Living Chess Pieces:  In 1891, a Club of Living Chess was formed in Dublin, Ireland, with the purpose of giving living chess displays for suitable charities.  In 1892, one of its members, Dr Ephraim McDowell Cosgrave, wrote the book "Chess with Living Pieces", arguably the only book ever published on this type of chess.

Living Chess History:  The chess periodical with the longest continuing run of issues is the "British Chess Magazine", which was first published in 1881, and is still being published today.

Turning Heads:  In the course of finishing =3rd in the 26th USSR championship at Tbilisi in 1959, Ratmir Kholmov won the following 7 prizes:

1. Best result by a master player
2. Best results by a master against GM opponents
3. Best results over last 5 rounds
4. Most number of wins with Black
5. Best result against the top 6 finishers in the tournament.
6. Making a GM norm
7. Playing the "most beautiful name"

Winning Streak:  After losing to Vladimir Kramnik during the 1997 Linares tournament, Garry Kasparov played 62 consecutive games at Linares without defeat, until he lost to Teimor Radjabov in the 2003 tournament.

Championship Double:  Vladimir Mikenas achieved the unusual double of being both a chief arbiter and a player in the USSR Championship.  He was the arbiter for the 32nd USSR championship, played at Kiev in 1964/65, and then played in the 33rd championship in Tallinn in 1965.

Career Double:  Actor Humphrey Bogart was a life-long chess player.  Prior to becoming a movie star in Hollywood, he was a "hustler" in New York in the 1930's, taking on all comers for 50 cents or $1 a game.  In the 1940's, Bogart became a director of both the United States Chess Federation and the Californian State Chess Association.

A Double Dose of Paul Keres:  Prior to his famous over-the-board (OTB) career, Estonian and Soviet player Paul Keres had established a very successful Correspondence Chess (CC) career.  He had commenced playing in European tournaments at the age of 15, and at one stage was playing 150 games simultaneously.  In 1935 he won the inaugural IFSB (predecessor to the ICCF) individual championship, and received the IFSB International Master title.  Keres also won the inaugural Estonian CC championship in 1936.  Prior to his unfortunate death in 1975, Keres stated that he would resume his CC play as his OTB commitments started to decrease.

You may have read in my latest trivia piece about how Paul Keres started his CC career in the early 1930's while still a teenager.  A lot of times as White he would play the King's Gambit, and especially the 3.d4 and 3.Nc3 variations.  While the 3.d4 variation is commonly known as the Mason Variation, it is also called the Parnu variation.  The majority of CC players in Estonia in the early 1930's were either living in the city of Parnu, or the immediate surrounding districts.

Keres' most "famous" game from this period is his loss to Menke in 1933.  This game was played as part of the 4th annual tournament organized by the "Deutche Schachzeitung" newspaper:

Keres,P - Menke,G [C33] Correspondence, 1933

1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nc3 Qh4+ 4.Ke2 d5 5.Nxd5 Bg4+ 6.Nf3 Nc6 7.Nxc7+ Kd8 8.Nxa8 Ne5 9.h3 Bh5 10.Rg1 Qg3 11.Qe1 Bxf3+ 12.gxf3 Qxf3 mate 0-1

Another game to look out for is Keres-Vilkins, from 1932.  After 24 moves, Keres' king is on square g8 (!), and by move 42 it has returned to square f2, after which Keres eventually drew the game.

Due to increasing over-the-board commitments, Keres had to abandon the correspondence games that he was playing for Estonia in the final of the 1st IFSB Olympiad, which went from 1937 to1939.  Keres elder brother Harald took over his games, and scored a win and 3 draws.

The Best Move:  I came across the following in an old issue of "Chess" magazine.  English GM Neil McDonald searched through the "Chessbase" for games by world champions, and found the most successful move.  And the winner is:  Kb5!

Apparently Morphy and Capablanca won every game as White when they played Kb5, while Bobby Fischer had a score of 9.5/10.  Spassky was 3/3 with White against Fischer when he played Kb5.  If a player has suffered more than one defeat with White after playing Kb5, then they will never be World Champion, e.g. Keres and Korchnoi.

The Worst Move:  The game between Rafael Vaganian and Rista Nicevski at Skopje on the 17th of March 1976 is known as the "Mistake of the Century".  Vaganian made a move that overlooked the threat of an immediate Black checkmate.  He resigned before Black had the chance to play the move on the board.

Distaining the Draw:  Of the 45 games played in the 1867 Dundee international tournament, only 3 were drawn.

Embracing the Draw:  Of the 120 games that were played in the 45th USSR championship tournament at Leningrad in 1977, 80 were draws (67%).  This is the highest percentage of drawn games in any of the 58 USSR championship tournaments.

First Protest:  Wilhelm Steinitz lodged a protest about one of the chess boards used in his 1886 World Championship match against Johannes Zukertort.  He objected to the red and white squares on the board, claiming that he was colorblind to the color red.  A black and white board was then substituted for the red and white board.

Principled Protest:  Bobby Fischer withdrew from the 1967 Interzonal Tournament in Sousse, Tunisia because the tournament officials would not reschedule his games, so that he would not have to play games on the Jewish Sabbath.  After staging one walkout, and then returning, Fischer finally abandoned play after scoring 8.5/10.

Conditional Protest:  Bobby Fischer withdrew from the US team at the 1968 Lugano Olympiad because he was not happy with the lighting in the tournament hall. Fischer wanted to play his games in a private room. The Olympiad organizers refused to meet his request, and so Fischer withdrew from the tournament.

Political Protest:  During the 1980 Malta Olympiad, USSR player Anatoly Karpov refused to shake the hand of his US opponent Lev Alburt, because of Alburt's "defection" to the United States.

Commemorative Stone:  On the 23rd of March 1956, FIDE erected a headstone on the grave of Alexander Alekhine, who was buried in the Montparnasse cemetery in Paris.  The headstone was to commemorate the 10th anniversary of his death in Lisbon, Portugal in 1946.  The headstone featured a marble bust and a chessboard.