6 The Chess Police

Cops in Pittsburgh are fostering a better relationship with the public they serve simply by sitting down to play chess with them.

8 NIC’s Café

Finally we find out the real origins of Batman’s strategic mastery.

10 The wait is over

After 400 long days Ian Nepomniachtchi won the Candidates tournament in Yekaterinburg. The tension that had built up for so many months, was essentially released in a week, as ‘Nepo’ only needed five games to become Magnus Carlsen’s next Challenger.

18 Fair & Square

How does world-famous string theorist Michio Kaku see the universe?

42 Finding Nepo

Mark Glukhovsky weighs his compatriot’s chances to dethrone ‘the strongest chess player of the 21st century’.

46 Nineteen Forever

Jan Timman describes the preamble to Bobby Fischer’s Candidates match against Tigran Petrosian in 1971 and analyses the first game that took the American’s winning streak to an incredible 19 games.

54 Carlsen ends 6-month drought

His last tournament win dated back to last October. The Norwegian finally shook off his discontent and frustration as he clinched the New In Chess Classic, beating old rival Hikaru Nakamura in the final.

57 Celeb64: Will Smith

59 Champion rating Champions

Magnus Carlsen awards points to the World Champions starting from Fischer (and including himself!) for ‘genius’, ‘entertainment’, ‘influence’ and ‘sanity’(!).

72 Maximize Your Tactics

Find the right moves.

74 Judit Polgar on Kasparov

The opening and middlegame play of the 13th World Champion are rightly famous, but let’s not forget about his endgame virtuosity either.

79 What would you play?

Test your decision-making skills with Thomas ‘Toolbox’ Willemze.

84 The Magnus challenge

Maxim Dlugy looks at the lessons that can be learned from the blitz marathon the World Champion played against 19 of the best juniors in the world.

93 They are the Champions

Amir Zaibi is the national champion of Tunisia.

94 Sadler on Books

Why would we waste time going over stuff we already ‘know’? Because chess knowledge is trainable!

100 A fearless youngster

Jan Timman describes the style of ­Praggnanandhaa as ‘strategically sound, tactically alert, and sharp’.

106 Just Checking

Which three people would Vincent Keymer like to invite for dinner?