What’s next?

I appreciate all the people who have visited my blog in the last couple of weeks, to read my translations of grandmaster Sergei Shipov’s comments on the recently concluded world championship match. Yesterday was another near-record-setting day, with 742 hits....

Chess party wrap-up

Gjon Feinstein’s chess party yesterday went very well. We had the whole Student Activities Center at Cabrillo College to ourselves. Eleven of the twelve invitees were able to make it — besides Gjon and me, there were Yves Tan, Cailen Melville, Thadeus Frei...

Best-played loss

My friend Gjon Feinstein, a chess master, is organizing a chess party of sorts this weekend. Everyone is supposed to bring two games: 1) their best-played loss, and 2) a game where they were able to carry out one plan to victory. This was an interesting assignment,...

Chessketball

Every now and then, when I’m listening to a sports broadcast, I’ll hear the announcers say something about how the game is a “chess match” between the coaches. Usually I scoff at such comments, because the calculations that go on during a...

Counting Pilcrows

¶ For those of you who are wondering about how Jesse Kraai, David Pruess, and Arun Sharma are doing after their auto accident, I have not heard anything more. I assume that means everything is okay. I’ll let you know if I hear anything else. I also do not have...

Strange Endings

The worst kind of self-induced defeat in chess is resigning in a won or drawn position. In my most recent ChessLecture, I talked about a game submitted by Matt Hayes where his opponent fell into exactly this trap. It was especially memorable for Matt because it put...