. These are ongoing projects about which we may write again later this year.
23 (previously 21 and 22) October: We have now updated our early report of the World Senior Individual Championships where round 2 is being played today. We hope to report on this event daily once it becomes more advanced.
23 October: We have a major update to our Irish seniors page. Also Irish news is updated again to give the latest news of our teams competing in the European Club Cup.
20 (previously 11) October: We have returned home from our research trip to The Hague last week which followed our participation in the European Seniors. We once again managed to update the Seniors calendar, our Seniors introduction page and Seniors news, as well as Irish news.
20 October: A page has been started for the World Senior Individual Championships which begin tomorrow in Italy. This will gradually be developed after the first round draw is published and more information becomes available.
6 October (previously 28 September and 3 October): While waiting for a plane, we have finalised our report on the European Senior Championships which finished yesterday.
26 September: Just a quick update to the Seniors calendar while we are travelling.
21 September: The Seniors calendar and Seniors news and Irish news all have major updates today. We have started a new page for the European Senior Championships which begin next Saturday in Croatia. There are also small changes to our Seniors introduction page and our Irish seniors page.
8 September: The Seniors calendar and Irish news both have major updates today. PDF details are posted for some new events on the calendar, both in 2025 and 2026, while others just have dates. There is also a small change to Seniors news.
5 September: Seniors news, the Seniors calendar and Irish news have major updates today. PDF details are posted for the Cracovia 2025 post-Christmas festival and a new event in southern Switzerland next April.
29 August: Just some minor corrections to various pages were posted today. Today was the official closing date to register for the European Senior Individual Championships but if you contact them by email immediately and send your money next week that will probably be OK. One of the two official hotels is now booked out.
28 August: Seniors news and the Seniors calendar were updated. Also Irish news and the Irish Seniors page were brought up to date. We also tidied up our links page but that probably requires more work in future.
The 33rd ICCF World Championship Final recently ended with all games being drawn, except for a few that were awarded against a player who had died after drawing six games. The outcome was that ten players tied for the title while six unlucky ones missed out through not continuing against him for a little longer. We are sad to say that this really looks like the end for elite correspondence chess, doesn't it?
20 August: Today we have added a new page about the Senior Championships of the USA thanks to a reader who kindly sent us much information but wishes to remain anonymous. This freed up the main Seniors news page for more recent information. It appears that once more there is uncertainty over next year's FIDE senior team championships. There are also update to our Seniors calendar and Irish news today.
15 (previously 12th) August: After returning home from the Irish Championship congress we have made major updates to the following pages: Seniors news, our Seniors calendar, our introduction page for players new to Seniors events, a page with Arbiter information, and also British Senior news, Irish news, the Irish Seniors, and our Irish Arbiters page. Apologies for the delay with some of these.
2 August (previously 27 July): Seniors news, our Seniors calendar and Irish news are all updated. The Irish Championship congress went west this year to Ennis, County Clare The British Championships were also on (in Liverpool), with the British Senior championships being played from August 4th-10th.
23 July: We have corrected the dates for Bad Wörishofen 2026 in our Seniors calendar.
20 July: We have a major update to our Seniors calendar adding the Hamburg seniors (October) and several new listings for 2026. Seniors news and Irish news are also updated.
14 (previously 7, 8 & 9) July: Following the query we raised earlier this month, FIDE fixed the error on their calendar concerning the venue for the 2026 World Senior Team Championships (but it's still wrong on the German calendar). The dates for the 2026 European individual seniors have also changed slightly. Accordingly we have updated our Seniors news and Seniors calendar pages. In the latter, note that a five-round 65+ FIDE-rated tournament has just been announced for the popular Kilkenny weekend congress in Ireland.
14 (previously 3 & 7) July: We have updated Irish news and Irish seniors, reporting on last weekend's successful Churchtown Challenge Cup event with 15 teams. A 7-round Freestyle rapoid event will be played in Dublin on 26 July. Entries for August's Irish Championships are picking up slowly.
3 July: Our Seniors news page asks whether, in the light of summer heatwaves, organisers of Senior tournaments in Europe need to rethink their plans for future years. There is also a small update to the Seniors calendar.
27 (previously 15, 16, 20 & 23) June 2025: We have updated the Seniors news and Seniors calendar. Belatedly we note on the former page the passing of an old friend from ICCF days, CC-GM Dr Fritz Baumbach, who was only a few months short of his 90th birthday. RIP.
Most older items have now been deleted from this page, with a few exceptions, mainly for obituaries and references to our own books. We have retained a few other links that remain of interest.
21 March 2025: We are revisiting our old project about fixing errors in databases concerning historic over-the-board games but this is a long-term project. The Hastings 1895 tournament and the career of Carl Schlechter are our main focus at present.
If anybody has found unpublished games by Schlechter please send them to us. We already have nearly 300 more scores than were published in Crain's collection of his games and where possible we want to know the primary printed sources for his games.
3 March 2025: As we warned a few days ago would happen, we have now withdrawn our Ultracorr correspondence chess database from sale until further notice. We do not rule out producing a final edition in 2027 or later but there will be no 2026 edition.
27 February 2025: Just as we "went to press" we learned of Boris Spassky's death. We interviewed him once for a Dublin newspaper.
12 January 2025: We were sorry to hear of the death last week of grandmaster Dr. Robert Hübner at the age of 76. He made numerous contributions to chess history and academic fields, as well as arguably being the strongest German chess master of the twentieth century.
