New in Chess Magazine 2024/1

CONTENT 6 Pep Talk Magnus Carlsen meets Pep Guardiola. 8 Contributors Who are the new columnists Nate Solon and Christof Sielecki? 9 Editorial The year of the 40th anniversary of New In Chess magazine. 12 NIC’s Café The chess of Franz Beckenbauer, the shoes of Anna-Maja Kazarian and Magnus Carlsen’s 10 million dollars. 14 Tata Steel Chess Few pundits had counted on Wei Yi as a potential winner of ‘the Wimbledon of Chess’. But after a slow start, he scored a formidable 4½ out of 5 and then showed nerves of steel in the tiebreak. 17 Celeb 64 Napoleon Bonaparte. 27 Fair & Square Hikaru Nakamura: ‘In chess, you can be an oddball and still be accepted.’ 38 Interview Wei Yi Not the World Champions Ding Liren and Ju Wenjun, but the third Chinese ace, 24-year-old former prodigy Wei Yi, stole the show. 48 Carlsen wins two World Titles Magnus Carlsen repeated the double and won his 16th and 17th World Chess Championships in Uzbekistan in the last days of 2023. 66 Somehow, I became Korchnoi Paul van der Sterren played the best game of his life in Wijk aan Zee in 1978, effortlessly defeating Viktor Korchnoi. In his new book, Mindful Chess, he explains what happened. 70 Odds chess Odds chess was widely popular in the 19th century, but is rare now. Both Paul Morphy and Bobby Fischer loved odds chess. Grandmaster Larry Kaufman explains how you can play odds and everything else you need to know about this chess variant. 78 Opinion In this new column the founders of the Women in Chess Foundation argue how the chess world can embrace inclusivity. 80 James Altucher Think like an eight-year-old. 82 How to Improve Nate Solon offers a framework how to review your game. 85 Maximize Your Tactics Nine puzzles, selected by Maxim Notkin. 86 The Scoresheet In this new column, Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam tells the story of Alexander Alekhine’s scoresheet of his game against Emanuel Lasker, Zurich 1934. 88 The Model Game In this new column, Christof Sielecki picks a Model Game, starting with a Benoni structure. 92 Sadler on Books There are many wonderful chess books that instruct you, inspire you with unexpected new ideas or make you think about chess strategy in a fresh way. However, there is also a very rare type of writing that essentially puts a mirror in front of your soul as you read it. 98 Jan Timman Gukesh and Firouzja were the last players to qualify for the Candidates tournament in Toronto. The routes they followed, did raise eyebrows. Jan Timman argues that FIDE should draw clear conclusions. 106 Just Checking Russ Makofsky is one of the founders of The Gift of Chess.