Musings on chess, and lesser things
These days, the extent of my chess career seems to be the odd blitz game on the net during my lunch break. It’s more virtual escapism than serious training of course, but I get to try out some fun openings. One I’ve been enjoying a lot lately is the Wing Gambit, considered dubious at best …
I didn’t plan to stop writing. It just sort of happened; I had a lot of fires to put out in my work, and they kept coming, and after a while it all became too easy to forget about this site. I feel a bit guilty – it was seven years of regular writing without …
The recent strong chess open in the German town of Bad Wiessee was won by my Werder Bremen teammate, the Ukrainian GM Alexander Areshchenko. Areshchenko is perhaps best known as being currently the world’s best expert on playing the Najdorf, though perhaps Maxime might have something to say about that. Areshchenko finished in a massive seven-player tie …
I recently read two opening books that deserve a joint review. Both of the above titles are aimed at providing a black repertoire against the ‘flank’ openings, which is a broad term that usually means anything except for 1.e4 or 1.d4. They made quite interesting reading, …
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 …
How many seconds have you been alive in your life? Seriously, take a guess. Just pick the closest number that feels right. What did you think? One million? Ten million? A hundred million?! This question is hard. As humans, we’re not used to calculating or even guessing big numbers. We’re not programmed for it; after …
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, …