Welcoming a New Book Into the World

April 27, 2022

One of the best things about being a writer is the moment when you first hold a book in your hands that has your name on the cover. I think that it may be similar to becoming a parent. You spend months and months anticipating something — and when that “something” finally arrives, it’s so […]

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Analysis Without Words

April 7, 2022

Last year, after bingeing too many times on chess games played against the computer, I said, “No more.” I actually stuck to that resolution for about seven months, but then I updated the operating system on my Apple computer. The chess program I had on that computer (Shredder 12) no longer worked, so I pulled […]

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“There’s No Such Thing as an Even Trade”

March 12, 2022

First, let me say that the title of this post is not literally true. However, it’s something that I like to tell my students, and it’s not as far-fetched as it seems. It’s intended to correct a very harmful mindset that starts affecting players as soon as they learn the values of the pieces. According […]

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The World Changes Again

February 27, 2022

February, 2020. A previously little-known virus escapes from China, and within a few weeks it is everywhere. Even for those who were not infected by the coronavirus, it completely changed our view of what was possible. Most of us had never been through a worldwide pandemic that killed millions of people. Now we have, and […]

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The Student Draws the Master

February 13, 2022

The headline says it all! Yesterday, my student Atlee (~1500) scored his first draw against me in our weekly training game. I knew this was going to happen eventually, and I wondered what it would take for Atlee to draw or win. The short version: I blundered a piece but managed to fight back and […]

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Levels of Truth

February 1, 2022

As I mentioned before, I’ve been playing a training game each week with one of my students from the Aptos Library Chess Club, Atlee, who is about a 1500-strength player (I’m guessing). The games follow an interesting pattern. I win, I teach Atlee a lesson, then I come home and go over the game on […]

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Catastrophes in the Nimzo

January 16, 2022

When you play the move 1. d4 as White, you’re generally saying that you want the game to be a sumo match rather than a sword fight. You’re tired of all the sharp tactics of 1. e4, whether it’s the Sicilian Defense or the open games. You want to just get a solid, safe space […]

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New Year, New Opening!

January 12, 2022

Last weekend Gjon Feinstein and I met up for not only our first live chess games of the year, but our first since the pandemic began. Back in the long-gone days B. P. (before pandemic) we used to meet very frequently, at least once every two weeks. Times have sure changed. We saw each other […]

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Fairer Chess?

December 31, 2021

One of the first things that kids love to do, after they learn the rules of chess, is to tamper with the rules. I’m not sure why. For example, they say, “Let’s make every piece a queen!” Sounds like fun in principle, but what happens in practice is that every move is a capture and […]

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Best American Player of My Generation

December 26, 2021

Here is your trivia question for today: Who is the first chess player to simultaneously be #1 on both the USCF’s list of top players 50 and older and the list of top players over 65? Need a little hint? Okay, here it is. Although Larry Christiansen has had an incredible career, I think that […]

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