by scribe | Jun 23, 2014 | chess clubs, endings, games, people
Yesterday Mike Splane hosted another chess party that was devoted specifically to endgames. Uyanga Byambaa brought a fascinating game that she played in the recent U.S. Women’s Open in Las Vegas. She was Black against an unrated (!) player named Elena Rodriguez,...
by scribe | Apr 5, 2014 | chess clubs, games, positions
At Mike Splane’s most recent chess party, Craig Mar showed us a really nice game he played years ago. Even though he doesn’t play tournament chess any more, he is a really good teacher and the games he shows us are usually as relevant as they were when he...
by scribe | Mar 7, 2014 | games, openings, positions, tournaments
At Mike Splane’s last chess party, about two weeks ago, I was excited to see two people who have been almost absent from the Santa Cruz chess scene for six years: Eric Fingal and Juan Diego (Juande) Perea. In Eric’s case the reason for his absence was...
by scribe | Jan 9, 2014 | chess clubs, Chess Lecture, current news, openings, people, tournaments
The Bay Area International is now in the books, and it ended in a similar way to the North American Open the preceding week: with a huge logjam of people at the top. Six people — grandmasters Anton Kovalyov, Wei Yi, Sam Shankland, Bartlomiej Macieja, Daniel...
by scribe | Jan 6, 2014 | chess clubs, Chess Lecture, current news, people, tournaments
We’re now entering the “European” phase of the Bay Area International, with just one game a day for the last three rounds. (It’s a week-long tournament, with 1 game the first day, 2 the second, then 1-2-1-1-1.) This is almost the first time...
