by scribe | Mar 24, 2015 | chess clubs, current news, games, openings, people
No, not that kind of bird! (That’s a scrub jay who has taken up residence in one of our bushes, driving Max the cat wild.) I mean this kind of Bird: Position after 4. … b5. White to move. FEN: r1bqkbnr/p1pp1ppp/8/1p2p3/B2nP3/5N2/PPPP1PPP/RNBQK2R w KQkq...
by scribe | Mar 14, 2015 | off-topic, ruminations
Going off topic today! Today is the “Pi Day” of the century, when the calendar reads 3/14/15 and the clock reads 9:26:53 am. We are supposed to be super excited about this because, after all, pi = 3.141592653… Perhaps I’m just contrarian by...
by scribe | Mar 10, 2015 | openings, positions, ruminations
Last time I wrote about the most popular opening variations, by ECO code. I also wrote about the best ones for White/worst ones for Black, by ECO code. As I expected this generated a bit of a reaction, especially from proponents of the Dutch Defense. Their comments...
by scribe | Mar 6, 2015 | openings, positions, ruminations
First of all, let me announce that my last post, Grading the Openings (Part One), unexpectedly turned into the biggest hit I’ve ever had on this blog. The blog had 1136 visitors yesterday, which is three times more than I have ever had in a single day (except...
by scribe | Mar 4, 2015 | openings, ruminations
Rob Weir, the statistician whom I mentioned in my last post, graciously shared with me a data base of the performance of all the openings, organized by ECO code. This allows us to create something that I’ve never quite seen before: a “report card” of...
