by scribe | Feb 13, 2017 | current news, games, off-topic, people, positions, ruminations
In honor of our new “alternative facts” universe, I decided to delete my chess rating against Shredder (the computer program) and start over with no rating. After 925 games against it, I was unsatisfied with the fact that my rating had gone below 2000. It...
by scribe | Jan 6, 2015 | current news, games, positions, ruminations, tournaments
It’s an age-old question: is chess truly just a game of skill, or is there luck involved too? Here is perhaps the most crucial position I faced in the New Year Championship tournament last weekend. It’s round five, and I’m playing back against Ivan...
by scribe | Apr 7, 2013 | current news, endings, positions
A month ago I wrote a post called Rock, Paper, Scissors, where I posed the following problem: Can you come up with three half-positions (that is, positions for one player only, written in English Descriptive Notation), called “Rock,” “Paper,”...
by scribe | Mar 5, 2013 | literature, positions
This morning I had a really cool puzzle idea: Can you create a chess version of rock-paper-scissors? To state the puzzle more precisely, I need to use the old-fashioned English Descriptive Notation, rather than algebraic. The advantage of English Descriptive —...
by scribe | Dec 12, 2012 | chess clubs, Chess Life, openings, positions, ruminations
Today’s post is a grab bag of topics… 1) The Aptos Library Chess Club has been a hopping place lately. Two weeks ago we had 23 kids, which forced us for the first time to use every single board and set in our collection. This week we had 16, I think. I...
