50 Years of Chess: Year 35

What can I possibly do for an encore after showing you my game with David Pruess from the 2006 Western States Open? That was a once-in-a-lifetime game, probably the only chess game I will be remembered for after I’m gone (if I’m remembered for anything). A...

50 Years of Chess — Year 34

What a strange year 2005 was for me over the chessboard. It had some really high highs and some really low lows. In April, I won the biggest cash prize (up to that point) of my life, taking first place in the Expert section at the Far West Open in Reno. In May I...

50 Years of Chess: Year 33

Step right up for round two of the Emory Tate versus Dana Mackenzie show! If you didn’t catch round one, you can go back and read it in my Year 31 post. Technically, today’s game is round four, because we had played three games before this one, with two...

50 Years of Chess: Year 28

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,...

50 Years of Chess: Year 27

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,...

50 Years of Chess: Year 26

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...