kahns

I am a New York-based writer, documentary producer, and chess expert (USCF rating ~2130). My insane obsessive hobby for a long time has been to play through old chess games, more or less in chronological order. I am interested in the evolution of chess and looking to follow various ideas as they develop over time, but most of all, I am interested in the players and in treating them sort of the way an art survey book would treat artists. The theory is that each top player – to consistently defeat other grandmasters – has to bring something new to the game, has to have a philosophy of chess that sets them apart. 

For non-chess-writing (if there really is such a thing), my primary home is the Substack 'Castalia.' This includes fiction, essays, personal reflections, commentary on politics and aesthetics.