The world recently witnessed an intense nine-round chess tournament in Stavanger, Norway, featuring ten of the world’s highest-ranked chess players. It is believed that very rarely has such an extraordinarily elite team been gathered to settle their differences over the chess boards in a singular competition. Previously, there was St Petersburg 1914 where the mightiest disciples of the royal game met. It was a landmark occasion for chess because it was at that tournament that Tsar Nicholas 11 coined the word ‘grandmaster’ and named each of the following players with the title: Emanuel Lasker, German Empire; Jose Raul Capablanca, Cuba; Dr Alexander Alekhine, Russian Empire; Seigbert Tarrasch, German Empire and Frank James Marshall, United States of America. Those were the
