For beginners: how to play. For competitors: tournament rules. For arbiters: the details and the fun cases.
The number next to your name is not magic - behind it is simple mathematics you can understand in five minutes.
Open →Everything you need to sit down at the board for the first time and play properly, without fear, without shortcuts, step by step.
Open →A game does not have to have a winner - here is every way it can end level, and why stalemate can ruin a winning position.
Open →Notation is the language of chess - once you have it, you can read any game in the world and write down your own.
Open →Titles are neither bought nor given away - here is how grandmaster, international master and the other titles are really earned, and how the open titles differ from the women's ones.
Open →The same chess, only the clock ticks faster - here is how FIDE splits the time controls, which ones are played most often, and why blitz and rapid have their own separate ratings.
Open →Everyone plays every round, nobody is knocked out, and at the end you still know who is best - here is how the Swiss system does it and how the software makes the pairings.
Open →You know how to play and the first tournament is calling? Everything that is taken for granted at the board once you leave the living room: the clock, the scoresheet, touch-move, how to claim a draw and how to behave well.
Open →Everything an arbiter needs to know when a game goes wrong, from an illegal move to a ringing phone, plus a few cases that went down in history.
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