Stefan Stojacic is member of the Serbian national team that just won the U19 World Basketball Championship after beating USA in the finals. He threw in some of the crucial shots behind the 3-points line. Stefan could have been chess Grandmaster by now:

“First I started playing chess and I trained every day. At the European U10 championship I finished 3rd but then I started following my dad (while he played basketball). At the age of 11, I quit chess and decided to go on with basketball. I would like to play chess again, but I can’t sit for that long. My last game at the European championship lasted 5 hours.”

From “Chess Precision” in daily newspaper “Kurir”.

Humpy Koneru, a 20-year-old from India, is the No. 2 woman in the world, one of just 10 to earn the title of grandmaster.

World champions often have an indefinable mystique that seems to unsettle their foes and cause them to blunder for no apparent reason.

In sports that require athletic skill, an aging star’s decline is easy to understand. In chess, it seems strange.

There were no real surprises at the candidates matches to select qualifiers for the World Championship Tournament. The match between Levon Aronian and Magnus Carlsen was the only one that required six tiebreak games.

Gata Kamsky has never really said much about his reasons for coming and going. But this return is going rather well.

With summer (nearly) here, the time is right for improving your game.

Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria beat Krishnan Sasikiran of India in the last round of the M-Tel Masters in Sofia, Bulgaria last weekend.

Scholastic chess has become the game’s lifeblood. Almost 60 percent of United States Chess Federation members are under 18.

The United States Chess Championship begins Tuesday, but if not for Frank K. Berry, who put up $50,000, it might not be happening at all.