PRO Chess League, Week 1: It’s Yoo Again!

January 8, 2019

Although Google says that San Francisco and San Jose are 48 miles apart, it really is all one metropolitan area: If you drive from one to the other on highway 101 or El Camino Real, you will never have a moment when the urban landscape stops. So when the San Francisco Mechanics and San Jose […]

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San Francisco International Results

January 7, 2019

This morning, as I drove to Burlingame for the last round of the San Francisco International tournament, I felt like a Survivor contestant who has reached the final day of the competition. After eight rounds I was still standing (unlike a lot of people who withdrew early; nine rounds is a lot to play if […]

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The Equalizing Injustice of Chess

January 4, 2019

For those who have never heard it, the phrase in the title apparently comes from Edward Lasker in 1913, but it has bounced around from one chess writer to another for the last century. It seems like an appropriate description of what happened to me in the San Francisco International chess tournament yesterday and today. […]

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Meet the Mechanics: Yannick Gozzoli

December 28, 2018

In the weeks ahead I will write occasional posts introducing you to the members of the San Francisco Mechanics team in the PRO Chess League. I sent around a short questionnaire to most of the team members, hoping to conduct a sort of online interview. The very first Mechanic to answer was one of our […]

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First Team Meeting

December 24, 2018

On Saturday the San Francisco Mechanics had our first team meeting at the spacious and inviting new headquarters of the Berkeley Chess School. This is where the team will play half of its matches in the PRO Chess League in 2019; the other half will be played in the familiar environs of the Mechanics Institute […]

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Good News/Bad News

December 21, 2018

This will be a short non-chess post, with some good news and some bad news. First, the bad news: A couple of my regular readers have e-mailed me within the past two weeks saying that when they googled my website, Google displayed it with a message saying, “This site may be hacked.” I’ve been aware […]

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Grown-Up Tactics

December 19, 2018

For the Bay Area International I am preparing in two different ways. I am doing tactics puzzles at chess.com, and I am studying games by Baadur Jobava. The puzzles are (for the most part) Tactics Lite, where the answers are short and clear-cut. Jobava’s games are good examples of Grown-Up Tactics, where the combinations are […]

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Lots of Exciting New Year Plans

December 18, 2018

I’ve been pretty quiet here lately, but in 2019 that is going to change. First, starting on January 1, I’m planning to play in the Bay Area International. This super-strong tournament features lots of players whom we don’t usually see in these parts, plus a few local stars. The top five pre-registered players, with their […]

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A Good List to Be On

December 7, 2018

This morning, my co-author Judea Pearl sent me an e-mail: “Did you know about this?” Well, no, I didn’t. Here’s what “this” means: Science Friday, probably the nation’s most-listened-to radio show for science news, has named The Book of Why as one of its best science books of the year for 2018. It was one […]

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The Square From Which all the Tactics Flow

December 6, 2018

Here’s a question for my esteemed readers. What sub-2700 player do you consider to be the best for an amateur to study? Why? Well, for any player the answer is “Study your own games.” But we’re not allowing that answer. The reason I’m asking is that I decided, in preparation for my next tournament (the […]

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