Master class

Last weekend I had an opportunity to attend a class for masters (and a few experts) that was led by grandmaster Varuzhan Akobian. Akobian was teaching kids at the Berkeley Chess School last week, and my friend Robin Cunningham, who also works at the Berkeley Chess...

Murder, Shirov wrote

Many of you have probably already seen the game from earlier this month where Viswanathan Anand destroyed Alexei Shirov (as Black!) in 17 moves. However, I feel as if I should say something about it because it is an ultra-rare appearance in top-level chess of an...

A great position for a quiz

Today I’m going to write about yet another team chess game. This is one that I played last night, playing Black with Thadeus Frei against Cailen Melville and Gjon Feinstein. We were using new experimental rules. The time control was 7 minutes for both sides, and...

A fun French miniature

This afternoon Mike Splane hosted his second chess salon. (Well, he called it a party but I like the word “salon,” which calls to mind an image of erudite people gathered in a nineteenth-century drawing room, puffing pipes as they discuss Serious Issues.)...

Chess on TV

If  any of you are interested in seeing chess on television, you might want to tune into the documentary “Bobby Fischer Versus The World,” which will be airing on HBO on Monday, at 9:00 Eastern time and Pacific time. I have not seen it — only the...