Submitted by
on Sat Nov 7, 2009 7:05am.
Mikhail Tal was, at his peak, an irresistible force. World champions past, present and future—including Smyslov, Botvinnik, Petrosian, Spassky and Fischer—fell to the wizardry of combinations which may sometimes have been unsound but were ext... Read more »
Submitted by
on Fri Oct 30, 2009 1:53pm.
No, this isn't a story about Alexandra Kosteniuk (pictured) or even Arianne Caoili, the femme fatale behind Gormallygate. It's about queens, and the part they play in the royal game. Sometimes there can be too many queens on the board, sometimes ... Read more »
Submitted by
on Sun Oct 25, 2009 2:40am.
She-Who-Flies-by-Night is known well beyond the boundaries of chess.com and is one of the most respected contributors in the chess firmament, so when she makes a request it carries the authority of a royal command. A few days ago she asked me to ... Read more »
Submitted by
on Sun Oct 18, 2009 5:25am.
The nineteenth century was an age of spectacular sacrifices and flamboyant gambits that resulted in the kind of wild games that we rarely see in modern practice. Following are two king chases from the glory days, one from modern tournament play,... Read more »
Submitted by
on Fri Oct 9, 2009 9:05pm.
Kasparov, commenting on Euwe's game against Speyer in the 1924 Dutch Championship, wrote, “This is ... a classic ambush with the threat of discovered check.”
The concept of an ambush hadn't occurred to me before but I didn't need to read it t... Read more »
Submitted by
on Sat Sep 19, 2009 4:05am.
In 1994 two of my sons, Wayne and Neil, attempted something that had never been done in Australia before. They, and two of their clubmates, launched a hang glider from a hot-air balloon.
The location was Canowindra, just across the Blue Mountai... Read more »
Submitted by
on Fri Sep 11, 2009 1:38pm.
In Australia, with a population (as of July 2009) of 21,262.641, there are less than 3,000 people on the ACF's Active Players list. That compares rather badly with chess.com which lists 23,009 Australian members.
New players can be quickly disco... Read more »
Submitted by
on Fri Sep 4, 2009 7:10am.
The power of a bishop increases exponentially when it works beside its mate—especially when both have open diagonals at their disposal. Whether attacking from a distance or up close and personal, the bishop is a superb killing tool and is the l... Read more »
Submitted by
on Wed Aug 26, 2009 4:56pm.
Logically, if you can play a reasonable game of chess you should be able to play a reasonable game of 960. In practice, for me at least, it hasn't always worked out that way. I expected that, once through the opening, the normal rules of combat ... Read more »
Submitted by
on Fri Aug 14, 2009 2:40pm.
Words aren't always what they seem. Sometimes longer words can be really small—like nasturtium, for instance—because it has only one meaning. It's a flower. On the other hand, some short words can be quite large—like bum. Bum has so many ... Read more »