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Editor: Dr Tim Harding
   Dr. Tim Harding   J. H. Blackburne     Paul Morphy   Correspondence Chess history book   Captain W. D. Evans

What's New Here

 

22 January 2026: 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 2026: 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 2026: 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: 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 We have to inform you that there will be no new Ultracorr this year; the 2025 edition was withdrawn after a family bereavement.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.

Many of next year's usual senior events are now in the calendar listings but the European Senior Team Championships are the big unknown. The English Seniors is also not yet announced.

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. The dates for the 2026 Bodensee congress in Bregenz, Austria, have now been released but details probably won't be available for some weeks. We shall review the calendar after we get home from Croatia.

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.

After consultations with organisers in England and Iceland, we are now sure that the 2026 World Senior Team Championships will be held next April in Durres, Albania, and we hope to find out the correct date span soon. The European Chess Union is yet to decide the new dates of their team event but it will definitely not be March in Rhodes.

It is regrettable that FIDE currently have two calendars (the main one and the Events Commission) which still show conflicting information more than two weeks after we first pointed out this fact.

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: 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.

27 (previously 3, 16, 20 & 23) June: We updated Irish news.

3 June (previously 26 and 28 May): Our Seniors news and the Seniors calendar are updated again. The problems with the website address and entry form for the 2025 European senior individual championships have been resolved so we now have updated links and files sent to us by the organisers.

26 May: We updated Irish news. The Drogheda congress is on this weekend and we call for players to support the upcoming Churchtown Challenge Cup team tournament (late June) and the Irish Championships (and supporting events) to be played in Ennis early in August.

20 May: We have updated the Seniors introduction page, the Senior news and, of course, our popular tournament calendar from where you can download the official documents of the European senior championships. Also Irish news is again updated.

16 May: Senior news is updated at last, Also Irish news is updated; the Ennis congress is being played this weekend.

16 (previously 14) May: We have again updated the Seniors calendar, adding a small tournament in Munich. We also note that the European Chess Union has changed the dates it previously announced for its 2026 senior team championships on the Greek island of Rhodes. It will now be in late March, not April.

5 (previously 4) May: Our Seniors calendar was just updated to add some new tournaments in Germany (October/November) and a weekender in Ennis (Ireland) in August. Irish news and the Irish seniors page were also updated this evening.

28 April: The English Seniors Championship has concluded and we did some small updates tonight.

The pages were not updated yesterday due to a bereavement in the editor's family. We hope to be able to resume normal service gradually through the summer.

 

26 (previously 24 and 25) April: The English Seniors Championship is in progress, so we again updated our British Seniors page where we hope to follow that event over the weekend. We also provide a link to the results of the Guildford Seniors.

Our Seniors calendar was updated yesterday.

23 April: We updated many pages today including the Seniors calendar and Seniors news, Irish Seniors and the general Irish news page.

18 (previously 17) April: We added another French tournament to our Seniors calendar and updated Irish news. The Irish Seniors page is also brought up to date now.

15 (previously 14) April: The European Chess Union announced that the European Senior Individual Championships will be held from 26 September to 6 October 2025 in Rabac, Croatia (near Pula). No further details are available as yet. The dates and details of the 3rd Cap Negret Seniors are also added to our calendar.

13 April: The Seniors Calendar, main Seniors news and Seniors introduction pages are all updated, as is Irish news.

13 April (previously 11 and 12 April): Tonight we also updated British Seniors as well as our page about the European Senior Team Championships. The event concluded today.

10 April: Tonight we only updated our page about the European Senior Team Championships.

9 April: Tonight we updated our page about the European Senior Team Championships after round five but also added two more tournaments to our Seniors calendar.

8 April: Tonight we only updated our page about the European Senior Team Championships with round 4 results and tomorrow's round 5 team pairings.

7 April: Tonight we updated not only the page for the European Seniors (linked below) but also British Seniors and the Irish news page (following last weekend's Galway congress).

6 April: We updated our page about the European Senior Team Championships with round 2 results and tomorrow's round 3 team pairings.

5 April: We have again updated our page about the European Senior Team Championships following the first round results today. In the 50+ tournament, England-1 defeated top seeds Germany thanks to a win with Black by Michael Adams against Klaus Bischoff. We hope to be able to update this page after each round, probably late in the day or the following morning.

