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Quality Chess is sponsoring an international all-play-all tournament, which is underway now. The event is being hosted by Edinburgh Chess Club. Update: Scores after 8 Rounds C.McNab 7½ N,Mikkelsen 6 A.Greet 5 N.Berry 5 M.Mitchell 4 D.Eggleston 4 A.Tate 3½ M.Andersen 2 C.Thomson 1½ J.Grant 1½ I will post some of the games as they […]

This weekend Chess Scotland organised a seminar with GM Jacob Aagaard at Quality Chess’ headquarters in Glasgow. The following positions were used and will be available for a week: PGN-file

Just a passing thought sparked by reading a comment on another chess site: how do you define what is the main line of an opening? Is it the sharpest line? The most popular line over a number of years? The line currently favoured by the elite? My approach seems to be a mixture of all

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I recently spotted an extreme example of the popularity of the Slav and Semi-Slav variations. I was looking at Magnus Carlsen’s games with White after 1.d4 d5 2.c4. Now there are several solid moves (such as 2…e6 or 2…dxc4) and many off-beat lines (for example, 2…Nc6 or 2…e5) but between the start of 2008 and

Sabino Brunello’s first book, Attacking the Spanish, is getting ever nearer to ready. This started me thinking about the Schliemann variation (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 f5), one of three lines the book covers, with the Marshall and the Gajewski. For decades most GM’s believed that the Schliemann was unsound, but in the last few

We have published a number of opening books, and I would like to hear from readers how well (surely not badly?) they have worked when you put them into practice. I also like to keep an eye on whether top-level players are using the lines our authors have suggested, and the new ideas that they

Last night I was at a local production at the King’s Theatre in Glasgow of the musical CHESS together with my wife and her ABBA loving friends. The quality of the production was varied, with a few stunning performances. The story shows little understanding of the actual game, and draws on Fischer, Karpov and Korchnoi