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 …
Category: chess
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 …
Did every old-timer get 30 years younger on International Chess Day, or was it just me
July 20 is International Chess Day, so I entered a marathon 5 3 tournament on lichess (rather than do the housecleaning for which I set the weekend aside). Against a 22-year-old Brazilian CM, I played like I was 30 again:
Bought, for $111
Bob Long was a chess publisher who knew what club-level players needed to read. One of the smartest things he ever did was to buy the rights to Cecil Purdy’s work. Purdy was the best chess teacher for students and average players. There are really two levels of chess teacher: The teachers who turn masters into grandmasters, and bad players into good players. Chessplayers are delusional halfwits who think they need the books written by the first type of teacher, when what they actually need is the material written by the second. Cecil John Seddon Purdy was the best of …
Two immortal performing artists and one chess teacher
There’s a comedian named Al Lubel. He talked about enjoying the sound of his own name. So he repeated it: “Al Lubel. Al Lubel. Al Lubel. Al Lubel. Al Lubel.” He’d do this for minutes. Then he demonstrated a sense for the right time to say: “Isn’t it funny that the more I say it, the more you wonder ‘who is this guy?’.” I think that’s one of the funniest things I ever heard, partly because when he broke to say “Isn’t it funny that the more I say it”, I was thinking “what the fuck, how long will he …
The hottest ticket and media credential in this town or any town
The organizer of the 2025 US senior open for chess fell ill. The usual path these days is to launch a pleasehelpme page, but this chess organizer said: Please play in my tournament. It’s in Illinois, weekend of July 25. So I’d miss Dallas at Golden State, but the Wings visit again in September. And there’s a Sky game I could do on the 27th. Only trouble is, it’s Indiana. Before I ask Sky media for a credential, maybe Golden State can find a job (and accreditation) for me.