Our British Seniors page now has the line-ups of all the UK teams and the general Seniors news page is updated too.

4 April: We updated our page about the European Senior Team Championships yesterday evening because the chess-results link changed. There has been a further withdrawal and now only 17 teams are contesting the two sections, which is very disappointing, especially for the players who have travelled a long way to compete.

3 April: The European Senior Team Championships begin play on Saturday so we have started a special page devoted to that event. Other items remain on the usual Seniors news page. We also updated the Seniors calendar, our Seniors introduction page, British seniors and Irish news.

31 (previously 29) March: Minor updates to the Seniors calendar.

22 March: Earlier than expected, we have updated our Seniors calendar, the Seniors news and Seniors introduction pages again. This is because of the sensational (and most welcome) announcement that this year's FIDE World Senior individual championships will include a 75+ world championship tournament. We hope it will be well supported.

21 (previously 15 and 19) March: Seniors news and the Seniors calendar were updated today.

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: As we warned a few days ago would happen, we have now withdrawn our Ultracorr correspondence chess database from sale until further notice.

27 February: We have finalised some of our reports about Prague (especially the British and Irish Seniors) and updated the calendar and news pages. Just as we "went to press" we learned of Boris Spassky's death. We interviewed him once for a Dublin newspaper.

26 (previously 25) February: The team championships in Prague just concluded but we had a busy family day so we shall probably add more details tomorrow or Friday to the headlines posted this evening.

24 February: Today we report after round 7 of the 2025 World Senior Team Championships which saw England-1 nearly slip up in the 50+ but the Americans also drew. Those teams meet tomorrow and there are other countries in with a good chance of medals. In the 65+ England-1 look comfortable and it is only the destination of the bronze medals that is likely to come down to the final games.

24 February: The British Seniors page is also updated, as are Irish news and Irish Seniors.

23 February: Play resumed today in the 2025 World Senior Team Championships in Prague. We only had time for minimal updates.

22 February: Today was a rest day in Prague. Late this evening we have completely rewritten our British Seniors page, adding the scores of all the English and Scottish teams after five rounds. We also made a small change to our main report page.

21 (previously 19 & 20) February: Once more we have had a very busy day with family matters, but we have managed to update our reports on the 2025 World Senior Team Championships. Tomorrow, Saturday is a rest day. We again updated the Irish seniors and British seniors pages.

18 February: Our reports on the 2025 World Senior Team Championships have been updated again after round 2. Today's big surprise was that the 50+ holders and top seeds, USA, were held to a 2-2 draw.

17 February: Our report page for the 2025 World Senior Team Championships has been updated again at the end of the day. Many top games were shown live on Lichess.

There were very few upsets in the 50+ section but in the 65+ tournament more games went against seeding. The top seeds, a club German team, were held to a draw and Raj Bjopal of Scotland defeated the 2018 World Senior Champion, GM Vlastimil Jansa in a very complicated game.

The progress of the Irish teams and British teams can be followed on separate pages which we hope to update after each round although our available time is limited for personal reasons. Our main Seniors news page and calendar are updated too, and our obituary for Stewart Reuben is now on a separate page. Irish news also had a small update.

15 February: A new page has been started for the 2025 World Senior Team Championships which commence on Monday in Prague. The regular Seniors news and Seniors introduction pages and the Seniors calendar are also updated. So also is Irish news.

7 February 2025: Today we concentrated on some improvements to our UltraCorr 2025 database. The introductory page has been rewritten, two new pages have been added giving further information and explaining metadata and an additional 8,000+ games are offered free in a supplementary file.

6 February 2025: We have updated our Seniors news and British seniors pages to mark the death of well-known player and organiser Stewart Reuben, who was in his 86th year.

4 February 2025: In the past couple of days we have updated the Seniors calendar and Seniors news and Irish news.

31 January 2025: Seniors calendar has added the dates of the 2025 British Championships (just announced today), for which also see the British Seniors page. The other page updated today is Irish news, as the Sligo tournament is on this weekend.

27 January 2025: Seniors calendar has had a major update including some German tournaments that are not in the German federation's own senior calendar. Seniors news is also updated.

