by scribe | Oct 3, 2014 | current news, openings, people, ruminations, tournaments
Well, Maurice Ashley’s Ode to the Almighty Dollar is almost here. The Millionaire Chess Tournament will be held at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas from October 9 to 13, dedicated to the proposition that big entry fees and big prizes will make for exciting chess. I...
by scribe | Sep 24, 2014 | current news, games, openings, positions
It’s extremely thrilling when the World Champion plays your favorite opening. However, it’s somewhat less than thrilling when he loses with it. So it was both exciting and discouraging to read that Magnus Carlsen had played the Bird Variation of the Ruy...
by scribe | Sep 3, 2014 | current news, people, ruminations, tournaments
Michael Aigner sent me a message via Facebook that explains the conundrum of Paul Richter’s early rating spike to 2211. There were two pieces of information that I didn’t know. Paul was not only undefeated (4-0) in his second tournament, he was also...
by scribe | Sep 3, 2014 | current news, people, ruminations, tournaments
Fabiano Caruana and Paul Richter: Who had a better week? You probably think I’m joking. The whole chess world knows about Fabiano Caruana. The 22-year-old Italian/American, playing in the strongest tournament in chess history, the Sinquefield Cup, has scored an...
by scribe | Sep 1, 2014 | Chess Lecture, current news, people, tournaments
This weekend I played in the CalChess (i.e., northern California) state championship, which was well organized and well attended. We had in the neighborhood of 250 to 260 players, which means among other things that we trounced southern California, which had...
by scribe | Aug 24, 2014 | current news, people, ruminations, tournaments
At Mike Splane’s latest chess party, which was held today, Juande Perea showed three of his games from the recent Kolty Club Championship, which he won in impressive style. Juande scored 5-0 in the games he actually played, plus he took two half-point byes for...
