by scribe | Mar 11, 2020 | current news, off-topic, people, ruminations, tournaments
“Without a plan, you are lost.” This is something that my college Russian teacher (who was also a chess player) once told me. He was a spy during World War II, and he said that once he was on a train when the police came on and started checking...
by scribe | Jun 1, 2018 | current news, literature, off-topic
I have to pass along this wonderful conversation about The Book of Why that took place on Facebook. A friend of mine sent me a link to it; I do not know any of the commenters personally. More than any sales numbers or Amazon rankings, this conversation warmed my heart...
by scribe | Feb 13, 2018 | current news, literature, off-topic
Going off topic today! I hope that my readers will forgive me. As many of you know, for the last two years I have been working on a big, non-chess book. It’s called The Book of Why, and we are now entering the home stretch. Publication date is now just three...
by scribe | Apr 25, 2016 | endings, games, people, ruminations
About once a year I like to take a look at my blog stats, just to see what is happening. What are my most popular posts all-time? What are the most popular ones recently? The all-time list never changes very much — it’s always the same post at the top, and...
by scribe | Dec 24, 2015 | openings, ruminations
Of course this is a rhetorical question, but really. Earlier this year I wrote a series of posts called Grading the Openings looked at the winning percentages of each of the ECO opening classifications in master play. There’s a small but undeniable difference...
