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Europe
2018 Tata Steel Chess (Wijk aan Zee)
One of the marquee tournaments kicked off today in Wijk ann Zee with the opening of the 80th Tata Steel Chess Tournament. World Champion Magnus Carlsen is coming off of his 2017 Grand Tour win and the recent Blitz title to play in his 14th Tata tournament. He won in…
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Media Stories
Fascinating Bobby Fischer video!
Some years ago, I stumbled onto a Google document featuring a video of Bobby Fischer shortly after he was released (March 24, 2005) from his nine-month imprisonment. I had not seen it on any chess-related website and had been meaning to do a brief on it after some reservations. Fischer…
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Drum Majors
Colding releases “Chess for Children”!
National Master Ernest “Steve” Colding has been a mainstay in New York chess for more than 40 years. He has an affable persona and for the past 30 years has shared his joy of chess with students in the New York area. As one of the original “Black Bears of…
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Africa
Carlsson tours Kenya!
GM Pontus Carlsson is becoming a regular on the African scene to conduct training sessions. The Swedish national participated in the 2017 Africa Tour visiting Botswana, Namibia and Zambia. The trip, sponsored by the Paul Allen Foundation, was a rousing success and featured other Black chess masters including Maurice Ashley…
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The Chess Drum
The Chess Drum’s Highlights of 2017!
The year 2017 was an interesting year showing that chess is becoming more universal with the steady rise of China and India. Viswanathan Anand won the World Rapid and took 3rd in the World Blitz, a sign that he is still a force to be reckoned with in the upcoming…
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Media Stories
“Triple Exclam” wins joint honor for “Best Author”
Chess Club Live, a large social media organization announced their awards for 2017 via Twitter. There were various categories and followers were asked to vote in several categories. The vote was conducted via Twitter poll and there was a limited window of time. In a year when an number of…
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Drum Majors
Webster’s New York chess crew makes history
Four young men from New York have continued their ambitions in chess at Webster University under the tutelage of Grandmaster Susan Polgar and Paul Truong. Shawn Swindell was the first to enter Webster and he also plays on the basketball team. He was followed by FIDE Masters Joshua Colas and…
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Media Stories
Kenneth Clayton, chess pioneer (1938-2017)
“When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground.” ~ African Proverb The chess world lost another pioneer the other day when National Master Kenneth Roger Clayton passed away on December 26th. The 79-year old Maryland resident was a person of consequence: a scholar, chess master, loving father/husband…
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Media Stories
Revisiting Baraka Shabazz
Baraka Shabazz at Dupont CirclePhoto by Washington Post Recently on Facebook, BJ McCurdy of Los Angeles raised a question on the whereabouts of Baraka Shabazz (unrelated to this writer). For the uninitiated, Baraka was a teenage sensation who experienced a meteoric rise in the late 70s. She was the subject…
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Europe
Will there be a FIDE election in 2018??
The chess horizon has been quiet since capping off a busy year with the Grand Chess Tour. Last week, I started wondering about 2018 chess year. Apart from the Alpha Zero buzz and the firestorm over the World Championship logo, there hasn’t been much in the way of chess news.…
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