Greetings everyone, I’m going to do my best to give everyone a concise little recap of the news and games I find interesting from the men’s Olympiad. This is going to include individual upsets (with some light commentary on the openings) as well as team upsets and standings. The first round went pretty smoothly; the favorite teams won fairly easily… Read more →
Hello everyone, after witnessing GM Gata Kamsky win yet another US Championship. I thought it would be prudent to look back at some previous US Champions and their games. In this post, I will be focusing on what I consider the first “modern” US Championship played in 1936. I’d like to compile enough material for a “My Great Predecessors” style… 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 →
I recently competed in the 60th Maryland Open in Rockville, MD. As usual the tournament was well run and the playing conditions were wonderful. The nice thing that keeps me coming back to Maryland to play is the way they run the tournaments. The time controls make sense, they provide boards and clocks and they even provide a continental breakfast.… Read more →
So recently there has been some buzz on the USCF forums about college chess (a discussion you know I can’t keep my big nose out of). I want to go on record as saying that I played college chess and saw firsthand the difficulty that the current situation creates. Read more →
I meant to publish this post in early January; unfortunately it was not ready then. I got tied up with a lot of other things and unfortunately this post fell by the wayside. In 2008 the chess world lost Fischer; In 2010 the chess world lost Vassily Smyslov, in 2013 we lost Robert Byrne. The chess world also lost: GM… Read more →
This past weekend was the 36th Marchand Open tournament. We hold the Marchand every year in Rochester, NY to honor the memory of Dr. Erich Marchand, who was a prolific author and player in his time. In my previous post I mentioned that there was a chance that GM Gata Kamsky would be playing. Gata did end up playing and… Read more →
Hello everyone, breaking news here in Rochester: Current US Champ Gata Kamsky is going to be playing in the Marchand! Gata Kamsky is the second highest rated player in the US and the 40th highest rated player in the world. In 1996 Kamsky challenged Anatoly Karpov in a 20 game match for the FIDE championship losing +3 =9 -6. In… Read more →
Today I’m going to be running through the list of candidates and what I perceive to be their respective chances for winning the tournament. Last year it was fairly easy to determine who would be the next challenger; Magnus Carlsen was a clear favorite and Levon Aronian was the number two choice. For a while that seemed to be playing… 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 →