50 Years of Chess: Year 28

March 28, 2021

In the next year of my chronicle, 1999, I got the opportunity to play three present or future U.S. champions in one year: Hikaru Nakamura (champion in 2005, 2009, 2012, 2015, 2019), Roman Dzindzichashvili (1983, 1989) and Walter Browne (1974, 1975, 1977, 1980, 1981, 1982). So that’s thirteen years of U.S. champions who sat across […]

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50 Years of Chess: The Santa Cruz Scene

March 23, 2021

Before I go too much farther in my chess chronicle, I should say a little bit about the chess scene in Santa Cruz, which was very lively when I moved here in 1996 and very moribund now. When I moved here, you could play 5-minute chess any day of the week at the Santa Cruz […]

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50 Years of Chess: Year 27

March 22, 2021

One of the best things about living in California is the fact that you’re so close to Hawaii! Close in a relative sense, of course. It’s 2400 miles from San Francisco to Honolulu, which is about the same as the distance from San Francisco to Washington, DC. But still, there’s a big psychological difference between […]

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50 Years of Chess: Year 26

March 13, 2021

And now let us begin the downward half of my chess chronicle! I jest, of course. The last 25 years, since I moved to California, have been the best of my life, both in chess and otherwise. On July 29, 1977, I wrote in my diary, “Daddy asked me what I thought I’d be doing […]

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50 Years of Chess: Reinvention

March 5, 2021

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” That’s a line from John Lennon’s song “Beautiful Boy,” released in 1980 on the Double Fantasy album, and it’s always been one of my favorite song lyrics. In the song, Lennon was recalling the sweet moments that he had with his 5-year-old son, […]

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50 Years of Chess: Year 25

February 28, 2021

We’ve come to the halfway point in my chess narrative, and it’s the year of a big change: my move to California. During the first 25 years of my chess career I lived in several different places: Indiana, Virginia, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio. In the second 25 years I’ve lived in only one place. […]

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50 Years of Chess — Year 24

February 23, 2021

If you asked me what tournament that I’ve played in was the most fun or the most rewarding, the list would be very short. My first rated tournament. The tournament I played in Russia in 1978. My two North Carolina championships, of course. The 2006 Western States Open in Reno, when I got the chance […]

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50 Years of Chess — Year 23

February 16, 2021

It was the best of time in 1994, and it was the worst of times. I’ll start with the “best,” and then get to the “worst.” At the end of 1993, as I wrote in my last post, I had four good tournaments in a row, and my good fortune continued into the new year. […]

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50 Years of Chess: Year 22

February 6, 2021

We come now to 1993, the middle year of my seven years in Ohio. It was a year of satisfaction and disappointment for me, and a year when storm clouds were gathering, even if I didn’t see them. The biggest thing by far that year was that Kay and I gave up on having children […]

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50 Years of Chess: Year 21C

January 31, 2021

I appreciate the patience of my readers with this retrospective of my chess career! Andy Lee, one of my Facebook friends, did a similar thing last year: for the 40 days leading up to his 40th birthday, he showed one position a day. His arrangement was not chronological but “countdown” style, with the last positions […]

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