Musings on chess, and lesser things
Posts on chess
EDIT: Nigel Short responded with an addendum that “the Iran bid was not mentioned in the FIDE General Assembly Agenda. It was sprung on Delegates as a surprise.” This procedural anomaly is worth mentioning in light of my shielding FIDE from blame in the text below. Too-long-didn’t-read version: I don’t support a mass boycott …
For Part 1, click here. In the last article I described the basics of the chess Olympiad, and mentioned that it used to be dominated – almost tediously so – by the USSR. But the chess world is different now and both the Open and Women’s events are extremely competitive. Let’s take a …
NOTE: This was supposed to be a small note, but once I assembled all the questions I’ve been asked over the years, it quickly turned into quite a long article. So I’ve broken it up into two parts, vaguely along the lines of (1) the Olympiad in general, and (2) my thoughts on the upcoming one …
Most chess books are more or less the same. An opening treatise, an instructional book on endgames or middlegames, a training book on tactics. Of course there are differences in quality and exposition, but in a general sense the subject matter is homogenous, and the message consistent: The author tries to shove instructions down our …
No, I’m not talking about my girlfriend (though she also counts). Last weekend was the final installment of the German chess league, which is the strongest in the world. After each weekend I can’t resist quickly going through the 64 games (which is where I found that weird endgame coincidence I blogged about recently). Sometimes, …
Here’s a quick little chess coincidence from the weekend. As I was strolling around to look at the other games in the German Bundesliga matches in Mulheim, I noticed a cute endgame finish in the Dortmund-Emsdetten clash. Black seemed to be holding the position for a while, but unwisely swapped off into a knight-and-two versus …
The World Chess Candidates tournament was awesome. Action-packed, drama-filled, and suspense-ridden right up until the end. I’ve read a lot of reports from the chess side, and naturally about Karjakin’s fabulous win. But I haven’t read anything about the more human moments from the final day, which is a shame because they’re rare gems in …
Having preemptively decided that I’m not going to get any work done today while the chess is on, I’m going to do a live blog again. It worked pretty well last time. Tune in below to hear my random thoughts (and perhaps those of another GM or two) about the fourteenth and final round of …
Book Review: “Playing 1.e4 e5 – A Classical Repertoire”(Nikolaos Ntirlis, Quality) You’ve probably not heard of Nikolaos Ntirlis. But you should! Ntirlis may not have a FIDE rating (at least as far as I could tell), but he has quietly built up a strong reputation as one of the most thorough opening researchers around. …
EDIT: Good work Dave; today’s a rest day! Oh well. I’ll pick up again tomorrow (Tuesday) at 12.oopm GMT. Also gives FIDE 24 hours to tell me if I’m doing anything wrong 🙂 There’s been a LOT of controversy about the World Candidates tournament in Russia, which plays its fourth round today. The issue revolves …