Two players reached the IM-norm, FM Sean from INA and FM Petrov (RUS) the next First Saturday GM IM FM events schedules: 3rd-13th May, 7th-17th June, 5th-15th July, 2nd-12th August, 6th-16th Sept, etc. IO Nagy Laszlo - www.firstsaturday.hu
S T A L E M A T E _______________________________________________________ The existing rule has this in its favour, that it appeals strongly to the sporting instincts of mankind; and the last chance which it affords to a player who appear...
"The biggest risk is not taking one." Many of the greatest chess players in history are compulsive risk-takers. From Paul Morphy to Mikhail Tal to Bobby Fischer to Alexei Shirov, tournament success (especially at a high level) frequently h...
The 2014 Bill Wright Saint Louis Open, held April 11-13, 2014, was a typical boring weekend swiss, where the one GM, me, was certain to take first place over a few select "experts" in a tournament with small prizes. Oh wait, that's not right at al...
Let me start from the very end of this story. Sousse Interzonal 1967 will always be remembered for Fischer's withdrawal after ten rounds. At that point he had seven wins and three draws. Even though the participants were supposed to play 22 game...
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Today we’ll look at three games and one comment. Each entry has important instructive points that are well worth pondering. We’ll start with the comment, alluding to my article, You Have It He Doesn’t! Part 1, which was all about...
On the TV show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" the contestant lets it be known that he wants to stick with his answer by stating "Final answer!" Similarly, an over-the-board chess player commits when he intentionally touches a piece (have to move...
In a recent tournament, one game reached a certain ending which I had previously played a full eight years ago. That was a decent memory of a very different time. I wasn't even an IM yet, and I was still trying to establish a life in Philadelphia ...
Professor: Good afternoon, class. Just seeing your smiling faces makes my day. Zephyr: It makes your day? That sounds like a quote from an old Dirty Harry movie. Lucian: Why? Does Clint Eastwood play chess in those movies? Professor: I d...
In last week's article, A Week in Chicago, Part 1, we saw a very strange and interesting game I played against the young FM Eric Rosen in a Chicago international tournament. Now let's look at what happened later in the tournament. As I said befo...
In the 1990s, when Pete Sampras dominated Wimbledon, he would sometimes win entire matches without a rally longer than a few hits. Expect the same this Saturday, as two energetic blitz specialists (and talented tennis players) lace up for Death Ma...
In parts one, two, and three of this article, I described the unusual concept of "doing nothing." In this article we'll discuss when it is appropriate to use this idea. Once upon a time, I showed my game vs. Nakamura as an example of "doing noth...
"What's the going rate for selling 100 rating points?" Let's start with "It's illegal and I wouldn't do it, and neither should you or anyone else!" Now that we got that out of the way, I can then state "Interesting question! I've never had that o...
Let's summarize: 1) Every titled player in the world earned the honor by playing games averaging over 5 hours in length. 2) Playing long games on the internet is great practice for real in-person events. 3) Online chess servers do run automated...
Professor: Hello, Class. Happy April Fool’s Day! Lucian: Professor, April Fool’s Day has come and gone. It was three days ago. Zephyr: I prefer to think of April 1 as being Rachmaninoff’s birthday. Lucian: I don’t know if I’d play ches...
As beginners, we are taught a surprising amount of various tricks, sacrifices, and mates that rarely occur in serious tournament practice. Scholar's Mate, Fool's Mate, Legal's Mate - all of these are aesthetically pleasing to an amateur, but requi...
I recently participated in an IM norm tournament in Chicago. This was an unusual kind of tournament for me - and you might find it strange that a tournament for international master norms would have grandmasters. Most of the tournaments in which I...
Quite a few amateurs become a bit confused when game annotations talk about the enormous importance of the dark squares in one position or another. Yes, everyone knows what the dark squares are, but in most cases, one is left wondering why they ar...
In part two of this article, I described how I came up with a weird looking, but nevertheless efficient, plan of treating an unpleasant middlegame in my game vs. Hikaru Nakamura. For in-depth analyzation of the study-like endgame in this encounter...
At the recent FIDE Congress, delegates from the 103 countries represented made some rule changes that had been debated for the past few years. Here are the highlights- 1. Changes for title requriements: a. By a margin of 100-4, it was voted fo...
In Part Six of this seven-part series, we saw Alekhine lose the World Championship to Max Euwe in 1935, only to win it back in 1937. After shocking the world (and Euwe, who was sure he would finish Alekhine off once and for all) with that ep...
In last week's article, we started an analysis of a bizarre game I played ten years ago in the U.S. Championship. The key moment happened around move 15 when, quoting the ChessBase article, Serper "started moving his bishop back and forth between ...
Paul Morphy, Spring Hill College, 1854 This is a highly unusual article for me. I have no love for chess engines. Additionally, I have severe reservations about trying to compare modern players with 19th cenutry players. It has alwa...
