ColonelCrockett

The video above is an amateur's analysis of one of his own favorite games. He ignores some of the opening inaccuracies on both sides and presents no alternative moves for some glaring errors. However, in spite of the downsides to this video the presenter possesses and enthusiasm that is refreshing to me. This video is a great introduction to the Ideas of Jeremy Silman (as well as the uncredited ideas brought to chess education by GM Alexander Kotov, my personal favorite among chess thinkers... Read Full Story

I wanted to bring to the attention of the chess community at large a site I recently came across. A new and exciting looking website that is still growing. It is called simply WhyChess . They offer everything form free news and articles of chess interest to chess teaching and soon playing services. I'm not certain who is the mastermind(s) behind this website but they're thinking big and that's something I'm prepared to get behind and lend my support without being asked. Truthfully, the... Read Full Story

The following correspondence game was played by me against an unidentified opponent and I thought that for my own benefit I'd go through it and give some commentary: E33: Nimzo-Indian: Classical: 4...Nc6 White: Online Opponent Black: Me 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. Qc2 Nc6 5. Nf3 O-O 6. e3 d5 7. a3 Bxc3+ 8. bxc3 After this move the game enters a very dynamic but normally drawn character. I choose the most active move (albeit perhaps a little too ambitious). 8. ...Re8 9... Read Full Story

Hank has had difficulty in adding this as a comment to my previous post so I'm posting it here on his behalf: Hello Colonel Crockett (and ChessVine readers), I’m very sorry you took the comments in my blog post of July 24th as negative criticism. I did not intend my comments to be critical in either a constructive or negative way. They were just observations based on what I observed from your blog and noting what blogs did well in last year’s CJA awards. From what I saw of ChessVine’s... Read Full Story

The Chess Journalists of America awards have been announced and I'm once again a FAAAR second banana to a very good blog. Why aren't these brilliant bloggers competing against one another? I can only stand in “wonder-ment”. This year my competition was a blogger by the name of “Broken Pawn”. To tell the truth I didn't have the time to analyze the competition for the Best Chess Blog Award but I felt like I had a decent chance with the articles I submitted. Broken Pawn submitted his blog... Read Full Story

For several years (probably since Kasparov vs. Deep Blue or maybe the X3D broadcast) a debate has been brewing on the ethics of real-time online chess game broadcast in international competition. I personally have no opinion to share on the issue because frankly it doesn't effect me. Recently an article appeared by chessbase extending their views on the subject (fifteen minute delay in broadcast). "Suspicion is rife in the chess world, and this can be very damaging to the game. Not just... Read Full Story

Here is the announcement from the Chess Journalists of America (CJA): Ramon A. Hernandez, Chairman of the CJA Awards Committee and Chief Judge, has announced the annual call for entries to the 2011 Annual CJA Chess Journalism Awards. The CJA awards honor the best in all facets of chess journalism. From journalism in print to those written and published online, the most excellent in chess articles, columns, photojournalism, infographics, layout and online are honored within their... Read Full Story

Thanks to Natalia Pogonina : 1) Joanne Rowling is working on a sequel to "Harry Potter" called "Vladimir Kramnik". 2) Vladimir's Kramnik's glasses is an artefact that increases one's FIDE raing by 500 points. 3) One of the journalists asked Kramnik if he will start playing weaker without his glasses (see #2). Kramnik replied calmly: "What will happen if you subtract a constant from infinity?". 4) While Kramnik's classmates were busy proving the Pythagor theorem, little Vova... Read Full Story

The National Survey statistics that I mentioned in my previous article are from the following: The survey was conducted online with a random sample of 576 men and women who have a child under the age of 18 who plays chess or is learning to play chess. The Impulse Research proprietary online panel has been carefully selected to closely match US population demographics and the respondents are representative of American men and women who have a child under the age of 18. Research was... Read Full Story

Okay guys, it's been a while but I'm back with some interesting statistics for you. I got these stats from the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis. I'm also including my commentary in Italics : According to a recent national survey– Of parents who noticed a change in their child’s grades since the child began playing chess, 93 percent said they’ve seen a positive improvement! Anyone who is interested in chess for any length of time knows this one to be true. I remember... Read Full Story