21 January 2025: Seniors calendar has some additions and changes around Easter time.

21 January 2025: Also uploaded, to repair broken links and update some statements: Blackburne games and the main page about our Steinitz in London book. Further link-checking and repairs are planned.

19 January 2025: We have updated Seniors news and the Seniors calendar as well as the Irish news page tonight.

17 January 2025: Our new correspondence chess game database UltraCorr2025 is launched today. You can now download the database in a single encrypted archive file in either the old ChessBase CBH format or the newer format that works in ChessBase 17 and 18 (or both if you wish). Payment is via PayPal and customers will be sent the passwords after their payment is confirmed.

17 January 2025: Irish news has had a small update as the Gonzaga tournamnets start tonight.

12 January 2025: We have updated Seniors news, the Seniors calendar, the British Seniors page and Irish news today. We also posted a skeleton introductory page for our UltraCorr2025 database which is at an advanced stage of preparation. The next update of this site will be in 7-10 days when the database is released.

Meanwhile, 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 January 2025: Several pages have been updated including our Seniors introduction page which is the essential starting place for any readers who reach the age of 50 at any date this year.

Also updated are the Senior news page and Seniors calendar (with three new tournaments), and Irish news. Further updates may be made to the site over the next few days.

26 December: Just a small revision of the Seniors calendar and Irish news today because the details of the 2025 European Seniors Team Championships have finally been released.

The next full update of our site will probably be on 1 January.

19 December: Our last main update in 2024 of the Seniors news. The holders, USA, have now entered their team for the World 50+ Team Championship in February.

14 December: The Seniors news, Seniors calendar and Seniors introduction pages have been updated, and also Irish news.

3 December: Today there are updates for the Irish news, Seniors news, Seniors calendar and British Seniors pages.

28 (previously 25, 26 & 27) November: Our final report on the World Senior Championships is now available, along with updates to our Seniors introduction and the main Senior news and Seniors calendar pages. Irish news and Irish senior news were also updated.

24 November: Irish news and Irish senior news were updated. The Seniors calendar had a small update and will be checked later this week.

22 (previously 17, 18, 19, 20 & 21) November: Our report on the World Senior Championships has been updated again with news of round six. Irish news was also updated.

Top games are live on Lichess daily from about 1515 GMT but Saturday 23rd is a rest day and we won't be posting.

Next week we again hope to report late each evening after the rounds, but we shall also be watching Ding Liren's attempt to stave off the challenge of Gukesh in Singapore. Games start in the morning if you are in Europe and during the night for readers in the Americas.

17 (previously 16) November: The Seniors calendar has had a major update. Seniors news was also updated and Irish news was updated on Saurday.

10 (previously 8) November: The Seniors calendar has several new dates and Seniors news was updated also.

8 November: The British seniors page was corrected. Irish seniors and our general Irish news pages were updated.

6 November: Seniors news previews the World individual seniors championships which begin at the end of next week. We tidied up our final report on the European individual senior championships.

3 November: Major update including our Seniors news page, the final report on the European individual senior championships, our Seniors introduction page and the Seniors calendar. Also the British seniors, Irish seniors and general Irish news pages.

26 October to 1 November: Our report on the European individual senior championships was updated daily. The Seniors news and calendar pages had small updates during the week.

28 (previously 24 and 25) October: Our Seniors news page, Seniors calendar and Irish news have been updated in the past two days. Also our Irish seniors page was updated today including a game.

22 October: Our Seniors news page and Seniors calendar have been updated, while we also comment on the ECF/Arkell selection row on our updated British Seniors page. Irish news is also updated.

19 (previously 7 & 11 & 15) October: Our Seniors news page and Seniors calendar have been slightly updated, as have Irish news and the Irish seniors page.

1 October: The Seniors news, Seniors calendar, Irish news and Irish seniors pages were all updated. You can see the links to those pages below.

The new 2024 FIDE Arbiters Manual can be downloaded from this site and our page for Irish chess arbiters is also updated.

28 (previously 26) September: We updated the Senior news, and Seniors calendar pages because the details of the 2025 World Senior Team Championships have been published. Entries are open up to 1 January. Our Seniors introduction page and Irish seniors pages are also updated.

