Chillin’ in Hawaii

Today is my 20th wedding anniversary, and Kay and I are going to celebrate by leaving (tomorrow) for a five-day trip to Hawaii. We will stay on Kauai, the northernmost of the Hawaiian islands, which everyone tells us is the most beautiful and least touristy of the...

Reno report — openings

Continuing my recap of the Far West Open … I will write at least one or two more posts going over my games from the tournament after I have had a chance to analyze them more carefully. But for the openings buffs out there, I will do a quick recap of the openings...

Sunday morning analysis

A couple days ago I got a comment on my post “Bird by Bird, Part 3B,” which raised a very interesting question. In the variation that runs 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nd4 4. Nxd4 ed 5. O-O g6 6. d3 Bg7 7. f4 c6 8. Ba4 d5 9. ed Qxd5 10. Re1+ Ne7 11. Bb3 the...

What might have been

This morning I was rooting around my old chess binders looking for one game, and ended up (for no good reason) playing over another one. This game was from the U.S. Class Championship in Philadelphia, 1985, a tournament that I have basically no recollection of! This...

Amazing finish

Hello! I’m back again from my trip to Washington, DC, for the math meeting. It was two weeks before Barack Obama’s inauguration, and the stores were already full of touristy souvenirs, so that one could pretend to have been present at this historic...