From a very young age, Rita Atkins has been active in the chess community, achieving notable success in various chess tournaments, reaching the title of Women's International Master (WIM) and winning the Hungarian Women's Chess Championship in 1992. She has also been involved in teaching chess and mathematics to school children and youth. In a lengthy interview with Uvencio Blanco, she remarked: "Give it another hundred years, and there will be just as many good female players as male ones".
In a wide-ranging interview, Casto Abundo talks about his lengthy career as a chess organiser, his work alongside Florencio Campomanes and the time he spent with Bobby Fischer in the Philippines. Abundo shares: “I had to play racquetball with Bobby, swim with him far into the open seas, go on long nightly walks discussing chess, arrange a date with a Filipina national chess team member he liked, drive him to the yacht of President Marcos, and watch as he replayed games from Chess Informant every night”.
In May 2022 the then world's oldest grandmaster, Yuri Averbakh, died at the age of 100. Since then, until two weeks ago, the 'title' of the world's oldest grandmaster was held by Aleksandar Matanovic. On 9 August 2023 Matanovic, one of the leading players of the Yugoslav golden era, died in Belgrade at the age of 93. Diana Mihajlova honours a man who gave his life to chess. | Photo: Serbian Chess Federation