Tortoise and Hare sat down to play a game of chess. (If you don’t like fables, “Tortoise” is me, Dana Mackenzie. “Hare” is an expert named Arthur Liou. The date was November 29, and the occasion was round five of the CalChess State...

The CalChess State Championship may be over, but just like a tasty Thanksgiving dinner, it keeps on giving! I will write at least two more blog posts about it. One thing that I enjoyed about this weekend’s tournament was having a chance to catch up...

As I wrote in yesterday’s entry, I had another interesting game with the Radchenko Variation of the Two Knights Defense yesterday. It’s funny, after playing this line only three times in 20 years, I have had two chances to play it this year....

Your record 19-game winning streak is in jeopardy! Thadeus Frei, a 16-year-old player from Santa Cruz, went 6-0 in the class B section of the CalChess State Championship this weekend. He also won 5 games in a row in his last tournament, so he is now...

Back in the old days of the Cold War, Mad magazine use to have a great cartoon called “Spy vs. Spy.” (Maybe they still do — I haven’t looked at Mad for about 30 years.) The cartoon chronicled the never-ending escapades of two spies, the White Spy and...