by scribe | Apr 7, 2018 | current news, people, positions, PRO Chess League
Today was a very exciting day in the history of the PRO Chess League: the day of the first in-person playoffs. Four teams — the Chengdu Pandas, Ljubljana Turtles, Armenia Eagles, and St. Louis Arch Bishops (the defending champions) came to San Francisco to face...
by scribe | Apr 1, 2018 | endings, games, openings, people
Happy April Fool’s Day! I really am going to show you my game with Magnus, only it isn’t the Magnus you’re thinking about. In 1995 I played in the World Open, and for once it kind of lived up to its name. In round one, I played against Leonid...
by scribe | Mar 28, 2018 | current news, people, tournaments
This is a Facebook post I wrote today, and I decided to post it here too. (It’s very short!) One of my Facebook friends, Mike Zaloznyy, started a thread asking why there was so much rejoicing over Fabiano Caruana’s qualifying to play a match for the chess...
by scribe | Mar 27, 2018 | current news, people, ruminations, tournaments
Congratulations to Fabiano Caruana, who won his game against Alexander Grischuk today and became the first U.S.-born challenger for the World Championship since Bobby Fischer in 1972. (*) For any readers who don’t know, Caruana was born in Miami and lived in the...
by scribe | Mar 15, 2018 | current news, people, PRO Chess League, ruminations
This week the PRO Chess League playoffs started with a rash of upsets. In five out of eight matches the team with the lower seeding beat the top-seeded team, and in one more match the favored team only managed to squeak through to the next round by virtue of their...
by scribe | Mar 7, 2018 | games, openings, people, positions
I’ve learned one thing from watching kids play chess: the result of a game often depends not so much on the position on the board as on the position in their minds. Often I’ll see a kid lose a piece or more, but still stay resolute and continue making...
