by scribe | Feb 27, 2022 | Uncategorized
February, 2020. A previously little-known virus escapes from China, and within a few weeks it is everywhere. Even for those who were not infected by the coronavirus, it completely changed our view of what was possible. Most of us had never been through a worldwide...
by scribe | Oct 23, 2021 | current news, endings, people, ruminations, Uncategorized
Walter through the years. Last Sunday, my father Walter Nance passed away at the age of 88. Walter taught me to play chess when I was about 7 years old, and I can still remember how excited I was when I beat him for the first time when I was 9 years old. He was a...
by scribe | Jan 1, 2021 | endings, games, literature, ruminations, Uncategorized
Welcome to 2021! One of my resolutions is to somehow, some way, play chess against live, human, in-person opponents before the end of the year. Of course, that depends to a considerable extent on factors I can’t control — the progress of the epidemic and...
by scribe | Nov 22, 2020 | games, literature, openings, people, tournaments, Uncategorized
The next year in my retrospective, 1985, was my busiest year ever, with 60 tournament games, so there are lots of games to choose from. And it was the year that I won the title of North Carolina state champion for the first time, which of course I consider to be one...
by scribe | Aug 31, 2020 | games, openings, ruminations, Uncategorized
Recently it occurred to me that I’m getting very close to the 50th anniversary of my debut in tournament chess. There aren’t so many people who stay active in chess that long. Why not start a series of posts where I pick one game from each year to...
by scribe | Apr 27, 2020 | endings, positions, Uncategorized
Here’s a challenge of a kind I haven’t seen before. I’m going to show you three very similar positions. In the first, it’s Black to play and win. In the second, Black has to play exactly the same first two moves, and you have to show that the...
