Getting Inside Your Opponent’s Head

February 24, 2020

At last week’s U.S. Amateur Team West tournament, one game stood out for me as the most important. It was the fourth round of the tournament, and the Kolty Club team went into the round with two wins and a surprise defeat in round three. We were paired against the Caltech team, and from the […]

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In Praise of Finishing Third

February 19, 2020

Because I was in the midst of playing in the U.S. Amateur Team West tournament on Monday, I wasn’t able to write my usual timely coverage of the PRO Chess League. For any California Unicorn fans out there who were waiting for my post (How many of you are there? One? Two?), I apologize for […]

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The Wandering King

February 18, 2020

First, an update on the U.S. Amateur Team West championship results. In my last post I knew that we had tied for second but I didn’t know for sure how the tiebreaks worked out. Now I can tell you that we in fact finished third, which is great! Third place gets hardware (commemorative clocks with […]

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Mischief Managed

February 17, 2020

Harry Potter fans will already know what the headline refers to. For everyone else, whenever Harry Potter used the Marauders’ Map, he was supposed to swear solemnly that he was up to no good, and when he was done with he was supposed to say, “Mischief managed.” The Kolty Chess Club team managed our mischief […]

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Auspicious Beginnings

February 16, 2020

This weekend I’m playing in the U.S. Amateur Team West (USATW) tournament, which for the first time is being sponsored by the Mechanics Institute and run by one of the Bay Area’s finest directors, Judit Sztaray. Judit was with Bay Area Chess for a long time, and then when John Donaldson stepped down from the […]

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Worst Game Ever!

February 13, 2020

I’ve got lots of candidates for the worst game ever played against the computer, but this morning I played one that has to be near the top of the list. I went from much better to checkmated in the span of six moves! I was White, Fritz 17 was Black, it was set at a […]

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Huge Upset for Unicorns

February 10, 2020

In week six of the PRO Chess League, the California Unicorns picked the right time to play their best match of the season. Against the heavily favored New York Marshalls, who were led by Hikaru Nakamura on board one, California not only pulled off an upset but did it by a comfortable margin, 9.5-6.5. I […]

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Taking Care of Business

February 3, 2020

For the California Unicorns, this week’s PRO Chess League match was one that they were expected to win. Their opponents, the Brazil Capybaras, were in seventh place in the Western Conference, and they don’t have any super-GMs. Quite a change from last week’s opponents, the St. Louis Arch Bishops, who had four 2700-plus players in […]

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Monster Mash

January 27, 2020

Today, in the PRO Chess League, the California Unicorns faced almost inconceivable odds in their match against the St. Louis Arch Bishops. The magnitude of the difficulty becomes quite apparent when you look at the two teams’ lineups. St. Louis: Fabiano Caruana, Leinier Dominguez Perez, Wesley So, Le Quang Liem California: Dariusz Swiercz, Grigoriy Oparin, […]

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New Toy

January 26, 2020

Now I have both of my new toys — my new laptop and my new edition of Fritz 17 (together with ChessBase), so I am back to normal for blogging purposes. I might as well use this post for a quick review of Fritz 17. I have to say that the change I was looking […]

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