This week's episode of the New In Chess Podcast features an interview with Dutch businessman and chess benefactor Bessel Kok.
Bessel is one of the founders of SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, which provides the main messaging network through which international payments are initiated. In the 1980's, Bessel organised the first SWIFT chess tournaments, which significantly raised the standards for chess professionalism. He befriended several of the world's strongest players, including Garry Kasparov. Together with them, he would go on to found the Grandmaster Association (GMA), an organisation aimed at creating "a high-quality environment for chess and to promote professional chess by grandmasters". Although the GMA would eventually disappear, Bessel kept his interest in chess while remaining active in other fields, such as film production and pro cycling.
Interviewed by Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam, Bessel retells the story of the origins of the GMA, his175
New in Chess is among the sponsors of a camp and tournament in Roquetas in Spain, starting 3rd May (arrival for camp) and 9th May (arrival for the tournament). Both can be found at kctchesscamps.com. You can participate in one without participating in the other. Or both, of course.
The tournament was renamed Saturday when we heard the tragic news of the untimely death of one of the arbiters of the event, Malaysian FM Peter Long. Peter was one of my closest friends. The tournament will be called:
The Peter Long Memorial – 2nd Killer Chess Training
The Open Participation fee for the camp is €1,250, while the entry fee for the tournament is €100. The early bird discount has expired, but the hotel has highly affordable rates as well.
In other news, we have published a number of books in the last few weeks:
Mastering Chess Exchanges by Jacob Aagaard and Renier Castellanos
Chess Opening Repertoire: Accelerated Dragon by Nigel Davies
Learn from the Legends 2 by Mihail Marin
Chess Opening Repertoire:175
This week’s episode of the New In Chess Podcast features an interview with Hungarian grandmaster Peter Leko. A world-class grandmaster and former prodigy, Peter now works as a coach and has achieved acclaim as one of the most popular online chess commentators.
Peter Leko was extremely successful as a player. As a young kid of only 14 years, four months and 22 days, he became a grandmaster in 1994. This achievement made him the youngest grandmaster in the world at the time, breaking the old record of Judit Polgar. Peter rapidly grew into a world-class player and ultimately challenged for the world title against Vladimir Kramnik in 2004. This proved to be both a high in Leko’s career and a traumatic moment, as he was leading by one point going into the last game and dramatically lost that game, allowing Kramnik to retain the title. In 2025, Peter is no longer an active player and devotes himself to commentary and coaching, with Vincent Keymer as his most notable pupil.
In a lively and engaging175
This week’s episode of the New In Chess Podcast features the second part of a narration from “The Essential Sosonko”, a collection of chess portraits and stories authored by chess grandmaster Genna Sosonko. The subject of this week’s episode is Latvian grandmaster Mikhail Tal.
This week's narration, which is the fifth in a six-part series, chronicles the "second surge" of Tal's career, where he achieved over-the-board success despite having lost some of his trademark aggression. It also delves deeper into Tal's personality off-the-board. A mild-mannered freethinker, Tal was wary of the totalitarian Soviet regime of which he was a part, and always sought to maintain his independence without ruffling too many feathers "at home".
Narrated by professional voice actor Nick Murphy, this week’s episode about Mikhail Tal is different from the two-part “My Misha” series from May of last year. Instead of an active participant, Genna is more of a background figure this time. However, this does175
These book reviews by Matthew Sadler were published in New In Chess magazine 2025#1
In one of those chess books without chess in it, Peter Doggers manages to serve the contingent of new chess fans who started as Netflix watchers or YouTube subscribers. It is a worthy introduction to chess and the world behind it.
My youngest nephew received a SIM card for his phone for Christmas which has led to some late-night calls from him (don’t tell his parents) excitedly explaining the ins and outs of an esports game called Rocket League. It involves flying cars playing football, it’s played professionally, and the best player in the world is a Frenchman called Zen. My nephew hasn’t shown much interest in chess so far but after the chess.com announcement that chess would be included in the inaugural 2025 Olympic Esports Games (next to games like Rocket League), maybe I’ll jump in his esteem!Announcements like this do make me feel my age. As a chess player175
These book reviews by Matthew Sadler were published in New In Chess magazine 2024#8
The third volume of Viktor Korchnoi’s biography still does not bring clarity. So many things happen in Korchnoi’s games that they are sometimes very difficult to understand.
It’s a strange feeling to read a modern repertoire book, Queen’s Gambit Accepted by Nicolas Yap, about an opening you have known extremely well, only to discover that every recommendation would have been considered completely unsound in your day! In all fairness, none of Yap’s lines are particularly well-known even a year after the publication of the book, but they have been played by super-grandmasters on various occasions.It’s always an interesting question for an older player like me to ponder why certain possibilities remained hidden to us in the pre-computer age, despite intensive analysis of that opening over many years. I certainly thought a few times about meeting 1.d4 d5 2.c4 dxc4 3.e4 with175
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