by scribe | May 27, 2014 | current news, people
He’s alive and going to be just fine but… Jesse Kraai just posted on Facebook that he was clipped by a motorcyclist yesterday while he was riding his bike. The motorcycle was going 40-50 mph. He doesn’t remember anything after that, but he apparently...
by scribe | May 22, 2014 | current news, positions
Thanks to Mike Splane for pointing this one out! On Tuesday Gata Kamsky won the United States Championship, in a pair of 25-minute playoff games. Here is the position in the decisive game, Kamsky playing White against Varuzhan Akobian: FEN:...
by scribe | May 13, 2014 | Chess Lecture, current news, openings, people, tournaments
Over the weekend I spent a lot of time studying a fascinating game from the first round of the U.S. Women’s Championship, won by a 13-year-old girl from the Bay Area, Ashritha Eswaran. Eswaran is the lowest-rated player in the tournament and a relative newbie to...
by scribe | May 12, 2014 | games, openings, positions
Yesterday I played a blitz game against Gjon Feinstein that featured not one but two Légal Mates! One of them was the standard one, the other was a modified version that I had n0t seen before. Both of them remained only in the annotations — they didn’t...
by scribe | May 6, 2014 | endings, openings, ruminations
Two so-called “problems” that some people have with chess: (1) Too many draws. (2) A confusing stalemate rule. Note: I didn’t say that these are problems for me. I’m happy with chess the way it is. Nevertheless, some people aren’t and it...
