New In Chess Podcast

This week’s episode of the New In Chess Podcast features an interview with Danish grandmaster Peter Heine Nielsen. Peter is a five-time Danish chess champion, but is primarily known for his highly successful coaching career. From 2007 till 2023, he was continuously coaching the reigning World Champion, working first for Vishy Anand and later for Magnus Carlsen. In this capacity, he was a winning c...

This week’s episode of the New In Chess Podcast features a narration from “The Essential Sosonko”, a collection of chess portraits based on personal stories authored by chess grandmaster Genna Sosonko. This week features the second part of Genna’s story about Dutch grandmaster Max Euwe (1901-1981). Machgielis “Max” Euwe was the fifth World Chess Champion, a title he held from 1935 until 1937. Afte...

This week’s episode of the New In Chess Podcast features an interview with French grandmaster Joel Lautier. Joel has had a rich chess career: he became the youngest Junior World Champion in history in 1988, holds a lifetime positive score against Garry Kasparov and is, along with Vasily Ivanchuk, the only grandmaster of his generation to have defeated all world champions of his time: Karpov, Kaspa...

This week’s episode of the New In Chess Podcast features an interview with Dutch grandmaster Loek van Wely. Loek was the captain of the winning team, the Triveni Continental Kings, at the recent Tech Mahindra Global Chess League in London. Loek van Wely can look back on a rich career as a player. He won the Dutch championship 8 times and had his career peak in 2001, when he made it to the world to...

This week’s episode of the New In Chess Podcast features a narration from “The Essential Sosonko”, a collection of chess portraits based on personal stories authored by chess grandmaster Genna Sosonko. Subject of this week’s episode is Dutch grandmaster Max Euwe (1901-1981). Machgielis “Max” Euwe was the fifth World Chess Champion, a title he held from 1935 until 1937. After retiring as a player,...

This week’s episode of the New In Chess Podcast features an interview with grandmaster Alex Colovic. Alex is a grandmaster from North Macedonia, who lives in Skopje, and is active in the chess world in many ways. He’s not only a player, but also a trainer, a blogger, a YouTuber, a former president of the Association of Chess Professionals, and a FIDE Fair Play Officer. We invited Alex this week to...

This week’s episode of the New In Chess Podcast features a narration from “The Essential Sosonko”, a collection of chess portraits based on personal stories authored by chess grandmaster Genna Sosonko. As the title of his autobiography, Chess Is My Life, hints at, Korchnoi’s drive, passion and obsession for the game of chess were as strong as they had always been. He simply lived for chess: his en...

This week’s episode of the New In Chess Podcast features an interview with American grandmaster Max Dlugy. Max Dlugy has had a rich and varied chess career: he was Junior World Champion, became president of the United States Chess Federation at the young age of 24, worked for IBM on the groundbreaking Deep Blue chess computer project, and today runs his own successful chess school, the Chess Max A...

This week’s episode of the New In Chess Podcast features a narration from “The Essential Sosonko”, a collection of chess portraits based on personal stories authored by chess grandmaster Genna Sosonko. Continuing where we left off in Episode #33, Sosonko invites us to sit beside him as Olga Clark continues her talk about Capablanca and the time that they spent together both in Europe and in Americ...

This week’s episode of the New In Chess Podcast features an interview with Swedish grandmaster Tiger Hillarp Persson. Tiger is a three-time Swedish champion and has been described as one of the most creative and original players of our game. His creativity is on display in his latest book, “Tiger’s Chaos Theory”, in which, perhaps unsurprisingly, the topic of creativity in chess plays an important...

This week’s episode of the New In Chess Podcast features an interview with American IM John Donaldson. At this year’s Olympiad, John will be captaining team USA, the top seeds in Budapest.  John has a long history of captaining the American Olympiad team, making his debut in Dubai in 1986 and leading the team to gold in Baku in 2016. This year will be his fifteenth time accompanying the American t...

This week’s episode of the New In Chess Podcast features a riveting interview with the First Lady of Chess, Judit Polgar. With the Olympiad in Judit’s home city Budapest around the corner, it’s hard to think of a better guest! Judit Polgar is the strongest female chess player of all time. At the age of 15 years and four months she broke Bobby Fischer’s record to become the youngest grandmaster in...