25 September: We have updated the Senior news and Seniors calendar pages and completely rewritten the Irish news and Irish seniors pages. Sally Rooney's new chess-related novel receives some attention.

FIDE has announced that the closing date to enter the World Seniors individual championships has been extended to the 16th of October.

22 September: Our 2024 olympiad final report was posted in the evening after play finished, and it remains available, along with our report about the Irish teams.

21 (previously 18, 19 & 20 September): The olympiad overview and Irish olympiad pages were all updated yet repeatedly. We also made minor updates to some other pages.

17 September: We have updated the Senior news and Seniors calendar pages, and also our Irish pages. We have tidied up our overview of the olympiad. This was the rest day in the Olympiad.

16 (previously 12, 13, 14 & 15) September: We have a general overview of the olympiad for all our readers. Also updated daily were our Irish news and Irish olympiad pages.

13 September: We made small updates to the Senior news and Seniors calendar pages.

11 September: We started a special page about the Irish teams at the Olympiad. The main Irish news page is updated too.

While the FIDE Olympiad is in progress, we shall mostly report on that event, but we will keep a watching brief on Seniors matters and update those pages if necessary, probably on the rest day.

10 September: Senior news and Seniors calendar and Irish news are updated.

4 September (previously 31 August, 1 & 2 & 3 Sept.): Senior news and Seniors calendar and Seniors introduction pages are updated. The dates of several new events for late 2024 and 2025 have been added in recent days.

3 September: Irish news was also updated.

1 September: Blackburne This month 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: 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.

23 August: Senior news was also updated.

26 August: Senior news and Irish news were updated.

23 August: Senior news and Seniors calendar and Irish news were updated.

20 August: 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.

 

20 August: Irish news was updated with a report on the women's championship. We also tidied up a page about our database UltraCorr2024.

19-20 August: Senior news and Seniors calendar were updated.

15 August: Major Senior news today: the Portuguese organisers of the FIDE World individual senior championships are organising charter flights to the venue, Porto Santo. These will probably fill up quickly so anybody considering entering should read their announcement and make a quick decision. Contact the organisers soon if this is of interest to you.

14 August: We have reorganised two areas of the site to clear space on the active news pages. Irish news and the main Seniors news pages will now have topical items only. The report on the recent Irish Championship is now separated and we have also created new pages for British senior news and Irish senior news.

13 August: Irish news has been updated with the announcement of the venue for next year's championships. Seniors news and the Seniors calendar were also updated.

12 August: The 2024 Irish Champion has been crowned; congratulations to IM David Fitzsimons. Irish news has been completely rewritten this morning, removing a lot of old news.

11 (previously 7, 9 and 10) August: Irish news is updated once more. Seniors news and the Seniors calendar were also updated again today.

6 (previously 2,3, 4 and 5) August: We again updated Seniors news, the Seniors calendar and Irish news.

The Seniors news page includes a short report on the British seniors championships which ended in victory for GM Keith Arkell (in the 50+) and Irish FM Andrew Smith in the 65+. Congratulations to them both.

Last Saturday we also updated our comments on the fiasco that the FIDE 2024 World Individual Senior Championships are becoming because of the unavailability of flights to the venue. Consequently entries are very low.

29th (previously 20th, 25th, 26th and 27th) July: We updated Seniors news, the Seniors calendar and Irish news.

17th July: Quick update of Senior news with today's pairings and last night's results in the US Senior Championship. Follow the links we provide there to see the moves (only on chess.com) and two options for commentary. It's not ideal though.

16th July: Now back home, we have today updated the Seniors calendar, our Senior news and Seniors introduction pages, and also Irish news. Note that the closed US Senior Championship (50+) begins this evening with live commentary likely to be available from about 1820 (British time) daily. You can find a link on the news page. Irish news is also updated today.

11th July: The World Senior Team Championships ended today and we have finalised our reports. You can see the other links below. Thge delay in upodating was due to a thunderstorm (making it unwise to plug in a laptop to mains electriucity) following by a lengthy closing ceremony and then dinner. Anyway the event is over and you can read the reports at your leisure while we travel.

