by scribe | Mar 9, 2010 | chess clubs, games, positions, ruminations
Gjon Feinstein, my friend who makes his living teaching chess, has a great way to get kids over the hump of not wanting to put their pieces next to the opponent’s king, even if it would win the game. He calls it the “in-your-face” checkmate. Today,...
by scribe | Feb 14, 2010 | Chess Lecture, positions, tournaments
Recently Dave Vigorito gave a ChessLecture that called “Not Quite an Agony Game” where he showed a recent game he lost against Raymond Kaufman. Dave mentioned at one point that it was his first tournament loss since his last “agony game”...
by scribe | Dec 2, 2009 | Chess Lecture, games, positions, tournaments
Tortoise and Hare sat down to play a game of chess. (If you don’t like fables, “Tortoise” is me, Dana Mackenzie. “Hare” is an expert named Arthur Liou. The date was November 29, and the occasion was round five of the CalChess State...
by scribe | Dec 1, 2009 | Chess Lecture, people, positions, tournaments
The CalChess State Championship may be over, but just like a tasty Thanksgiving dinner, it keeps on giving! I will write at least two more blog posts about it. One thing that I enjoyed about this weekend’s tournament was having a chance to catch up with my old...
by scribe | Nov 30, 2009 | games, positions, tournaments
As I wrote in yesterday’s entry, I had another interesting game with the Radchenko Variation of the Two Knights Defense yesterday. It’s funny, after playing this line only three times in 20 years, I have had two chances to play it this year....
by scribe | Nov 10, 2009 | openings, positions, US Chess League
… All the live-long day! (Sorry about the reference to a nineteenth-century folk song that is probably best forgotten.) Anyway, Michael Goeller posted a comment a week ago that set me off on another serious binge of Caro-Kann study. He pointed out this post in...
