Every few years somebody discovers the French-American artist Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), connects him with chess and quotes him:"While all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists."

One day the world's top-rated chess player Magnus Carlsen will sit down and write about his games. This is what the great players do, but not yet. At 21, he is too young to be distracted by that on the way to become the world champion.

After triumphing in two major tournaments, in London in December and in Wijk aan Zee in January, Magnus Carlsen is a clear favorite to win the eight-player Candidates event in London (March 15-April 1).

On Monday, the Norwegian chess superstar Magnus Carlsen, 22, won the London Chess Classic in grand style, breaking Garry Kasparov's 13-year-old rating record by 10 points. "Pretty cool," Magnus described the biggest achievement of his chess career.

The careers of top chess players last 25 years or even longer. They can challenge the world's best already as teenagers and can continue for six, seven decades until they turn into ageless warriors. At what point do they play the best? What is the optimal age for success in chess?

Plagiarism was in the news lately and chess has its own champions. They use other people's material without attribution and present it as their own. To put it less elegantly, the offenders blatantly, unscrupulously and dishonestly steal work from other authors.

Chess players don't move like the Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt. They advance to the finish line with a steady, deliberate pace. Chess events take days, weeks and sometimes months to finish. What the best chess players have in common with Bolt is the enormous will to win.

Lurking in the background, hiding their identity, they seem mysterious, magical, beautiful. At first, they observed the game from a distance, but as centuries went by, women were drawn closer to the chessboard.

How much do you have to know to become a strong chess player? According to Russian folklore you have to know 300 chess positions to become a grandmaster, but nobody knows what exactly these positions are.

The moniker "Mozart of Chess" occurred to me when I was looking for a subhead for Magnus's great game against Sipke Ernst in Wijk aan Zee in 2004.

Chess is the only sport where smoking was not only possible; it was quite common. For some mental athletes, such as the late world chess champion Mikhail Tal or the legendary grandmaster Viktor Korchnoi, performing without cigarettes was unthinkable.

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.

Those who play the Grunfeld defense know that it can turn into a nightmare in an instant. But the defense also brings them bright moments, tempts them again and again, and they cannot live without it.

Like in any sport, there are chess players who try to win at all costs, bending the rules in their favor. But there are also noble chess warriors who believe in decency and fair-play.

World chess champion Vishy Anand visited Prague shortly before Czech president Vaclav Klaus celebrated his 70th birthday with a jazz concert at the Prague castle.

This contest consisted of three parts: a trivia question, a chess study and a chess problem. And the winners are...

He predicted the opponent and the outcome with these words: "It will by Short and it will be short." He also likes the movies Casablanca, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and The Godfather. Who is this grandmaster?

Gelfand's match against Anand could be interesting. Both players have vast opening knowledge, strive for initiative, can defend well and love to play dynamic chess. It could be the last time players over forty play for the championship.

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.

He was one of the world's leading chess players in the 1950s and 1960s and the Yugoslav player of the 20th century. After nearly seven decades playing chess, the legendary grandmaster Svetozar Gligoric turned to music.