My First Chess Book(s)

Last August I wrote a post called My First Chess Set/Board/Clock. But for some reason I didn’t think of writing the obvious sequel, about my first chess books. What does a player’s first chess book say about him or her? What kind of impact does it have on...

I Love/Hate Speed Chess…

… and the reason I love it is that speed chess is ridiculously entertaining. … and the reason I hate it is that speed chess magnifies all of my worst tendencies. Both of these reason were on full display in a mind-boggling speed game that I played with...

Questioning Assumptions

In my last post I wrote about one of the most ubiquitous kinds of mistakes, in life as well as chess: the kind of mistake where you assume you know what is going on, and the assumption seems so obvious to you that you aren’t even aware of making it. Here’s...

Mixup Explained

I don’t know if anybody noticed this, but on Friday a new lecture of mine, called “Learn From Your Fellow Amateurs, Episode XXXIII,” went live on ChessLecture. It was a lecture I was particularly excited about, because I thought that it was a game...