Not so good night

After playing well in chess club my last two times, I guess I was due for an off night. I was in the top quad with Juande Perea and Dan Burkhard (who are both playing in the Santa Cruz Cup) and Steve Sullivan. First round was a lifeless draw as Black against Juande....

Thursday night at chess club

Okay, time for me to interrupt the melodrama over the word “melodrama” by posting a new blog entry! For the first time since I started this blog in October, I went to the Santa Cruz chess club last night. I’ve been just a little bit too busy with...

Chess is psychological thing

When I was a graduate student, I once heard this story about one of the professors in the department, a world-famous mathematician who was originally from Japan. He was giving a lecture in an undergraduate course, probably calculus, and a student raised his hand and...

Best country for chess?

One of the things I did not anticipate when I started this blog was how international it would become! We have regular readers from Denmark, Spain, and France, plus one person who spent a significant amount of time in England. And who knows what other countries might...

Virginia memories

Writing about the Mechanics Institute chess club started me thinking about other chess clubs that I’ve played in. Although I played in school chess clubs from about eighth grade all the way through graduate school, the first club for adults that I ever went to...