Computer Issues (Alas)

June 16, 2020

I just heard from Mike Splane that there was a comment on my last post that did not display when he clicked on the link. Here is what the comment said, from Larry Smith: “A great post! I can only imagine how much time went into putting this together. Here are several comments: First, when […]

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A Notorious Endgame

June 14, 2020

In the past I’ve mentioned the “Four Endgames of the Apocalypse,” the four supposedly “elementary” yet ferociously difficult endgames that even grandmasters screw up sometimes: K+Q versus K+R; K+B+N versus K; K+R+B versus K+R; and K+Q+RP versus K+Q. I’ve encountered each of these in my chess career, some of them more than once. But there […]

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De-Chessification

May 31, 2020

There will be a short-lived pause (which you won’t even notice) in this blog as I de-chessify. The reason is that I’ve gotten entirely too much sucked into playing against Fritz on my computer. My wife finally said enough is enough, and took away my laptop for a week! Let me hasten to add that […]

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The Computer Gets Ridonkulous

May 23, 2020

I’m glad that I got a couple of comments on my last post, “What’s the Best Move?”, saying that my readers found the positions just as hard as I did. It makes me feel better, because most of them were positions where I was playing against the computer and messed up. So now I feel […]

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What’s the Best Move?

May 9, 2020

Old-timers like me can remember when every issue of Chess Life came with a Larry Evans column called “What’s the Best Move?” Evans would give you positions with three choices of possible moves. The idea, I think, came from a book of the same name that he wrote in 1973. I’m actually not too fond […]

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3 Variations on a Theme

April 27, 2020

Here’s a challenge of a kind I haven’t seen before. I’m going to show you three very similar positions. In the first, it’s Black to play and win. In the second, Black has to play exactly the same first two moves, and you have to show that the game is a draw. In the third, […]

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Pawn Breaks

April 24, 2020

During the Pro Chess League season this year (which still has not ended, by the way — the finals have been postponed until September) Robert Hess made a comment that jolted me awake. “When I’m evaluating a position,” he said, “The first thing I look at is who has the pawn breaks?” What?! The first […]

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Long Think, Wrong Think

April 19, 2020

There’s a saying that I’m really starting to like: “Long think, wrong think.” In game after game, both against the computer and in tournaments, it seems as if my weakest moves are the ones I take the longest on. A long think is usually a sign that I’m trying to talk myself out of the […]

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Learning and Not Learning… Humans and Computers

April 12, 2020

Coronavirus check-in! It’s Easter Sunday of 2020, and here in the U.S. the coronavirus epidemic seems to be near its peak. That’s both good and bad. It’s good because “peak” means that the number of new cases and new deaths should start going down every day. In New York and California, the number of intensive […]

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Wild Fritz Endgames, No. 1 (R vs. 3P)

April 6, 2020

With nothing much going on the world of chess, I’ve been playing against my computer a lot. It’s a bad habit, really. But one somewhat unexpected benefit is that I’ve gotten to play a few interesting endgames recently. When I play against Fritz, I generally set it on “Rated Game,” because that setting allows you […]

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