This and That

This post is just to let people know about some random things going on on chess.com these days, particularly in my work.

Up first: tomorrow's episode of our weekly chess TV show, "Pardon our Blunders," will be open to basic and gold members as well as platinum and diamond. I will be joined by a special guest co-host instead of Danny-- a participant from the just-concluded Tata Steel tournament. You can watch it live at 10 am pacific, 1 pm eastern, 6 pm London, 7 pm Paris/Amsterdam. Platinum and Diamond members may also be able to watch the saved show later.

Second: my buddy "the Poet" brings to our attention a photography project/calendar made by his girlfriend about female intelligence vs. female beauty, using chess. To read more about it or to get a copy of the calendar, please check out his post here.

Third: I recently had a chance to meet up with an old chess friend and... analyze chess! Wow, that really happens ever so rarely, and it was so much fun! Here, try to solve this little puzzle from one of the games we studied. It is black to play, what should black do?

Fourth: although I have not done many videos on chess.com in the past couple months, I've been hard at work recording a lot of videos for chesskid and the youtube channel. In particular I feel really good about a few series that I have finally completed for kids: one on the La Bourdonnais-McDonnell match, another a kind of complete guide to basic strategy, and the third a guide to basic endgame piece play/strategy.

If you are a non-diamond member, you might like to check out our youtube videos, to get a taste of what video lessons are like on chess.com. These youtube videos are complete videos, just not as long or as well planned out as the ones on chess.com. Here's one I just did featuring some great play from the current Gibraltar tournament.

You can view the whole channel here: http://www.youtube.com/user/wwwChesscom

I have also started a new video series for chess.com, in which I do real-time analysis of a member's live games. E.g. the first one.

Fifth: More DEATH MATCHES coming your way!! We have great battles planned for both February and March and April! I'll be announcing the match-ups tomorrow on Pardon our Blunders. The dates are February 26, March 31, and April 28.

Sixth: We've just released a terrific new mentor course, about defending!!