Armand Niculescu

Armand Niculescu is a full-stack developer and creator of SparkChess. He has two BDs in engineering and marketing and a MSc in Management. He's been programming since the age of 12 and he also loves design, photography, and - obviously - chess.

World Chess Championship 2018: Fabiano Caruana vs Magnus Carlsen – Game 5

This was a more interesting game, where both players pushed more aggressively. Both Carlsen and Caruana made a few small inaccuracies, but for the most part, the game was even, leading to an inevitable draw. More 🡢

World Chess Championship 2018: Magnus Carlsen vs Fabiano Caruana – Game 4

Some controversy sparked just before the uneventful game, as a clip showing Fabiano’s daily activities was briefly uploaded to YouTube. The clip contained a few shots of a laptop screen showing openings research. The clip was taken down and it’s unclear if Carlsen’s team extracted any insight from it. More 🡢

World Chess Championship 2018: Fabiano Caruana vs Magnus Carlsen – Game 3

Another day, another draw after 49 moves. Caruana and Carlsen repeated the Rossolimo Variation from their first game. More 🡢

World Chess Championship 2018: Magnus Carlsen vs Fabiano Caruana – Game 2

Fabiano was clearly in charge, but Carlsen successfully maneuvered for a draw. More 🡢

World Chess Championship 2018: Fabiano Caruana vs Magnus Carlsen – Game 1

The first match was a grueling marathon that lasted 7 hours, and although Carlsen had the advantage, he wasn’t able to convert it to a win. More 🡢

5 Best Chess Web Shops

Around 1100 AD chess was well known in royal and noble houses from Spain, France, and Italy. With an enormous variety of artistic and elaborated chess sets, it had to be simplified and unified in order to spread to all social classes. The turning point was in 1849, when “Staunton Chess Set” appears. More 🡢

SparkChess - The Free Online Multiplayer Chess Game

Multiplayer Score Adjustment

UPDATED on Jan. 22 with details! We’ve had several requests from our top players to decrease the gaps between scores. Right now, our top players simply can’t find enough similarly-ranked opponents to play against. To refresh your memory, SparkChess uses an Elo-based system for score, but we tweaked its parameters a bit to reward players […] More 🡢

Why Learning Chess is Important for Your Child

One of the more surprising aspects of chess is that it can actually improve creativity and original thinking. Creativity sounds like a non-measurable attribute, but studies have shown that children who play chess offer more creative and original solutions to problems than those who do not play chess. More 🡢