Last month's Yahoos post,
Yahoo Sources Are Back!
(March 2025), marked a new era in the Yahoo series. As I wrote then,
If you're not sure what Yahoos are, see the footnote. The problem at the time was that we could no longer see from where all the Yahoos hailed.
[...]
Now we've come full circle. Google News has restored the names of all sources and I can create a small chart like the first one shown below.
This month's equivalent chart shows five sources accounting for 61 of the 100 stories returned by Google News. Once again Chess.com was the top source, with five times the number of stories attributed to runner-up ChessBase.
The second chart on the left counts the number of stories attributed to specific Chess.com writers.
The same two names top the list for the second straight month while last month's third name has disappeared.
The only other non-Chess.com writer to have more than one story was Carlos Alberto Colodro of Chessbase.
Each time I prepare a post about Yahoos, I have the same challenge: Which of the 100 or so stories should I feature in the post?
This month, two stories stood above the rest because they were published by well known non-chess sources. The first was:-
What else do 'they have in store'?
(Alexandra:) We just partnered with Freestyle Chess. They’re trying to bring this new format that randomizes the starting position of the pieces, and a lot of top players really like this, because engines [chess computer models] have taken a lot of the creativity away from tournaments -- people just prepare the first moves with an engine.
So whenever we go there, we film with all the top players, and we spend the weeks leading up to it crafting good thumbnails, titles, story lines and ways to try to show the players beyond just playing chess with them.
On top of this significant mention, there were at least a half-dozen other stories on Freestyle chess (aka chess960, aka Fischer Random). I should cover these on my blog dedicated to the subject (see the right sidebar), but it's currently hibernating.
The second attention grabbing story from a non-chess source was:-
It starts,
For more than 1,000 years, chess has been synonymous with war. Now, Vladimir Putin is combining the ancient game with modern skulduggery as he tries to win an all-too-real 21st century conflict.
The geopolitical strategy of the Soviets and Russians has been deeply entwined with knights, rooks, kings and queens for so long that it’s difficult to tell where sport ends and real battle begins.
That last sentence doesn't make much sense -- 'sport ends and real battle begins' when real people start dying -- but the article still offers valuable insights. For example, following is an excerpt that summarizes the end of Soviet/Russian influence in chess:-
The Soviet dominance of the world championship, with eight winners spanning several decades, was testament to the state’s investment. However, the collapse of the USSR in 1991 dismantled much of the infrastructure that had sustained this control. Clubs were privatized, top players emigrated and funding dwindled, marking a decline in Russia’s once-unquestioned supremacy.
One other Yahoo topic is worth noting, but only because it accounted for six separate stories. Here's one:-
Since I'm certainly not the only person with an obvious question, let's tackle it here.
What is Duolingo?
Duolingo is a language-learning mobile app that uses game-like lessons to teach more than 40 languages, mathematics and music. The app, available on Apple and Android devices, launched in 2011.
Chess, like music, like love, hath the power to pop up in all sorts of unexpected places. What will next month's Yahoos bring?
[Yahoos (mainstream news stories about chess) are derived from Google News top-100 (or so) stories from the past month.]