What Jesse Missed, What I Missed

 A couple weeks ago I got a really cool surprise in my e-mail. A chess player named Frank Brown, whom I didn’t know previously, sent me a photograph that he had taken in 2009, when I played against grandmaster Jesse Kraai on one of the top boards at the Western...

Four Queens… and Three

Today I happened to watch a pretty amazing bullet game online. The players were identified as Kozakov versus Bah. I think Kozakov is probably grandmaster Mikhail Kazakov of Ukraine, whose name sometimes seems to be spelled Kozakov. According to one comment I read on...

How to Break Fort Knox in 13 Moves

Last weekend, at one of his chess parties, Mike Splane showed us the following miniature game where he won in 13 moves (!) against the Fort Knox Variation of the French Defense. Oh, were you expecting instructions for breaking into the U.S. Bullion Depository? Sorry,...

Consultation game

On Monday I got together with my friends Gjon, Thadeus, and Cailen for an evening of chess. As we often do, we ended up playing consultation chess — two players to a side, with the players either discussing the moves (which Gjon prefers) or alternating moves...