by scribe | Dec 16, 2013 | Chess Lecture, Chess Life, games, people, positions
Lately, over the last month or so, I have been playing more chess against the computer. This training technique (if you can call it that) needs to be employed with the utmost caution, if at all. The reason is that it’s so easy to become discouraged and get...
by scribe | Nov 25, 2013 | Chess Lecture, current news, people, tournaments
I just had a conversation fifteen minutes ago with my next-door neighbor Dave, who has never shown any interest in chess previously but had heard something somewhere about a new world champion. This conversation reminded me of an obvious fact: more than anything else,...
by scribe | Oct 26, 2013 | Chess Lecture, literature, people, positions, tournaments, US Chess League
Last night I went with Gjon Feinstein to attend Jesse Kraai’s book reading and signing at the NorCal House of Chess in Fremont, California. It was great to see Jesse again after three years. He looked trimmer, has grown a beard and now looks more like a starving...
by scribe | Oct 14, 2013 | Chess Lecture, current news, games, literature, people
Lisa, Jesse Kraai’s Great American Chess Novel, is now available through Amazon.com! Even more than the Great American Chess Novel, it’s the Greater San Francisco Bay Chess Novel. Astute readers will notice several local personalities in the novel —...
by scribe | Oct 7, 2013 | Chess Lecture, current news, people, tournaments
After a brief sojourn into the world of mathematics, “dana blogs chess” now returns to the subject it’s supposed to be about! Today I have two news items that came in the e-mail within the past week. 1) Jesse Kraai has finished his Great American...
by scribe | Sep 17, 2013 | Chess Lecture, literature, openings
At Mike Splane’s latest chess party, on Sunday, I saw Richard Koepcke lugging around a ginormous chess book that was about the size of a phone book, and I asked him what it was. To my surprise, it was a new book on the King’s Gambit! I refer to John...