Hello chess friends! This month’s column was inspired by a reader! Matthew Brodhead sent in his game against John Cissik, and analyzing his game gave me the idea for this month’s column. GM Savielly Tartakower (whom I love to quote!) once said that any opening is good enough to play if its reputation is bad enough. What he meant was that once a line gets a reputation as a loser, it becomes fodder for those who are willing to work to find improvements and use them to gain points in competition.
“In ‘miniature’ games, errors are soon magnified” - Dylan Loeb McClain, New York Times Hello chess friends! Welcome to the annual miniatures column, where we limit the entries to games of 25 moves or less in length. For this year’s selection, all of the games were won by the players of the black pieces. The games are presented here in order of ECO Code.
Greetings chess friends! I beg your indulgence for this month’s column; I am just now finishing up the manuscript for a book that is to be released next year (details later!), and this month’s column is an idea I have had for some time, and for which I have many recent games (including several of my own) to work with. This allows me to make use of some recent post-game analyses. So, without further ado, I offer you my testimony on behalf of the Queen’s Gambit Declined!
Hello chess friends! This month’s column is dedicated to Abraham Wilson of Mililani, Hawaii, a long-time competitor in the Absolute Championships and the Golden Knights Championships. Abe has retired from competitive correspondence chess after 36 years of competition. His accomplishments are worthy of recognition, and so this month we salute Abe Wilson, Correspondence Warrior!
Hello chess friends! This month’s column is the second in a series about the elements of chess analysis, using the email and correspondence games played by US Chess members as examples. The first column, looking at king safety, motivated a number of you to share your games, which is why last month’s column was something of a continuation of the first part of the series. This month we introduce the next element: time. Strap in folks, it’s another long one!