Changing the Conversation

We had a great turnout at Mike Splane’s latest chess party (on Sunday, November 18) — thirteen people by my count. We were quite an international mix, too, with players originally from Brazil (Paulo), Poland (Milos), India (Praveen), Holland (JL), and...

Magnus Carlsen appearance

Yesterday Magnus Carlsen visited San Jose and gave a simultaneous blindfold exhibition at the Silicon Valley Bank. I only found out about this event three or four days in advance and decided not to go to it, because it seemed that space was going to be very limited...

The Checkers Fallacy

One of the most common mistakes in chess, from the beginning level all the way up to accomplished players, is to think that just because you can capture a piece, you should capture it. Perhaps we could call this “the checkers fallacy,” because in checkers...

Math, chess, and cheating

Last week I rather unexpectedly was waylaid by a math problem, which I spent 5 days working on to the exclusion of everything else — eating, sleeping, studying chess,… A college friend of mine sent me the following question, which he discovered 25 years...