1 September 2024: 
We specially remember the great English master Joseph Henry Blackburne (10 Dec. 1841-1 Sept. 1924) on the centenary of his death. At his peak, in the early 1880s, he was in the world top three (after Steinitz and Zukertort) and was the greatest British chess master before the post-WW2 era. We posted some new articles about him and hope to write further articles about his complicated family history at a later date, probably after the FIDE Olympiad.
28 (previously 27th) August 2024: Major new article about Blackburne as a blindfold player. This article was slightly rewritten with some more details added. We also added a photograph to our new Blackburne introductory page.
20 August 2024: A new introductory page about Joseph Henry Blackburne (1841-1924) and a short biographical page have been posted. On the page about our book on Blackburne (currently on sale from the publisher at $39.99) you can find a link to buy it.
13 February 2024: Our website was switched to SSL security today. You should no longer have a "not secure" warning in your browser.
31 January 2024: RIP Chess24 which closes down today. For many years this was the best site for watching online chess tournaments, often with great commentary. It fell into the clutches of the Play Magnus Group, which in turn was taken over by the unlovable chess.com. Chess24's premium membership and playing server (never the best) ceased in the summer of 2023 and now it has been deleted.
Also Quality Chess publishers, who we strongly recommend, launched a new site this week. Our links page is therefore updated.
28 October 2023: Specially for Hallowe'en, we remind you that our Frankenstein-Dracula story (first published in B. H. Wood's Chess magazine 45 years ago) is available again on this site for a limited period.
6 September 2023: Tim Harding's personal homepage was updated.
6 September 2023: A special celebration of the life and career of English double grandmaster (FIDE and ICCF) Jonathan Penrose, who died in 2021, is being planned to launch in Colchester, Essex, on 7 October. We made our obituary article and our Chess Mail magazine interview with Penrose available again on this website.
20 January 2023: The softcover corrected edition of Tim Harding's book Steinitz in London went on sale from the publisher, McFarland. An image of the new cover (depicting the Anderssen v Steinitz match of 1866) was substituted for the original on the side panel of several pages.
23 February 2022 : Revised our Steinitz errata page.
Several points which are not strictly speaking errors in the text can be found in a new page of research notes which we may develop in future. (Four new items were added to that page this week.) We show, for example, that chessgames.com purports to have the missing game Winawer-Steinitz, Baden-Baden 1870 but they are wrong and should delete it from their database.
22 November 2021: Obituary of Grigory Sanakoev, the 12th correspondence chess world champion.
8 October 2021: Photograph of the elderly J. H. Blackburne and his third wife posted on our new Blackburne family page.
30 August 2021: Obituary page for the late GM Evgeny Sveshnikov.
26 August 2021: Further update of our page about notices of Steinitz in London. The latest glowing review appeared in American Chess Magazine.
12 August 2021: Updated our page about notices of Steinitz in London. Somehow we had overlooked a 4-star review by GM Matthew Sadler which was published earlier this year in New In Chess magazine.
23 April 2021: Added a new page about notices of Steinitz in London. Including a translation of glowing review in Polish magazine Mat saying "This book is a milestone in the literature of chess history."
12 February 2021: Another new article about problems with later Steinitz games in databases.
7 February 2021: Start of a new series about errors in historic databases. Lasker v Steinitz match games go under the microscope. We also updated our research index and work in progress pages.
4 February 2021: We have updated our Steinitz errata page, also mentioning a letter which provides more information about Viennese chess a few years before Steinitz.
18 November 2020: Tim's article about Steinitz has been published in New In Chess magazine.
29 October 2020: The 7-part Netflix television drama The Queen's Gambit, based on the novel by Walter Tevis about a female chess prodigy in the 1960s, is beautifully made and we highly recommend it.
4 July 2020: Tim Harding was officially notified that his application for the title of FIDE Arbiter is approved. He completed his qualification shortly before the Covid-19 pandemic broke out. Tim's homepage is also updated.
19 June 2020: Update on books by the late Mark Dvoretsky. A fifth, posthumous, edition of his Endgame Manual has just been published.
5 May 2020 (new article): How Sir Theodore Tylor, the blind chess master, was portrayed in a novel.
30 March 2020: Early Blackburne game with H. E. Atkins turns up. More Blackburne game corrections sent in by readers. We also posted on that page today PDF copies of the birth and death certificates of John Blackburn (who died in infancy), a brother of the chess master whose existence was unknown to us when we wrote our biography.
27 January 2018: The death occurred of Max Zavanelli, a leading figure in ICCF and American correspondence chess for decades, and a major supporter of Chess Mail in the years when we published our printed magazine. Max had been battling cancer for a long time. The ICCF website has an obituary. Along with George Pyrich and Carlos Flores Gutierrez (see below), who both died just before Christmas, Max was a major figure in guiding the transition of ICCF from the postal to the internet era.
13 January 2018: Made numerous minor corrections to our pages about 7-man endgames. There is a wealth of chess here for anyone who has not yet studied these endings.
24 December 2017: Sad news of the death
of an old friend, CC-IM George Pyrich (1951-2017), the Financial Director
of ICCF (pictured right). We met George at numerous ICCF Congresses between
1994 and 2015 and always enjoyed his company. Latterly he lived in Spain but
he was a native of Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland. His death is a sad loss to the
correspondence chess community worldwide. The ICCF website carries an obituary
by Scottish CC Association President, Iain Mackintosh, and also an obituary
by Alan Borwell of Carlos Flores Gutierrez, another old friend and major figure
of his generation in CC. See also our Hans Berliner
obituary.
24 October 2017: Updated Blackburne book information, with the recently rediscovered finish to the game Blackburne-Jacobs from the 1904 British Championship. (Thanks to John Saunders.) Also Blackburne's last published game, from his final visit to Glasgow.