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One more nice chess game
Ok, I seem to be in a good vein lately with blitz games on the Internet Chess Club. I play at home, after a hard day at work (oh well, ok, I do not carry lead bricks around, but I do feel tired...
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The unextinguishable beauty of chess
Very sorry to all of you physics geeks, but here comes yet another post about chess. They come in waves, as my love for the game knows moments of high fever alternating dormant periods. The title of...
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A win against IM Vladimir Eljanov
It is always nice to win a game against a titled chessplayer, even if it is only a blitz game (5 minutes per player) and it is played online in the Internet Chess Club, thus preventing you from...
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My 1987 interview with Vishy Anand
Funny how we live our lives accumulating all sorts of documents and then forget about them, while they wait patiently in a drawer or at the bottom of a box for the moment when they will be drawn out,...
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An old self-mate
Disappointing 97% of my readers, my production today is a post about chess. And not only that: not even about real chess, but rather a chess problem. Worse: it is a rather uncommon problem stipulation,...
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Luigi Mondini, 1957-2007
I think I understand now, having crossed the mark of 40 years of age, how hard it is to keep in touch with friends as time goes by. Your family, your job – everything conspires against your social...
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Still going strong
Thanks Carl, who pointed me to a site offering a very nice chess test, I can today brag about my understanding of the game. I took the test – a quite lengthy one, where you have to find the move you...
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Goodbye Bobby
Bobby Fischer died today. A deranged but brilliant, brilliant mind. Chess players around the world cannot but be sad for this loss. Many had continued to hope for a further comeback from Fischer, the...
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Magnus Carlsen, a future chess champion
Magnus Carlsen is well known to chess enthusiasts around the world. A child prodige once, and now a young adult -17 years old- who is quickly rising to the very top of the chess world. He has been...
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1000 hours wasted ?
I recently gave a look at the statistics table of my chess games on the Internet Chess Club, and was left wondering whether I should rather spend more wisely my time. Indeed, here is the table: In it,...
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Pleasing chess riddle
This evening I played a few blitz games on the internet chess club. Here is the position I reached with the black pieces in one of these: As you can see, black is a pawn up, and has a clearly superior...
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You have ten seconds to find…
… how to force black to resign, by playing a move as white in the following position: Of course, when you play blitz on the internet, there is nobody telling you there’s something worth looking for....
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A nice miniature
Just played a quick 5′ game on the Internet Chess Club. I was rather pleased to play a nice miniature (a game lasting very few moves, and usually concluding with a fine mating combination). The game...
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Selected holiday links
Being too lazy to generate content while relaxing after a day on the ski slopes in Padola, I am offering you a few selected links that are worth a visit. Not all about physics, and not all recent...
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Mate in eight
The biggest upsets are really emotionally repaying, in chess as in any other sport. I was down a rook and a piece in a horribly hopeless game played on the internet chess club this evening, when I...
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White to move and win
Minutes ago I logged on the Internet Chess Club for some evening fun, after an evening spent playing with my kids, feeding them, and reading them a chapter of the first book of the Harry Potter saga...
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Sunday chess riddle
Here is a rather simple chess riddle for you, taken -as I’ve taken a habit of doing- from a blitz game I played a minute ago on the Internet Chess Club. Below I give you all the moves of the game...
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Small satisfactions
This evening I worked out some small satisfaction for myself by routing in turn an international master, Guido Kern (Dorot his ICC handle), and the South Carolina State champion of 2007, Timur Aliyev...
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A pretty knight journey
I give below the moves of a blitz game I played tonight on the Internet Chess Club. The moves are not accurate, as we had just five minutes each to complete the game, and we are both dilettantes. But...
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The four pawns attack as black likes it
The four-pawns attack of the Alechin defense arises after the sequence 1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.c4 Nb6 4.d4 d6 5.f4. White goes all in for a direct attack, exploiting the wandering black knight to gain...
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