Millionaire Chess Preview

October 3, 2014

Well, Maurice Ashley’s Ode to the Almighty Dollar is almost here. The Millionaire Chess Tournament will be held at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas from October 9 to 13, dedicated to the proposition that big entry fees and big prizes will make for exciting chess. I sure hope so! So far, the tournament has gotten […]

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Mind-Blowing Endgame

September 30, 2014

I know that games played against my computer aren’t the most interesting topic in the world, but recently I had an endgame against Shredder that blew my mind. I learned something new and I think you will, too. Let’s start on move 88, when the computer played a move that totally shocked me. (Parenthetical remark […]

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(Off-topic) Fun time-waster

September 27, 2014

Today I discovered a fun new computer game — new to me, that is — called Fantastic Contraption 2. I had a great time with it, because it allows more creativity and originality than any other computer game I’ve played (besides chess, of course!). Most puzzle-type games have only one solution, or they may have […]

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If Only Magnus Read My Blog…

September 24, 2014

It’s extremely thrilling when the World Champion plays your favorite opening. However, it’s somewhat less than thrilling when he loses with it. So it was both exciting and discouraging to read that Magnus Carlsen had played the Bird Variation of the Ruy Lopez last month at the Olympiad and had been upset by a player […]

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Comments are Back Online!

September 18, 2014

Today I finally had a chance to dig around in the hidden areas of my blog… hidden even to me… and I figured out how to restore the comments. Not only the feature for posting new comments, but also the archive of all the old comments. Hooray! Feel free to take this opportunity to comment […]

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How to Draw Your Computer in Just 211 Moves

September 14, 2014

Now that we’ve looked at my recent tournament games, the only other new games to show you are my pathetic games against the computer. These sometimes have a morbid fascination to them. Nevertheless, I do sometimes learn something interesting, or at least see something amusing. Last week I played a 211-move (!) game against Shredder […]

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Positions from State Championship (Part 3)

September 12, 2014

I’m back online! And as I promised, I’d like to show you a position from my last game in the CalChess state championship, against Michael Lei Wang (a 14-year-old Class A player, not to be confused with Michael Wang the 12-year-old master, whom I beat earlier this year). Before we start, I want to point […]

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Positions from State Championship (Part 2)

September 8, 2014

Since the last time I wrote, my problems have gotten even worse. My Internet connection has not been working since last Friday. Our working hypothesis is that it’s a problem with the modem and it will be resolved when we get our new modem on Wednesday. I sure hope that’s the problem, because otherwise I […]

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Six Games, Six Positions (Part One)

September 4, 2014

Usually when I write about games I have recently played, I show you most or all of the game and have several diagrams along the way. This time I’m going to do something different. I played six games in my tournament from last weekend, and I’m going to show you one position from each game. […]

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Reader Feedback on “Who Had a Better Week”

September 3, 2014

Michael Aigner sent me a message via Facebook that explains the conundrum of Paul Richter’s early rating spike to 2211. There were two pieces of information that I didn’t know. Paul was not only undefeated (4-0) in his second tournament, he was also undefeated (5-0) in his first tournament. So he started his chess career […]

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