A Hearty Welcome Back

Join me in welcoming back Mr. Milne from his Lent blogging hiatus. The idea of "giving up" updates for Lent is clever, and I wish I had thought of it.

Come to think of it, that's what we're doing every time we go dark - on sabbatical, you know. Doing...important research.

Amazingly, most of our (meager) hits come from people googling chess-related stuff, so I might as well keep giving the public what it wants, or at least coming close - apparently some of you really want Peter Leko's wife. Join the club. The latest news is that five world champions are assembling to play in a rapid tournament, with one being the guest of honor. Well, let's see - Smyslov is still alive, and there's Spassky, Fischer (!), Karpov, and Kasparov. That makes five! Guess how many of those will be there?

Just one - Spassky as the guest, not even playing. Apparently (even I forget) the following men have won the world championship under some auspices, at some time: Vishy Anand, Veselin Topalov, Ruslan Ponomariov and Rustam Kasimdzhanov.

Ugh.