I have just finished two tournaments in Austria, the excellently organised Lienz Open and Graz Open and I am astonished at the number of Caro-Kanns that were played in the latter. Perhaps, it is because the inventor of this opening, Markus Kann is...
My apologies for the delay - I've been really busy at work and when I'm not working, I was busy with chess! I in fact just finished playing a tournament in Iran and I am typing this out in a PAUL cafe in Dubai, awaiting my next flight back home.&n...
It is kinda late to post a happy new year-ish type of post but in my defence, it has taken me quite a bit of time to go through all of the games that I played in December. I very seldom participate in local events but somehow, I caught a chess bug...
Well, on the December 2017 rating list at least. I had always been hovering around the 2nd or 3rd spot for as long as I can remember and I've never really cared about topping the list because 1) the GM title matters a lot more and 2) there was nev...
In the weeks to come, I will be covering several recent books on the opening in this column. While there are many experienced trainers out there who demand that us amateurs stop looking at openings and focus on the real chess, the fact of the matt...
I've just returned from a summer chess trip and even though I did not manage to accomplish my primary goal (painfully missing the final GM norm by half a point at De Sants 2017, being the highlight of this trip), I did at least achieve other forms...
So I've just returned from this year's summer attempt to make my final Grandmaster norm and many of my friends might already have known that I've come mighty close to achieving exactly that in my final event of the tour. The Legend has already&nbs...
Chess has, without question, undergone a huge renaissance in the US these days. There are simply too many spectacular accomplishments: Winning the 2016 Chess Olympiad for the first time in the last 40 odd years, Jeffrey Xiong joining a long and il...
The SCF will be holding its annual AGM on 3 July 2017, 8pm at the Cairnhill CC. It is also election year, and so members will have the opportunity to appraise how well the current Exco has done for the last 2 years in terms of serving the local ch...
I have to admit that I was a little surprised when I saw that the young and very strong Indian Grandmaster, Gujrathi Vidit filming a set of opening DVDs for Chessbase. After all, he is still an active competitive player and I was more used to name...
White to play a "tahan" move I managed to play in a rapid tournament yesterday and although I was the highest rated player in the field, I was not really expecting much given that the intention was really to shake off some rust, experiment wit...
Some of you might have read that I am now the official book reviewer for Chess.com and I have tentatively set the date for my first review to be on 30 June 2017. If you have any books that you are interested in, please feel free to comment below o...
The QCD Sg Chess League is a joint initiative between the QCD Group and the SCF and is a refreshing and welcome change to the largely junior-focused events that we have seen in abundance in Singapore. Players have to be above the age of 20 in orde...
In the last 5-6 years, I had acquired somewhat of a reputation as an openings-based type of player who relies significantly on "having a powerful serve", as my friend Junior Tay likes to say. Additionally, my aggressive style has led GM Wong Meng ...
My first review was generally well received and even the author himself, Grandmaster Boris Avrukh had said that the review was more difficult to digest than the survey itself! That was of course tongue in cheek but nevertheless, I now have th...
If you are a chess player and are based in Singapore, you should be aware by now that like a whirlwind of energy and positivity, Grandmaster Jacob Aagaard, one of the most famous chess writers and trainers alive have arrived in Singapore, conducte...
After more than a month of organising, Jacob Aagaard will be in Singapore tomorrow! From what I've seen, he appears to be enjoying himself very much as can be seen in the following vid: https://www.facebook.com/sagar.shah.7165331/videos/10155318...
Well firstly, the bad news first: the approximately 3 hour-lecture by reknowned trainer and author, Grandmaster Jacob Aagaard, is officially sold out! Of course, the organisers are absolutely delighted with this but we do feel for those who we ...
IMPORTANT UPDATE: ALL SEATS RESERVED - ALL SUBSEQUENT SIGN-UPS WILL BE NOTIFIED IF THERE ARE ANY DROP OUTS. Firstly, Jacob has been complaining that the photos in my last article were seriously dated and as such, I have taken the liberty to sw...
Some of you might have read this and are aware that Grandmaster Jacob Aagaard, the world reknowned trainer, author, and co-founder of Quality Chess, will be travelling to Asia to provide training and lectures on how to work on chess better. J...
UPDATE: Change of details for the above event I received an email this morning from Girls in Chess, a group of chess enthusiasts who want to encourage and promote girls chess in Singapore. They are organizing the above event and the registration ...
I will be posting a series of articles that will reveal some of the on-goings behind the scene. It took me a fair bit of pondering before deciding to do this but given the complete lack of engagement from the SCF Exco, and looking at the current s...
A lot of people had asked me how I managed to find the time to train and prepare for major events while holding a full-time job. Well, I can only say that my task is made just a bit easier when I've got friends, a bunch of ex-nationals no less, wh...
This is an old article that was re-hashed from an article I wrote for the now defunct - Singapore Chess News. Hope you enjoy it! We often heard this phrase from parents, coaches, chess players alike. One can easily imagine a parent asking his ...
This post is inspired by a recent vlog that was posted by Jacob Aagaard and Nikos Ntirlis on the Quality Chess blog. If you haven't already seen it, and all their previous posts, you really should do so as it seems both of them have done an excell...
