A Fine Rook Endgame, Part 1

by | Nov 6, 2022 | endings, literature, tournaments

I’m back! Actually, I never left, but this blog has been silent for seven weeks, so some of you may have been wondering where I went. My apologies: I was busy with other things (like a book proposal), but to be honest, I just didn’t have any topics that...

Sifting through the Rubble

by | Sep 18, 2022 | games, openings, positions, tournaments

For the last month, since I got back from my disastrous tournament in Minneapolis, I haven’t shown any games from it because I thought they would be too embarrassing. But in order to learn from a failure, you have to face it and ask what happened and why. So now...

Epic Success and Epic Fail

by | Aug 25, 2022 | current news, people, ruminations, tournaments

For the last week I have been in Minnesota, playing in the Minnesota International Chess Festival, which was organized superbly by Alex Betaneli. It may have been the strongest event held in Minnesota since the HB Global Challenge in 2004. But that event was done in...

Hail Mary

by | Aug 4, 2022 | endings, positions, tournaments

Generally speaking, when you are in a bad or losing position, you should not count on finding a single miraculous move — a hail Mary — to save your position. Hard-nosed, patient defense will save more games than prayers will. But on the other hand, you...

Summer of ’72

by | Jul 31, 2022 | off-topic, openings, people, ruminations, tournaments

Fifty years and one week ago I completed my first USCF-rated chess tournament, the U.S. Booster Championship in Chicago, Illinois. I’ve never really considered this to be my “first tournament,” because I had played earlier that summer in the 1972...