Welcome once again to my blog, where I am analysing all my OTB (Over The Board) chess games for my local club Pontypridd played during the season 2016/17. After abandoning competitive chess as an teenager I decided to join a club again last year (...
Garry Kasparov has been actively promoting his latest book Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins in recent months, and this has included a TED talk which is now available to view online. The talk and the b...
Welcome once again to my blog, where I have decided to analyse all my OTB (Over The Board) chess games for my local club Pontypridd played during the season 2016/17. After abandoning competitive chess at the tender age of sixteen to focus on the s...
Welcome to my relaunched blog where I'll be analysing my games for my local chess club, Pontypridd, since I joined them last year (full story here!). Reviewing your games and trying to learn from them, especially the losses, is often cited as an i...
Last year, the documentary movie "Magnus" premiered at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival. Now after a long wait, it is available to watch on Netflix UK. The film was well reviewed and features behind the scenes footage from Magnus Carlsen'...
After many years spent feeding my chess habit via the wonders of the internet, and in particular Chess.com, I joined a chess club! In truth, I'm not exactly a newbie because like many chess addicts of my age (46, since you ask) I played for my loc...
If anyone would like to buy a beautiful chess clock, have a look at my Garde Mechanical Chess Clock which I'm selling on Ebay. It's the type that was famously used in the 1993 World Chess Championship match between Garry Kasparov and Nigel S...
My perfect game...so says Chess.com's analysis! Yeah, I know it sounds like I'm bragging, but I'm not like that, honest! After every game for my local club I input the moves into an engine for analysis and find out what I missed. It's norm...
Talented chess players seem to get younger every year, probably with the help of ever-ready chess computer software to play against. However, a recent game from the 2016 Victorian Chess Championships shows that chess ethics may sometimes lag behin...
These are troubled times for the unloved leader of FIDE Kirsan Illyumzhinov, having sanctions imposed on him by the U.S. Government and being accused of trading Daesh (or Isis/Isil whatever) oil. Reports today suggest that Kirsan has finally step...
An in-depth profile of Magnus Carlsen by the New Yorker in 2011 is now freely available on their website. It's definitely worth a read if you have half an hour to spare. My favourite excerpt: Carlsen said that, for him, great chess playing is le...
The latest changes to the official FIDE laws of chess have taken the hard-line of banning mobile phones from playing venues completely. This will apply to all FIDE rated events, although there is dispensation for individual tournaments to specify...
Last week at the Churchill Club in Silicon Valley, California, the world champion Magnus Carlsen was interviewed before an audience by Paypal Founder and chess enthusiast, Peter Thiel. If you want to hear the champion speak at length and you have...
OK, this is officially my new favourite chess video. Magnus Carlsen trash talks with French GM Laurent Fressinet in a friendly blitz game (during preparation for his world championship match with Anand). Carlsen wins by a surprise checkmate, but L...
The chess Candidates Tournament currently being held in London isn't getting a lot of direct publicity, but it does seem to be sparking off chess-related articles in the media. The BBC radio show "A Point of View" has weekly reflections on topica...
The Isle of Man has produced some nice stamps featuring the famous Lewis Chessmen. I've always liked the style of these 12th century pieces - an amazing historical artefact! See more here. Our Medieval Treasure Island We are pleased to presen...
The Morra Gambit is hugely popular at amateur level despite being regarded by "theory" as insufficient compensation for a pawn. Grandmasters aren't supposed to lose against the Morra Gambit, but GM Viesturs Meijers (Elo 2479) of Latvia lost to An...
In a week's time Judit Polgar will be competing in the London Chess Classic against the best chess players in the world. Judit has been the strongest female chess player for two decades, and has achieved this by competing with the best men rather...
Pop star Katy Perry is so famous that even I have heard of her. This is no mean achievement since I pretty much stopped listening to chart music circa 1992 . Since Ms. Perry is extremely famous I have to assume that the first picture at this link...
The fashion label Prada must think that chess is cool, because they're latest advertising campaign includes models playing something that looks suspiciously like chess. I'm not sure that models are exactly the sort of people who would best promot...
Seville, 1987. The two greatest chess players in the world are nearing the end of a titanic struggle for supremacy. Garry Kasparov, the champion, is determined to hold onto the crown that he fought so hard to gain in 1985/6. The former champion ...
Chess.com members of a certain age may remember the early days of computer chess when the hugely popular Battle Chess software brought entertainingly gory chess set animation to the masses. In recent years there have been attempts to recreate som...
The FIDE website posts fairly frequent updates about the "working visits" of president Kirsan Illyunzhinov to countries around the world, most of which are usually, to me at least, of little interest I must admit. But, the latest update about ou...
One of the lesser known parts of Chess.com is the store directory [EDITED in 2013 - links have been updated to direct to the actual shops instead] where there are links to many online chess shops, along with reviews from Chess.com members (see bel...
With the increasing popularity of 'cloud' computing and online applications for many kinds of tasks, I had wondered for quite a while why no-one seemed to have invented a way of opening and managing PGN files online, eliminating the need to downlo...
