World Team Championship

This morning I was browsing the Internet to see what is going on in the chess world. Quite a lot, actually. The headline events are the Biel chess festival in Switzerland, where Magnus Carlsen is leading the grandmaster tournament after three rounds, and the World...

Computer chess: Does it matter?

According to an article at ChessVibes, the International Computer Games Association has disqualified Rybka from the present and all future World Computer Chess Championships, and has also voided its world titles from 2007-2010. The reason is that Rybka was deemed, by...

A fun French miniature

This afternoon Mike Splane hosted his second chess salon. (Well, he called it a party but I like the word “salon,” which calls to mind an image of erudite people gathered in a nineteenth-century drawing room, puffing pipes as they discuss Serious Issues.)...

Shankland is again state champ

The last day of the CalChess State Championship was kind of strange for me (I’ll get to that below), but it went about as expected for Sam Shankland. The tournament’s only Grandmaster surged at the finish, winning his last two games to go 5-1 and win the...

CalChess State Championship, round 4

This weekend I’m playing in the CalChess State Championship, in Fremont. I’m a little bit puzzled because the state championship (for northern California) is usually held on Labor Day weekend. However, this year’s edition has been organized for the...