Cautionary Tales

Ordinarily we think of the endgame as a time when our kings are safe from checkmate, and they can roam with impunity around the board. But in complex endgames (where each side has two or more pieces, or a queen) it isn’t necessarily so. There are three ways in which...

Brutal. Epic. Fail.

Someone get David Pruess an ice-cold Yoo-Hoo, because he’s gonna need it. The San Francisco Mechanics’ manager was speechless after our unbelievable last-round meltdown last night. He looked like Sheldon Cooper in the TV show “Big Bang Theory,” who wrote a paper he...

Brilliancy Checking

Recently I watched a lecture by Elizabeth Spiegel online where she talked about the importance of blunder-checking, especially for scholastic players. It’s not a new idea. Before you make your move, she said, write it down, and then look back at the board and ask,...