10th July: We put up separate pages for the closing stages of the two sections as follows: 50+ tournament (rounds 8 and 9); 65+ tournament (rounds 8 and 9).

We shall update the calendar early next week after we get home.

11th (previously 10th) July: Irish news was also updated on both days.

9th July: Our report on the latest round (including brief round 8 preview) and the page with reports on previous rounds were updated jduering the France v Spain football match.

(The review of individual performances will definitely not be updated until after round 8.)

8th July: Our pages about the World Senior Team Championships in Krakow are now up to date. The report on the latest round (and preview of tomorrow) and the page with reports on previous rounds are now ready.

8th July: Irish news was updated this morning before we went on a tour of the Wieliczka salt mines, after which a late lunch and rest were required. Yesterday's official results and round 7 pairings were only posted first thing this morning.

7th July: Tonight there was only a limited update of our Krakow news because the official results of round 6 have not been made available at the usual time. Tomorrow, Monday, is the rest day and most people are going on guided tours.

6th July: Late this evening, after the Euros football ended, we updated the round-by-round report to cover round 5 and a preview of Sunday's round 6.

The report for round 4 (originally posted mid-day) has now been moved to the new page with our reports on previous rounds.

We split our reports because the active report page was becoming too long. The introductory Krakow page and calendar page were also updated earlier in the day.

5th July: The round-by-round reports are growing. Tonight there was only a skeleton report because we were playing and there was Euros football.

4th July: The round-by-round reports are growing.

3rd July: The round-by-round reports are updated with round 2 and the team pairings for tomorrow's round 3. Today's giant-killers were England Women in the 50+; well done, ladies!

2nd July: At the end of the day, we have posted the first of our round-by-round reports. The only real upset was the Welsh victory in the 50+ championship against Geermany-1; congratulations to them.

This morning saw the technical meeting for the captains and organisers at the FIDE World Senior Teams Championships (50+ and 65+). Final team declarations had to be made before the seedings are confirmed and the pairings posted.

1st July: We also updated our Seniors introductory page, the Seniors calendar and Irish news. Most players have arrived in Krakow today and the Galaxy Hotel (venue for the event) is suddenly very busy.

30 June: We arived in Krakow as part of the Irish advance party for the senior champion ships. It was a hot humid day which ended in a thunderstorm.

26 (previously 17 & 21 & 24) June: We updated our Seniors news and calendar pages, and our preview of the World Senior Teams in Krakow several times. Also Irish news was updated again.

We fly to Krakow on Sunday 30 June, two days before the tournament starts, and intend to report daily from there from Tuesday. Most other pages on this site will probably not be updated while we are away. Orders pending for UltraCorr2024 should be sent to us immediately as they will only be processed slowly, if at all, from Krakow.

10 (previously 7) June: Updates of our introduction to Seniors chess tournaments, our Seniors news and calendar pages, and our preview of the World Senior Teams in Krakow. Also Irish news was updated.

4 (previously 1st) June: Our Irish news page and many of our Seniors pages, including news and the calendar, have been updated. FIDE has announced dates and venues for its 2025 World Senior Championships.

28 (previously 24, 25 & 26) May: FIDE has at last announced details of the 2024 World individual senior championships. Our Seniors news page includes a reply we received from the organisers about travel arrangements to the venue. We also highlight the English Seniors championships which ended today.

28 (previously 24 & 25) May: Our Seniors calendar is updated again, as is our Seniors introduction page.

22 May: Details of the October tournament at Spitz in Austria are now added to the Seniors calendar. In Seniors news we have an update on entries for the English Seniors which start on Friday.

21 May (updated 28 May): Preview page for the World Senior Team Championships; entry lists have just been posted.

21 May: Since our return home, we have updated the Seniors calendar two or three times. Today we update the Seniors introduction page, our Seniors news page and Irish news.

16 (previously 15) May: We have posted a final report on the final round of the European Seniors Teams Championships.

14 May: Our Euro Seniors Teams report (updated tonight after round 8) is now supplemented by a round-by-round summary on a separate page. The main Seniors news page is also updated.

13 May: Our Euro Seniors Teams page now reports on round 7 and the pairings for round 8 as the fight for the podium positions clarifies. England are now favourites to win both the 50+ and 65+.

