Karl

About Karl

Karl is a German chess magazine that focuses on the cultural and historical side of the game. It publishes four issues a year, and each issue is organized around a different theme. Recent issues have covered biographies of well-known players, portraits of cities and countries, aspects of play such as endgames and tactics, and the connections between chess and art, music and literature. The magazine also reports in depth on current world championships, with its editors on site.

Karl was founded in 1984 as the internal magazine of the Schachfreunde Schöneck club. It became a nationally distributed publication in 2001. The homepage says that Karl received the Deutscher Schachpreis from the German Chess Federation (DSB) in 2014, which it describes as the DSB's highest award for cultural contributions to chess, and the Lasker Trophy from the Emanuel Lasker Society in 2018. The homepage also highlights its autumn issue, which marks the 100th anniversary of the Polish Chess Federation and covers the history of chess in Poland. Issues can be bought at railway station bookstores or ordered directly through the website. The homepage is in German, and so are the articles.

Key features

• Four issues per year, each built around a different theme
• Biographies of well-known chess players such as Lasker, Keres and Karpov
• City and country portraits covering chess culture in different places
• Articles on endgames, tactics, art, music and literature
• Detailed coverage of current world championships, with editors on site
• Portraits of the people behind the chess players

Karl at a glance