by scribe | Dec 29, 2010 | games, openings, people
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...
by scribe | Sep 3, 2010 | Chess Lecture, ruminations, tournaments, US Chess League
Tomorrow I will start playing in the Cal Chess Labor Day Open, which is a 3-day, 6-round Swiss. It also serves as the northern California state championship, which has been won by Sam Shankland the last two years. With Sam now “retired” (except for the...
by scribe | Aug 30, 2010 | Chess Lecture, positions
It’s been a couple weeks since I posted here, so I feel as if I owe you something extra-special to make up for my absence. I’d like to tell you about a practice session that I had a week ago with the “usual suspects” — National Master...
by scribe | Aug 8, 2010 | current news, endings, games, openings, positions, tournaments
The penultimate round of the 2010 US Open was a very strange one for me. The last two rounds are being played on a one-a-day schedule, so I had to wait around all day (until 7:30 pm) to play my game. And then it took all of 14 minutes to play! My opponent blundered a...
by scribe | Aug 7, 2010 | Chess Lecture, current news, positions, tournaments
Yesterday was a good news/bad news day for me at the US Open, but the bad left a deeper impression. I won my morning game, a nice King’s Gambit (I was White) with Westerinen’s line 1. e4 e5 2. f4 ef 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Nc3 c6 5. d4 Bb4. I lectured on that once...
