Yesterday afternoon, I stopped on the freeway ramp to assist a stranded motorist, who offered me his bling and his watch if I’d help him get to Florida. Too weird to be true, and maybe he was working a scam. The funny thing is I look at ads for watches all day, because if you look at one ad for a gizmo, you’ll see all the ads for gizmos. Maybe I should’ve taken a closer look at that guy’s watch. I noticed a chessplayer wearing a wristwatch last week, and I thought: Who wears a wristwatch these days, when the …
Category: chess
Two triangulation compositions
Every chessplayer will remember being dismissive first than delighted at Reti’s famous 1921 composition. White to play and draw looks like an impossible task, because the black pawn is out of reach, while the c6-pawn can be captured. The triangulation scheme recurs in the second position, which I came across as a tactics puzzle (composition by Ernst Frederick Holm, Deutsche Schachzeitung, Jan. 1913). If Black plays …Bh3-g2, it’s a draw. First White obstructs the bishop.
On National Chess Day
For National Chess Day, I attended a community gathering at the Berkeley Chess Center (yes, it feels just like going to work in a Saturday). I had a conversation with Vinay Bhat, who is the most important player in the world as far as I’m concerned. No one listens to me about improving at chess, but they will listen to the grandmaster. Vinay is Richard Shorman’s greatest success as a teacher, a world-class player who is also an outstanding human being. He shared something US champion Lev Alburt said in one of his books. Alburt and Bhat had early chess …
The chess book I wanted to ban from the library (but didn’t)
I’m a librarian in a chess school. It’s Banned Book Week, so I’ll mention the one time I wanted to ban a book (but didn’t, and didn’t even shelve it so I could not find it later). A chap named Robert J. Richey hit some Bay Area chess clubs years back, promoting his first (there are more than one now, unfortunately) chess book, Blitz Chess Puzzles. I bought one, because if a chess book author is so desperate for sales that he’s going club to club, that dude either needs to sell some books, or be treated at the Burger …
Self-promotion
Chess writer and teacher Frisco Del Rosario talks from his book Capablanca: A Primer of Checkmate, and conducts a simultaneous exhibition 5:30 p.m. Oct. 13 at the Redeeming Grace Lutheran Church classroom, 2495 Cabrillo Lane in Santa Clara. Capablanca: A Primer of Checkmate is a sequel to the 1947 classic The Art of Checkmate, using games by the 1920s world champion to illustrate checkmating patterns categorized by Renaud and Kahn. A two-time Kolty Chess Club Players (Campbell, Calif.) champion, Del Rosario augmented The Art of the Checkmate by discovering Capablanca’s Mate — a checkmating pattern unseen by Renaud and Kahn …
Dutch champion Roebers wins FIDE World Junior Girls Blitz
Dutch women’s chess champion Eline Roebers, 19, won the FIDE World Junior Girls Blitz Championship held last week in Lima, Peru. Roeber finished with a 12-1 score, clinching the title with a game to spare. I’ve always been a fan, though Roebers plays less interesting chess as a top international player than she did as a rising talent. That happens to almost every outstanding master (unfortunately). She tied for 5th place in the FIDE World Junior Girls Rapid event, winning the following game in rd. 1 against one of those host nation’s representatives.
About a Reddit post with a misleading head
Historian Edward Winter included a bit tangentially pertaining to Go in Winter’s page about Edward Lasker: Edward Lasker I think that Winter included that chunk on his page about Lasker because it’s about a book Lasker wrote. I think the chunk itself is primarily Cecil Purdy’s notion that Lasker should remove an appendix about Go from the chess book. In short, I think that section of Winter’s page of Lasker history could be encapsulated as “Non-chess-related appendix to Lasker’s chess book should be removed, said chess writer Purdy”. Here’s where some trouble is in store: On a Go subreddit, a …
French Defense thinking
There’s the Fort Knox variation of the French: 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Bd7 plus …Bd7-c6 to get that bishop outside the e6-pawn. I had this thought: If you are a devotee of the Fort Knox (which Capablanca played once as a kid), oughtn’t you be inclined to deal with the Advance French 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 with 3…a6 4…Bd7 plus …Bb5 when appropriate? I consulted a database in which the Romanian master Dara has played the Fort Knox more than other players. Dara doesn’t go for 3…a6, but the …
Chess by mail / You can play from the moon, you can play from jail
My friend Ed Bogas, a musician whose work you’ve heard if you don’t recognize his name, wrote the subject head in his song “Chess by Mail”, for the album Deeper Blues by King Bishop and the Squares (highly recommended). When I was 14, I took up correspondence chess, because my best friend was doing it. I flamed out immediately. Correspondence chess was like my introduction to paying bills — an item without arrive in the mail, and it demanded my attention within three days. 40 years pass, and I’m playing tens of correspondence games per day, simplified immeasurably by Internet …
Playing the right way
Basketball coaches often talk about “playing the right way”. Execute sound fundamentals as an individual, cooperatively create and use space as a teammate, be heard and be polite, play hard and play clean, and so on. Winning is swell, but it really oughta take a back seat to playing the right way (in real life and beer commercials, winning is what matters most, which is a societal flaw). Chess is the same way, but the difference is that most chess coaches think teaching kids to play the right way is drilling them in master practice. Master practice is the right …