12 May: The main Seniors news page and Seniors calendar were brought up to date earlier in the day and our page on the Euro Seniors Teams now includes coverage of round 6.

12 May: The Irish news page is also updated now. The last round of the Leinster leagues was played today.

We regret that some visitors may have experienced problems with the site over the weekend, due to an error at our hosting company, but we believe all should be OK again. If you find any missing links or images please inform us.

11 (previously 7 & 8 & 9) May: We have a special page to report on the European Seniors Team Championship in Terme Catez, Slovenia. Five of the nine rounds have now been played.

7 May: Other Seniors news may be found on the usual news page and the Seniors calendar is also updated.

7 May: Our Irish news page is also updated with the results of last weekend's Malahide tournament.

2 May: There were several updates today to our Seniors news, our Seniors calendar and Seniors introduction page. A busy season of events for the over 50s is now under way.

2 May: Our Irish news page reports on the National Club Championships, held last weekend, and airs concerns about the serious backlog with the Irish rating system.

26 (previously 2, 9, 15 & 19) April: Yet again we have updated Seniors news, our Seniors calendar and Irish news.

23 (previously 20) March: Our Seniors news and Seniors calendar were updated again today.

15 (previously 5 and 8) March: Again we have updated Seniors news, the Seniors calendar and Irish news.

8 March: The Seniors introduction page was updated.

3 March: Version 2 of our UltraCorr2024 database has just been released, with more than 20,000 new games and many corrections. This will be the final version of the year. Purchasers of the original version have been emailed the new passwords.

19 February: John Elburg's review of our UltraCorr2024 database is now online.

17 February: Small changes to the Seniors calendar and website home page.

14 February: At last we are able to bring you major updates to our Seniors news and calendar pages, while the Seniors introduction page is also revised.

13 February: Our website was switched to SSL security today. You should no longer have a "not secure" warning in your browser.

13 February: Irish news is updated, as are Seniors news and calendar. Bids closed on 1 February for the 2025 FIDE World Senior championships and there is one bid each for the team and individual events.

31 January: 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.

30 January: Irish news is updated. Seniors news and calendar are also updated, although there is not much new to report.

22 January: We have updated some of the information files about our UltraCorr2024 database, which has already met with a good response on the first weekend after its launch. The page with additional information has been supplemented by a new page discusisng how we deal with player and tournament metadata.

22 (previously 18 & 19) January: Our Seniors calendar has been updated but there are no major new annoucements. We corrected the dates of the Bergen-Chiemgau congress in late May and the conditions of the German Senior Derby in March.

19 January: Our UltraCorr2024 correspondence chess game database is now on general release. This is not just the 2023 edition with new games added. It has in fact been totally rebuilt from its sources and re-edited to make it as accurate as possible.

Recent customers have already been offered discounts. If you bought in 2021, 2022 or 2023 but did not receive our email, your address may have changed from what you used before. If so, please contact us.

 

9 January: Our UltraCorr2024 correspondence chess game database is almost ready.

9 January: Our Seniors introduction page, Seniors news, and calendar are updated, and so is Irish news.

29 December 2023: We updated our Seniors introduction and Seniors calendar pages. Much old news has now been stripped out of the Seniors news page to clear the decks for 2024.

22 December: FIDE has received a bid to host the 2024 World Seniors individual championships in Portugal; see our news page. Today we also updated our Irish news and Irish arbiters pages.

Happy Christmas! Then don't forget to watch online some of the World Rapid and Blitz Championships which begin in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, on 26 December.

16 December: FIDE has revoked the provisional award of the 2024 World Senior individual championships that were expected to be held in Romania. There is currently a new call for bids, which closes on Thursday. See our news page.

12 (previously 5, 6, 7, 8 and 11) December: Our seniors calendar, our Seniors introduction and Seniors news are now updated including details of several tournaments that had only a skeleton listing previously. There is now a very wide choice of senior competitions in western Europe in the first half of 2024 and doubtless more will be announced later.

Older updates are no longer listed here, with a few exceptions, except for references to our own books and various pages which remain available as they don't go out of date.

 

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: Tim Harding's personal homepage was updated.

6 September: 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.