1850s Opening Theory

Recently Gjon Feinstein showed me a Paul Morphy game that he had recently shown to his students. Like so many of Morphy’s games, it was short and sweet. Paul Morphy — Bottin, Paris 1858 1. e4 e5 2. c3?! (Pretty unconventional by modern standards) 2....

Good teaching position

I can never predict how well my lessons are going to go at the Aptos Library chess club. It seems to depend completely on which kids show up that day, what kind of mood they’re in, and other unknowable random factors. Last Tuesday was a really good day. We had...

A Quickie

When I give chess lessons at the Aptos Public Library, it’s always a challenge to make them concise enough. For this age group (roughly 6 to 12) I have found that 15 minutes is about the limit of their attention span, or 20 minutes if the lesson is going well....