by scribe | Jul 29, 2020 | endings, games, positions
Here’s a position I reached in a recent rapid game against Shredder. I’m White, and it’s my move. The computer is set to a rating of 2321. One of the nice things about Shredder is that you can stop the clock even during a “rated game,”...
by scribe | Jul 26, 2020 | chess clubs, games, people, positions
Yesterday I played my first live, in-person chess game since the coronavirus pandemic started, in early March. To be precise, March 3 was the last date when the chess club at Aptos Library met. Most likely I played one of the kids that day, although I don’t...
by scribe | Jul 19, 2020 | Chess Lecture, endings, games, positions
For every good, instructive game that I play against the computer, there must be two or three really awful games. Here’s one that I played this morning that is so bad that it’s good. I’m playing White, Fritz (with its rating set to 2025) is playing...
by scribe | Jul 12, 2020 | games, positions, ruminations
Have you ever had a game that you won and you didn’t understand why? I call it a Billy Preston game, in honor of the singer who had a #1 hit in the 1970s called “Will It Go Round in Circles.” The lyrics go: “I’ve got a story ain’t...
by scribe | May 23, 2020 | games, positions
I’m glad that I got a couple of comments on my last post, “What’s the Best Move?”, saying that my readers found the positions just as hard as I did. It makes me feel better, because most of them were positions where I was playing against the...
by scribe | May 9, 2020 | Chess Life, endings, games, positions
Old-timers like me can remember when every issue of Chess Life came with a Larry Evans column called “What’s the Best Move?” Evans would give you positions with three choices of possible moves. The idea, I think, came from a book of the same name...
