Polls

The poll result shows that almost three quarters of you are not following the Women’s World Championship. I would ask you who you think will win, but if most of you are not following it, you are probably not bothered. Perhaps Hou Yifan’s absence devalues the event in your eyes? The next question involves my […]

Our previous poll question was: “Hou Yifan deliberately lost her final-round game in Gibraltar in protest about her pairings. Do you sympathize with her decision?” An overwhelming majority voted for “No”. Hou Yifan is the current Women’s World Champion, but not for much longer, as she will not be playing in the 2017 event for

We have four World Championship/Carlsen poll results to catch up on. You were exactly right that 1.e4 e5 would be the most frequently played opening. It wasn’t even close, with 9 of the 12 classical games starting 1.e4 e5 (and 3 of the 4 tie-break games). But the poll-clickers should have had more faith in

Last week’s question was “Does Agon have the right to prohibit anyone from broadcasting the moves as they were made?” We saw a strong vote in favour of ‘No’. The courts (firstly in Moscow) will give their more binding verdicts in due course. Agon are trying to change the way chess broadcasts have been done

Last week’s question was “How does a 2500 player now compare with a 2500 player 20 years ago?” The most common view was that the 2500 player in 2016 is weaker than the 2500 player in 1996. But as the discussion showed, it’s not a simple topic, as measuring or even defining inflation in chess

Last week’s question was: ‘Which country will dominate world chess ten years from now?’  And the answer is… Scotland?! Ignoring all those super-patriots and jokers, I will rule out a tartan charge to greatness, and view the true order as China, India, USA, Russia. Intriguing to see Russia so low in your rankings. Maybe the