The last 4NCL weekend of the year was a successful one for my Guildford team as we won the league with a round to spare. I made 2,5/3 on Board 1 to round off a good personal season as well. Although none of my games were particularly noteworthy, there were a few interesting episodes which …

A few weeks ago, I talked about my visit to the Max Euwe Centre in Amsterdam and my purchase of the Hungarian Grandmaster Szabo’s (excellent) book of his Best Games. A reader Carsten Hansen mentioned that Szabo considered his game against Pirc to be his best achievement of his early years so I thought it …

While rummaging through some old score sheets, I came across a couple of interesting rook endings which I thought were worth sharing. They were both played for Solingen in the Bundesliga just after I retired from professional chess and started a full-time job in Amsterdam. In both cases, I was on the grinding side of …

I haven’t had much time for chess analysis for the past few weeks as I’ve just started a new job, but I did take a timeout last weekend for a visit to the Max Euwe centre in Amsterdam. After a lovely afternoon with my nose buried in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, I …

In this article, I look back to an ending I played in the 4NCL in November 2015. It was a weekend of endgames for me as the queens came off the next day as soon as move 14!   I reached the position in the diagram after 31 rather dour moves. I felt my position …