This week’s episode of the New In Chess Podcast features an interview with Indian grandmaster Vishnu Prasanna, better known as Coach Vishnu. Vishnu is best known as the first trainer of Gukesh D, who will challenge reigning champion Ding Liren for the world title later this year. Vishnu has deep ties to the Indian city of Chennai, where he and his wife operate the Vishnu Chess Academy. Interviewed...

This week’s episode of the New In Chess Podcast features a narration from “The Essential Sosonko”, a collection of chess portraits based on personal stories authored by chess grandmaster Genna Sosonko. This week’s episode features the first half of the story of legendary World Champion Capablanca. José Raúl Capablanca (1888–1942) was a Cuban chess prodigy who became the third World Chess Champion,...

This week's episode of the New In Chess Podcast features a narration from Genna Sosonko's “The Essential Sosonko” on Lev Polugaevsky. An expert on the Sicilian Defence, Polugaevsky wrote two books on the opening and has one variation named after him. He was one of the strongest chess players of the late 1960s and early 1970s, but had to bow to his nemesis Viktor Korchnoi twice in the Candidates To...

This week’s episode of the New In Chess Podcast features an interview with American FIDE master and chess author Charles Hertan. Charles’s latest work “The Real Paul Morphy” focuses on the life and career of one of the most enigmatic figures in chess history. Paul Morphy (1837-1884) learned chess at a young age and quickly made a name for himself as a prodigious talent. Known for his brilliant, ag...

This week's episode of the New In Chess Podcast features the second half of the narration from Genna Sosonko's “The Essential Sosonko” on Mikhail Botvinnik. Continuing where we ended two weeks ago, we find Botvinnik giving his perception on several his chess colleagues. He then proceeds to talk about other matters that are close to his heart, such as the future of computer chess and his own painfu...

This week’s episode of the New In Chess Podcast features an interview with FIDE Master Jimmy Adams. Jimmy has had a rich career in chess publishing, both as an editor (CHESS magazine, Batsford and others) and as a writer and compiler of countless books. Among his best-known books published by New In Chess are impressive tomes on Breyer, Chigorin and Zukertort. His latest chess-historical gem is an...

This week’s episode of the New In Chess Podcast features a narration from “The Essential Sosonko”, a collection of chess portraits based on personal stories authored by chess grandmaster Genna Sosonko. This episode is the first of a two-part story about Mikhail Botvinnik. He won the 1948 World Chess Championship tournament and thus became the sixth World Chess Champion, thereby succeeding Alekhine...

This week’s episode of the New In Chess Podcast features an interview with American grandmaster Robert Hess. A former US #5 with a peak FIDE rating of 2639, Robert is renowned as one of Chess.com’s star commentators, covering its largest events such as the World Chess Championship and the Candidates Tournament. Growing up in New York City, Robert showed promise in chess at an early age, but he cre...

This week’s episode of the New In Chess Podcast features a narration from “The Essential Sosonko”, a collection of chess portraits based on personal stories authored by chess grandmaster Genna Sosonko. In this episode Sosonko draws up a portrait of the ninth World Champion Tigran Petrosian. Lauded by the Armenian populus as a national hero, Tigran often found himself accompanied by fans wherever h...

Dear Chess Friend, This week’s episode of the New In Chess Podcast features an interview with grandmaster Jan Timman. One of the world’s leading players during the 80’s and 90’s, Jan was at some point considered the best non-Soviet chess player in the world, acquiring the nickname “The Best of the West”. Jan is also an active chess author and composer, and still spends much of his time creating en...

This week’s episode of the New In Chess Podcast features an interview with American grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura. One of the few bona fide chess superstars of the current era, Hikaru is the world’s 3rd ranked player with a June 2024 FIDE rating of 2794, and was one of the frontrunners to win this year’s Candidates Tournament. Other over-the-board successes include five US titles and a victory in th...

This week's episode of the New In Chess Podcast delves into the life and career of one of the greatest chess-players of all time: Garry Kasparov. The "Beast of Baku", whose matches with Anatoly Karpov meant a redefining of the format of the World Championship match, was feared by many for his deep preparation and knowledge in the opening. After announcing his retirement from chess in 2005, Kasparo...

This week’s episode of the New In Chess Podcast features an interview with Norwegian grandmaster Simen Agdestein. Simen made history by becoming the first Norwegian chess grandmaster in 1985. A nine-time Norwegian chess champion, Simen also had a notable career in professional football, representing the Norwegian national team nine times. Additionally, he has been credited with discovering and fos...