Lars Bo Hansen: How Chess Games Are Won and Lost
I already have far too many books like How Chess Games Are Won and Lost, holistic tomes that attempt to somehow improve your chess game across the board by dispensing a couple hundred pages of advice....
View ArticleThe language of chess
There are many things that appeal to me about chess, and perhaps in some future post I’ll list them all, but one of the most important is the way that it creates a whole new sophisticated language,...
View ArticleMnemosyne
I have a terrible memory. I’m pretty good at remembering processes and techniques, but very bad at remembering raw information. Luckily, I went into computer science, which is all about the former,...
View ArticleSergey Ivashchenko et al: Chess School 1–3
If you know anyone who plays the board game Go, try asking them, “Hey, I learned the rules, I’ve played a bit, and I want to improve; can you recommend a good book?” I will lay even money that they...
View ArticleChess/music synaesthesia
What is even weirder than me having a sense of synaesthesia linking musical key signatures and chess openings is the fact that I never consciously realized that this was kind of a weird thing until...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Snatching mediocrity from the jaws of victory
The worst possible blunder you can make in chess is to resign in a winning position. Accepting a draw in a winning position is only half as bad, but it is still pretty disappointing, especially after...
View Article2010 US Chess Championship
This year’s US Chess Championship is currently being played in Saint Louis; it started yesterday and runs through May 24. The reason I bring it up here is that I think that the organizers are doing a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Double pin
It’s not every day you get to make a move like this. From a 3-minute ICC game: It was very pleasing to be able to play 25.Qxd6.
View ArticleA gripe about chess annotations
More and more these days, analysis of chess games relies on chess engines (playing programs), whether to come up with ideas or just to double-check the human annotator’s calculations. That is not my...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Mnemosyne, part 3
Mnemosyne is a spaced repetition program for aiding memorization; see my first and second posts for more information on the program and how I use it. I guess it is high time for another update; when...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Herb Healy Open House 2014-01-01
One of my favorite tournaments at the Boylston Chess Club is the annual Herb Healy Open House held every New Year’s Day. You get to socialize and play four relatively quick (G/40) games of chess, and...
View Article
