Top Chess States

January 15, 2015

What do you think are the strongest chess states in the country? I think that most chess players would be able to guess the top state, maybe even the top two or top three. But what surprises me is how close the competition is. Fifty years ago, it would have been New York in a […]

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Thinking Big?

January 7, 2015

Let’s now turn our attention from the microscopic to the monumental … in fact, to the future of chess. I’ve been waiting for the right time to mention that there is a project in the works to make a movie about the (first) Millionaire Chess Open, Maurice Ashley’s grand experiment last year at running a […]

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Luck or Skill?

January 6, 2015

It’s an age-old question: is chess truly just a game of skill, or is there luck involved too? Here is perhaps the most crucial position I faced in the New Year Championship tournament last weekend. It’s round five, and I’m playing back against Ivan Ke (the #29 11-year-old in the country). I got a good […]

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My Kingdom for Three-Quarters of a Rating Point!

January 5, 2015

Back when I first joined the USCF, in 1972, you had to wait months to find out your new rating after you played in a tournament. Nowadays, if the tournament directors do their job quickly enough, you can find out overnight. In fact, Michael Aigner found out even before I did! When I logged onto […]

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New Year Championship — Results!

January 4, 2015

The New Year Championship has just wrapped up, and the victor in a runaway was the Chinese grandmaster, Xiangzhi Bu, who beat IM Andrey Gorovets in the last round to finish with a score of 5½ out of 6. There was a four-way tie for second at 4½ points, including the guy I wrote about […]

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The Argentinian Connection

January 3, 2015

This weekend I am playing in my first tournament of 2015, appropriately called the New Year Championship (as always, expertly organized by Bay Area Chess). For a local tournament it’s got a super-strong top section, with something like four 2500 players. The lower sections seem somewhat sparsely populated, however. I guess only serious players devote […]

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Odds and Ends 2014

December 31, 2014

Well, it’s December 31, a day that gets no respect because everybody is looking toward the new year. But it’s a perfect day for an “odds and ends” blog post, and that’s what I’m doing today. Everything today is either an odd or an end. 1) Congratulations to Bryon Doyle and Uyanga Byambaa on a […]

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“Nuke the GM!” Lecture Posted

December 30, 2014

Today ChessLecture posted my lecture on my game with Sergei Kudrin from the October Western States Open. I’ve blogged about the game here before, but I didn’t post the complete game score because I wanted ChessLecture to release it first. Now that the ChessLecture is published, I’m glad to present the entire game for my […]

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My Chess Life

December 26, 2014

I don’t mean to alarm you or anything, because my chess life isn’t over. I am planning to play next weekend, in fact. However, I have definitely played my last rated game of 2014, and that inspired me to go to my member page at uschess.org to see how I did this year. The answer: […]

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Unacceptable Interference?

December 24, 2014

I have a question for other chess teachers/coaches, especially those who work with kids: How much intervention is acceptable, for teaching purposes, in a friendly game between two kids? Here’s the particular situation that arose in a game yesterday at the Aptos Library chess club. FEN: rn4k1/p1p2ppp/1p6/8/2Pr2q1/1PN1Q3/4P3/4K3 w – – 0 1 White to move. […]

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