by scribe | Apr 26, 2017 | Chess Lecture, current news, endings, games, people, positions
Six years ago I wrote a post called Master Class, about a class taught by Varuzhan Akobian at the Berkeley Chess School, which I went to along with several of my chess friends. In the comment thread after my post there was a lively debate over whether the class was...
by scribe | Apr 9, 2017 | games, positions
Hey, I won another cool game against Shredder! Even though I know it doesn’t mean anything, I still feel like sharing. I was White in the position below: Position after 31. … Re5. White to move. FEN: 3q2k1/1p1n1p2/r2p1Pp1/p1p1r1N1/P1P1PQP1/3P4/1P3R2/R6K w...
by scribe | Apr 8, 2017 | Chess Life, current news, endings, games, positions
In my last entry I wrote about how exciting it is to win a game that you were just hoping to draw. The outcome of this year’s U.S. Championship might end up being determined by just such a game. Round nine. Varuzhan Akobian versus Fabiano Caruana. Akobian...
by scribe | Apr 5, 2017 | games, positions, ruminations
Chess is a weird game. Sometimes the way to win is to play almost, but not quite, badly enough to lose. Then your opponent gets sucked into trying too hard, and then you can catch them on the rebound. But good luck trying to win that way. It has to be unintentional,...
by scribe | Apr 3, 2017 | off-topic, positions, ruminations
For the last six months I haven’t been posting as much as usual to my blog, because I’ve been working on a (non-chess) book. I’m glad to say that I sent the first draft of the book to my editor today. Though there is still a lot to do, I feel as if I...
by scribe | Mar 18, 2017 | games, positions
Last night I won a game against Shredder in very amusing but also instructive fashion. The computer’s rating was set to 2124. (I’ve found that this rating gives me the best blend of success and challenge; setting the machine to 2300 or 2400 makes me get...
