History Repeats

One of my teammates at this year’s US Amateur Team tournament, Larry Smith, has an interesting semi-blog. It isn’t publicly accessible like a blog is, but he sends out chess-related e-mails a few times a week to a couple dozen people on his distribution...

So Many Things Happening!

I feel guilty for not writing any posts for the last week when there are so many things happening in the chess world. The past weekend was the traditional weekend for state championships in the U.S. Also, halfway across the world, the Chess Olympiad is going on in...

What Jesse Missed, What I Missed

 A couple weeks ago I got a really cool surprise in my e-mail. A chess player named Frank Brown, whom I didn’t know previously, sent me a photograph that he had taken in 2009, when I played against grandmaster Jesse Kraai on one of the top boards at the Western...

Three Blind Mice

The title describes me, Gjon Feinstein and Mike Splane, although in truth Mike should get credit for being only half blind. Yesterday afternoon we got together for some rare weekday chess (usually we meet on weekends), and Mike wanted to show Gjon the two challenge...

Walking on the Wild Side

Well, it was inevitable. Ever since I started playing what I call “Matrix chess” against the computer (i.e., games at a 40 moves/10 minutes time control with one timeout per game where I can take unlimited time), it was inevitable that a game would come...