SmartChess app is available

After writing only two blog posts in September (one of them not even about chess), I promise to pay a little bit more attention to my blog this month. First, let me start with a small announcement: Andres Hortillosa’s SmartChess app for the iPhone/iPad is now on...

Mystery Game!

I want to show you a game today that is a mystery in more ways than one. Here is Mystery Number One. This game was played about a month ago. One player is a grandmaster who is very active in American chess. The other player is 17 years old, has a provisional USCF...

How to Break Fort Knox in 13 Moves

Last weekend, at one of his chess parties, Mike Splane showed us the following miniature game where he won in 13 moves (!) against the Fort Knox Variation of the French Defense. Oh, were you expecting instructions for breaking into the U.S. Bullion Depository? Sorry,...

Merely Dead, or Really Most Sincerely Dead?

Yesterday I got together with two old friends and one new one for some chess at Barnes and Noble in San Jose. The “old friends” were Gjon Feinstein and Cailen Melville, and the “new friend” was Uyanga Byambaa, a student from Mongolia whom Gjon...

Murder, Shirov wrote

Many of you have probably already seen the game from earlier this month where Viswanathan Anand destroyed Alexei Shirov (as Black!) in 17 moves. However, I feel as if I should say something about it because it is an ultra-rare appearance in top-level chess of an...