by scribe | May 1, 2019 | current news, games, openings
Some of you may know about Grandmaster Jonathan Speelman’s Agony Column at ChessBase.com. It’s a column for reader-submitted games, which GM Speelman annotates. The reason for the unusual name is that he asks you to submit one victory (the ecstasy game)...
by scribe | Feb 7, 2019 | chess clubs, current news, people, positions, PRO Chess League
Crucial position in Xu-Naroditsky. Black to move. First, let’s get one thing straight. Avalanches never happen in Berkeley. Reason one: There’s no snow. But yesterday, for the first time since 2011, there was snow in the mountains to the east of San Francisco (the...
by scribe | Jan 23, 2019 | current news, PRO Chess League
My wife is a big fan of reality television, and has watched almost every episode of the Great British Baking Show and has moved on to watching the not-so-great British interior design show. Even if the shows fail to teach us interior design, they at least educate us...
by scribe | Dec 24, 2018 | chess clubs, current news, games, PRO Chess League
On Saturday the San Francisco Mechanics had our first team meeting at the spacious and inviting new headquarters of the Berkeley Chess School. This is where the team will play half of its matches in the PRO Chess League in 2019; the other half will be played in the...
by scribe | May 21, 2018 | Chess Lecture, current news, openings
Things are calming down on the book front, and I am going to move gradually back to chess in this blog. As many readers know, I used to record lectures regularly for a website called ChessLecture. I decided to stop a few years ago. Not coincidentally, it was right...
