by scribe | Apr 24, 2011 | current news, positions, tournaments
After 5 rounds of the Reno Far West Open, the leaders are IMs Steven Zierk and Vladimir Mezentsev. Zierk had been in clear first place after beating Enrico Sevillano in round four to go 4-0. The game had a neat conclusion: White to move. As Steven explained to me,...
by scribe | Apr 23, 2011 | current news, games, positions, tournaments
I’m playing this weekend in the Far West Open in Reno, one of the two traditional big tournaments of the year in this city. This year it seems somewhat smaller than in the past, with around 160 players. The top of the wall chart is also missing some familiar...
by scribe | Apr 18, 2011 | current news, positions, tournaments
My alert correspondent, Jim Krooskos, spotted an occurrence of the Hook and Ladder Trick in the first round of the U.S. Women’s Championship (currently taking place in St. Louis). Here’s the position. Defending champion Irina Krush was White, and Sabina...
by scribe | Apr 12, 2011 | current news, people, ruminations
Two interesting threads are going on simultaneously at chess.com and at Dennis Monokroussos’ blog, The Chess Mind, dealing with the same topic: Have there been any famous parent/child chess playing pairs? Here is a link to the chess.com discussion (which...
by scribe | Mar 22, 2011 | current news, people, ruminations
Seriously, why? It makes life so much more miserable for those of us who don’t. If this were a baseball blog, I would be writing now about the Barry Bonds trial. But I don’t have to dive into that cesspit. The chess world now has a scandal of its own. As...
by scribe | Feb 14, 2011 | current news, people
Yesterday Michael Aigner, Bay area chess coach extraordinaire, was featured in the chess column of the New York Times! The column focuses, of course, on his success as a chess coach, launching the careers of Steven Zierk and Daniel Naroditsky (recent winners of the...
