The New York State Championship is becoming one of my favorite tournaments. I look back on my previous tournaments and am filled with fond memories. This year Aleksandr Ostrovskiy won the tournament in impressive fashion with 5/6. This year was a good year for me. I played in the open section and performed well. I scored 3/6 and went +2 =2… Read more →
Author: Josh
September 2015 Grandmaster Spotlight: Hicham Hamdouchi
This month we are examining the games of GM Hicham Hamdouchi. For a long time, GM Hamdouchi was one of the strongest players in Africa. He won the Moroccan Championship a whopping 11 times. In 2013, he won the french championship. This makes him one of the few players in the world to win in two different country championships. There… Read more →
2015 World Cup Preview
If you’re bored this year by the chess scene, I don’t blame you. This year hasn’t been all that interesting. The good news is, that all changes today. For today FIDE has announced the first round pairings for the World Cup. The World Cup is the March Madness of the chess world; TIMES TWO! In the NCAA tournament, ~64 teams… Read more →
August 2015 Grandmaster Spotlight: Sergei Tiviakov
Welcome back! This month we are examining the life and games of GM Sergei Tiviakov. Tiviakov has been a staple of high level tournaments for the last 20 or 30 years. I learned a lot about Tiviakov in doing my research for this post. I remember when I was weaker I saw a lot of his Scandinavian games and that… Read more →
Recap of the 20th Bradley Open
This past weekend I played in the 20th annual Bradley Open. It was a strange event for me and was quite the roller coaster. It was a smorgasbord of a tournament. Generally there is a theme to the way I play in a given tournament. This tournaments theme was potpourri; everything that could happen did happen. Let me explain; in… Read more →
July 2015 Grandmaster Spotlight: Petar Drenchev
This month we are going to be examining the life and games of GM Petar Drenchev. GM Drenchev has a FIDE rating of 2465 and is the 18th highest rated player from Bulgaria. He earned the IM title in 2007 and the GM title in 2011. Drenchev received his GM title later in life than you usually see. This gives… Read more →
Recap of the 61st Maryland Open
A few weeks ago I played in the 61st Maryland Open. As usual the conditions were fantastic. Mike runs a fantastic tournament. My readers should make an attempt to play in his events. He works hard and we need more progressive minded people in the chess world. I did my new routine leading up to this tournament. My results were… Read more →
June 2015 Grandmaster Spotlight: Berge Ostenstad
Welcome back, this month we are going to be examining the games of GM Berge Ostenstad. Ostenstad has a FIDE rating of 2456 and is the 11th highest rated player in Norway. He was the sixth person awarded the GM title from Norway. He earned the IM title in 1987 and he earned the GM title in 2003. Ostenstad is… Read more →
May 2015 Grandmaster Spotlight: Emil Sutovsky
This month we are going to peruse the games of GM Emil Sutovsky. Sutovsky has a FIDE rating of 2626 and is the 5th highest rated player from Israel. He earned the IM title in 1993 and earned the GM title in 1996. Like GM Azarov he is still active and plays frequently. In 1996 he won the World Junior… Read more →
800 Games: A Brief Look Back
A few months ago I managed to complete my 800th over the board chess game. We can say a lot about playing 800 games over the board. First of all; think of all the time I’ve wasted! Consider that each game is roughly 120 minutes long. Based on that calculation, I’ve spent 1600 hours playing chess. That’s ~67 days of… Read more →