Support your local youth!

November 30, 2013

Yesterday at the California Class Warfare tournament I had a chance to talk with Taylor McCreary and her father Michael, who are frequent participants in Bay Area tournament. Taylor told me some exciting news, which is that she has qualified to play in the World Youth Chess Championship, which will be held in the United […]

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Chess FAQ’s (from neighbor Dave)

November 25, 2013

I just had a conversation fifteen minutes ago with my next-door neighbor Dave, who has never shown any interest in chess previously but had heard something somewhere about a new world champion. This conversation reminded me of an obvious fact: more than anything else, a world championship catches the attention of non-chess players. It’s the […]

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The Carlsen Era

November 21, 2013

Pigs could still fly, dodos could still walk the Earth, and Viswanathan Anand could still save his world championship match against Magnus Carlsen. But I wouldn’t bet on it! Carlsen now leads the best-of-twelve match by 6-3, and needs only one more draw to become the new champion of the world. And not just any […]

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(Off-Topic) Doctor Who and Mister Who

November 10, 2013

This morning, as I was lying in my hotel room in London waiting for the sun to come up, I started thinking for the N-th time about the upcoming Doctor Who 50th anniversary special. For anybody who is not interested in science fiction, not interested in television, not interested in British pop culture, and/or not […]

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News flash! Future world champion born!

November 9, 2013

Because the first game of the world championship match doesn’t give us much to talk about today, I can catch up on one important piece of news from earlier this week: Elizabeth Spiegel (née Vicary) gave birth to a baby boy! His name is Noah. If you’d like to see what he looks like, she […]

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The “P” Word

November 8, 2013

The day the chess world has waited for is almost here — the beginning of the match between Vishy Anand and Magnus Carlsen for the world chess championship. It’s ironic that Carlsen is still so young (22 years old, with his 23rd birthday a couple days after the scheduled end of the match), and yet […]

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My Igor Ivanov Game

November 2, 2013

Right after I posted Mike Splane’s game with Igor Ivanov I was going to post my own, but then I got too busy. But here it is — better late than never! I played against Ivanov in the 2002 North American Open, a tournament that went very well for me. We played one of my […]

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Jesse Kraai in Fremont, Confidence in Chess

October 26, 2013

Last night I went with Gjon Feinstein to attend Jesse Kraai’s book reading and signing at the NorCal House of Chess in Fremont, California. It was great to see Jesse again after three years. He looked trimmer, has grown a beard and now looks more like a starving writer than a starving chess player. 😎 […]

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Igor Ivanov Week

October 16, 2013

At Mike Splane’s latest chess party, on Sunday, Richard Koepcke showed us a game that involved a “hanging pawns” formation in the center, where the owner of the hanging pawns did not play actively enough, let them get blockaded, and eventually lost. Mike then got up and said he would like to show us a […]

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“Lisa” Debuts!

October 14, 2013

Lisa, Jesse Kraai’s Great American Chess Novel, is now available through Amazon.com! Even more than the Great American Chess Novel, it’s the Greater San Francisco Bay Chess Novel. Astute readers will notice several local personalities in the novel — Jesse does nothing to conceal them. Perhaps the biggest surprise, and the biggest gamble, in Jesse’s […]

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