by scribe | Sep 23, 2018 | Chess Lecture, current news, games, people, positions
Once upon a time there were two guys who liked to play chess in a park. One of them worked for a tech company, and the other had an idea. Why not build a chess website that would be both a hangout and a database? They didn’t really have a plan for making money,...
by scribe | Sep 4, 2018 | current news, people, positions, tournaments
When you are an adult playing chess in the San Francisco Bay area, it sometimes feels as if you are that last person holding your finger in the dike, trying to keep the sea of young players from completely wiping out the older generation. Sometimes, the old folks...
by scribe | Aug 13, 2018 | chess clubs, endings, people, positions
Three posts in three days! Woo-hoo! I’m not promising to make it four for four, though. Last night I had a reunion with a former student of mine named Cole Ryan. He was one of the few kids who stuck with the Aptos Library Chess Club all the way through high...
by scribe | Jul 9, 2018 | current news, off-topic, people, positions
Last Friday I got a really surprising message on Facebook. “Hi Dana!” it started. “I hope that everything is going well. I just moved to Santa Cruz…” and it was signed Steven Zierk. My regular readers will remember that I just wrote a...
by scribe | Jul 7, 2018 | current news, off-topic, people, ruminations, tournaments
For poker players, this is one of the biggest weeks of the year — the week of the “Main Event” at the World Series of Poker. And even though there are a million reasons why I don’t play poker, I thought it would be fun to catch up on some...
by scribe | Jun 17, 2018 | current news, endings, games, people, positions, tournaments
The San Francisco Bay area has been an unbelievable incubator for chess talent since the year 2000 or so, thanks to the hard work by organizers such as Judit Sztaray of Bay Area Chess and teachers like Michael Aigner. One player after another has progressed through...
