Doing Something vs. Doing Nothing

Doing something is always better than doing nothing, right? Don’t our chess teachers tell us always to have a plan? At Mike Splane’s latest chess party, we looked at a game that will have you seriously questioning that wisdom. The game was Miles-Huebner,...

Russian 101 (off-topic)

To anyone who wants to learn Russian, I have one small warning: One of the first words you’ll see is also the second-hardest word to pronounce. The word is “Hello,” or in Russian, “Zdravstvooeetye.” That’s the bad news. The good...

Bad Trap, Good Lesson

Today’s chess club at the Aptos Library was one of the best I can remember. We had 18 kids, and everybody seemed to find a good match to play against. In the lesson I talked about an age-old trap: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nd4? 4. Nxe5?! Qg5 5. Nxf7?? Qxg2 6....

Pop Goes the Kitty

I’m sure that some of you have noticed that I haven’t posted in a couple weeks. The main reason is that I’ve been pretty busy doing my real job. I have made some time for chess (studying the games from my last tournament, in Reno) but not for chess...