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Close-up of a hand-carved wooden chess set with dark and light pieces set up on the board
Fischer vs. Spassky, 1972: Chess's Match of the Century
In the summer of 1972, two men sat down in Reykjavik and turned a chess match into the most watched event in the game's history. Here's what actually happened, move... Read more...
Closed wooden backgammon set with a pomegranate tree carved on the lid, sitting on a table
The Hidden Math Behind Every Backgammon Roll
Backgammon looks like a game of luck, but the numbers behind every roll tell a more interesting story about skill, patience, and probability. Read more...
Hand-carved wooden chess set with dark and light pieces on a checkered board
Judit Polgár: The Woman Who Beat the World's Best
How Judit Polgár, trained from childhood by her father, broke Bobby Fischer's grandmaster record and beat Garry Kasparov to become the greatest woman player chess has ever seen. Read more...
Hand-carved wooden backgammon board with a sailboat design open on a table
The Doubling Cube: How One New York Bet Changed Backgammon
In the 1920s, a New York card table gave backgammon its boldest invention — the doubling cube. Here's the story of how it was born, and how it turned a... Read more...
Hand-carved wooden chess set with pieces arranged on the board
The Ruy Lopez: Four Centuries of Chess's Boldest Opening
How a 16th-century Spanish priest's opening became chess's most enduring move — and the strange story of how it won a World Championship four centuries later. Read more...
Close-up of a hand-carved wooden chess set with pieces arranged on the board
Why Chess Keeps Turning Up in Films and Novels
From Bergman's beach to Nabokov's prodigy to Netflix's Beth Harmon — a short tour of chess in film and literature, and the boards worth actually playing on. Read more...
Hand-carved wooden Armenian chess set with classic pieces set up on the board
Armenia's Golden Era: Three Chess Olympiad Titles
How a small country with chess in its school curriculum won three Chess Olympiad gold medals in a row — Turin 2006, Dresden 2008, Istanbul 2012 — and what that... Read more...
Hand-carved walnut backgammon board with a sailboat pattern in relief
From Log to Board: How Armenian Craftsmen Carve by Hand
A look inside the workshop at how a wooden chess or backgammon board actually gets made, from choosing the wood to caring for it at home. Read more...
A hand-carved wooden backgammon board with a tree of life design carved on the lid
Backgammon's Long Journey: From Persia to the Coffeehouse
From a 5,000-year-old board in Persia to the Ottoman coffeehouse and the modern doubling cube — the long, winding story of backgammon. Read more...
Classic hand-carved wooden chess set with pieces set up for play
Iron Tigran: Tigran Petrosian and the Art of Not Losing
Tigran Petrosian never played for fireworks. He played to make sure he could not lose — and for six years, as World Chess Champion, that was enough. Read more...
A hand-carved wooden backgammon board set up for a game on a family table.
Why Chess and Backgammon Still Win Family Game Night
Chess and backgammon still win family game night — quiet, unplugged, and open to every age. Here's why the board belongs on the table again this autumn. Read more...
How to Judge a Handmade Chess Set: Wood, Weight, and the Numbers That Matter
Proportions, woods, weighting, and the marks a human hand leaves behind — the measurable properties that separate an heirloom chess set from a decoration. Read more...