by scribe | Oct 17, 2020 | games, off-topic, openings, ruminations, tournaments
After spending three posts on 1978, a huge year in my chess life and my personal life, let’s move on to 1979. It was my last year of college (spring) and first year of graduate school (fall), and a very strange year. Coming back from Russia to America, I felt...
by scribe | Oct 7, 2020 | chess clubs, Chess Life, off-topic, people, ruminations, tournaments
In the fall of 1978, I joined a group of 35 American students for a semester abroad in Leningrad, Russia. I had been studying the Russian language since my junior year of high school, and chess was one of the main reasons (at first). When I was at Phillips Academy, I...
by scribe | Sep 30, 2020 | current news, off-topic, people, ruminations
To: World From: Chess players Where have we seen this before? Refuses to play by previously agreed-upon rules.Driven by a persecution complex.Disdainful toward other people (“weakies”).Intolerant toward certain minorities.Demands complete loyalty from...
by scribe | Sep 13, 2020 | chess clubs, games, off-topic, ruminations
The year 1974 spread over my junior and senior years at prep school. As usual, I played no rated tournament chess during the school year, but managed to cram in four tournaments during the summer. It was again a good year for me, with a won-loss record of 16.5 –...
by scribe | Aug 20, 2020 | current news, endings, off-topic, positions, ruminations
Boy, if it isn’t one catastrophe, it’s another. First there was the coronavirus. Then the protests in many U.S. cities (though, thankfully, not very much unrest in Santa Cruz, where I live). Now there are fires in the mountains north of Santa Cruz, set off...
by scribe | Jul 5, 2020 | literature, off-topic, people, ruminations
Going off-topic today, with apologies to my chess fans. I. Last night Kay and I had movie night, a family tradition every Friday. Sad to say, I can’t tell you what movie we watched last week, or the week before that, but I can tell you that last night we watched...
