by scribe | Apr 3, 2018 | Chess Lecture, openings, ruminations, tournaments
About once a year I take a look at my site statistics to see what my most popular posts were. Then for the rest of the year, I ignore what’s popular and just write what I feel like writing! I do think that new or infrequent visitors might appreciate a guide to...
by scribe | Sep 9, 2017 | current news, games, people, positions, tournaments
In a fairer world, we would all be talking about Xiangzhi Bu today. At the World Cup, he just defeated the World Champion, Magnus Carlsen, in a game straight out of the nineteenth century. Bu played a daring bishop sacrifice on move 15; Carlsen accepted his challenge...
by scribe | Sep 13, 2015 | current news, tournaments
As I write this, the first round of the FIDE World Cup is still not quite over. One out of 64 matches has gone to the Armageddon tiebreaker — the match between #85 Mateusz Bartel of Poland and #44 Gabriel Sargissian of Armenia. But the other 63 matches have...
by scribe | Jan 6, 2014 | chess clubs, Chess Lecture, current news, people, tournaments
We’re now entering the “European” phase of the Bay Area International, with just one game a day for the last three rounds. (It’s a week-long tournament, with 1 game the first day, 2 the second, then 1-2-1-1-1.) This is almost the first time...