Vladimir Kramnik

Levon Aronian's brilliant victory at the prestigious Tata Steel tournament in Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands, would normally be the topic of our conversation. But it was a young Chinese girl, Hou Yifan, 17, who stole the limelight.

The former world champion Vladimir Kramnik won the London Chess Classic, a tournament that brought the English capital close to its former glory.

Christian Hesse's book The Joys of Chess is a compilation of chess stories, biographical sketches, games and fragments with references to art and science. It resembles work previously done by Tim Krabbé.

Levon Aronian's opponent in the Candidates Final for the world chess title was supposed to be the Bulgarian grandmaster Veselin Topalov. But both grandmasters are gone now, having lost the Candidates quarterfinal matches.

The 2011 U.S. Chess Championship begins today at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis, Mo., with 16 players, including the defending champion Gata Kamsky, the 1996 world championship challenger.

Levon Aronian won the Amber tournament in Monaco this month. He will be known as the last winner. After twenty years, the combined blindfold and rapid chess event, featuring the world's top players, comes to a halt.

On the day the Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic won the Australian Open in Melbourne, the American chess grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura, 23, achieved the best success of his life.

Are chess players becoming robots by repeating moves approved at home by their computers?

As we enter the new decade, the chess world is ruled by a middle-aged man and a teenage girl. A twenty-something phenom presides over the world's ratings and a new book recalling one of the greatest chess magicians has been published recently.

Who actually won this tournament? Magnus Carlsen doesn't have to worry. According to the rules set up by the London organizers, the 20-year-old grandmaster from Norway finished first and will collect 50,000 Euros for his efforts.