More French Cooking

February 28, 2015

My last post on the French Defense, a few days ago, attracted more comments than any post I’ve written for at least a couple years. So let’s continue the conversation. One of the commenters (Brian Wall, I’m looking at you) asked, “What doesn’t beat the French?” Maybe White can do just about anything! In the […]

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Playing All 50 Openings

February 26, 2015

About 50 years ago, the Yugoslav chess magazine Chess Informant introduced a new classification system for chess openings. For chess players it was like the invention of the metric system: it systematized the nomenclature that varied wildly from country to country. (For instance, your Spanish Opening is my Ruy Lopez.) Now all the openings and […]

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The Eleventh Commandment

February 23, 2015

Yesterday I met for a short chess session with Gjon Feinstein, Mike Splane, and Eric Montany. Mike showed us a game he played at the Kolty Chess Club last week that features a new variation he is exploring in the French. He played it against an expert named Lev (I don’t remember the last name, […]

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Three-Peat at the USAT West!

February 17, 2015

Last weekend there were two big chess events in California, and I didn’t go to either of them. Nevertheless, Facebook kept me abreast of some of the things happening in both tournaments, and I have some big landmarks to report. The U.S. Amateur Team Championship West was held in the southern part of the state, […]

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1. a3

February 16, 2015

What do you think? Good? Bad? Ridiculous? It seems to me that with the move 1. a3, White is saying to his opponent, “I will agree to play Black, and I believe that in any opening you might choose to play, I will be able to find a variation in which a3 is a useful […]

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Burgoyned

February 11, 2015

Last week I finished reading a military-history book called Saratoga: Turning Point of America’s Revolutionary War. I am totally not a military history buff, but recently it bothered me to realize that I do not know a single battle of the American Revolution, other than Bunker Hill, which we lost. “How can you win a […]

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You Will Be Assimilated

February 4, 2015

Sorry I’ve been away for a couple days… I went to an undisclosed top-secret location, where they’ve just had 19 inches of snow, and began the process of turning into a Borg. See? Resistance is futile. Anyway, when I got home I read in my Facebook feed that Mike Zaloznyy just got his Life Master […]

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Introducing The Hive Mind

January 21, 2015

This Sunday I had the chance to meet with Gjon Feinstein, Mike Splane, and Eric Montany at a coffeehouse to go over my recent game with Ivan Ke. (See this post for some earlier discussion of the game.) We tore apart and dissected the game until there were only the smallest bones left, and I […]

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Dinosaurs Roam the Earth in Dublin

January 20, 2015

I did not go to the Golden State Open in Dublin, California, last weekend. I have a lot of work this month and couldn’t prepare properly for a chess tournament. But I wish I had! It looks as if it was a great tournament, although not quite as loaded with strong players as the New Year Championship was. […]

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Top Chess States (Take Two)

January 16, 2015

I wasn’t completely happy with my post yesterday about the top chess states, because the measure I used (number of players over 2500) is skewed to the very high end of the spectrum of chess players. Half of the states don’t even have a player rated 2500. Also, the statistic is unduly influenced, in my […]

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