I recently received my “2019 Report” from chess.com. I wasn’t aware that this was a service they offered but I enjoyed their report and their suggestions. In this new era of “big data” chess.com is collecting millions of games a day (if not more) so it makes sense that they would have suggestions for improvement. It should be noted that… Read more →
I played for two hours today, I still haven’t really decided how long I’m going to play for online so again, if anybody has any suggestions please let me know. I started off playing rather poorly, but managed to regain some dignity towards the middle of the stream. I still managed to finish with 11 wins, 2 draws and 9… Read more →
Hello everyone, I’ve decided to take on a challenge. I’m going to try to play blitz chess on ICC for some predetermined length of time. I think the record right now is 72 hours as set by Graham Burgess but I’ve yet to see any corroboration on this or confirmation. If anyone knows Graham or can confirm this record please… Read more →
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 →
I want to give a shout out to Official Staunton (not to be confused with House of Staunton). They have a fantastic website and frequently update their social media. If you follow me on twitter, you’ll note that a last month, I won an online giveaway. I’m generally somewhat cynical about giving strangers on the internet my address; I thought… Read more →
I recently accomplished one of my goals/resolutions that I had been working on for the last two years. I finally achieved my rating goal, which was to break 2100. For the uninitiated, in chess you receive a rating based on your prior performances. Arpad Elo created the initial framework for the chess rating system (now known as an “ELO” rating).… Read more →
In this post, we will look at some amusing games I’ve played in the Scandinavian Defense. The vast majority of these were on ICC in either the three or 5-minute pools. These games don’t require much analysis. They should be a nice airy respite from the heavily analyzed mystery post to come (you know, the one that’s taken me almost… Read more →
Today I’d like to spend some time talking about my second favorite kind of checkmate; the ever elusive “Queen Mate”. This typically happens when the queen is trapped by a piece of lesser value (usually minor pieces and pawns do this quite well). I have some examples to show and then (in breaking with some previous posts) I’m going to… Read more →
Hello everyone, today I am very pleased to present to you the first ever opening survey on this site. Many other publications have done a fantastic job of bringing to you the main lines and ideas that present themselves in modern opening practice. Today we will be examining what has become known as the “Nikolayev Gambit” named (aptly so) after… Read more →
Hello everyone, today I wish to present to you what I’ve been working on the last few weeks: The top 10 most important opening novelties from the Modern World Championships. I was inspired to create this after witnessing what I would perceive to be the death of the modern opening preparation perpetrated by Magnus Carlsen (who I firmly believe is… Read more →