ruminations

6 min read 2023-01-01 00:40:58

Anticipation of Things Future

Fifteen years ago, when I started this blog, I called the first post Remembrance of Things Past. It seems like an odd way to begin a chronicle that

3 min read 2022-09-12 02:43:55

The latest news that has blown up the chess Internet came in two waves last week. First, at the Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis, world champion Magnus

2 min read 2022-09-03 08:42:01

My diary, 9/1/1972 Sadly, I was rooting for the wrong guy. This month’s Chess Life has an interesting 50-year retrospective on the

4 min read 2022-08-29 04:32:36

To take my mind off my recent “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad” chess tournament, here are some thoughts on other things going on in the

2 min read 2022-08-26 07:07:49

For the last week I have been in Minnesota, playing in the Minnesota International Chess Festival, which was organized superbly by Alex Betaneli. It

5 min read 2022-08-01 00:49:16

Fifty years and one week ago I completed my first USCF-rated chess tournament, the U.S. Booster Championship in Chicago, Illinois. I’ve never

4 min read 2022-08-01 00:49:16

Fifty years and one week ago I completed my first USCF-rated chess tournament, the U.S. Booster Championship in Chicago, Illinois. I’ve never

3 min read 2022-06-16 00:49:21

You know something really unusual has happened when one of your Facebook friends who is not a chess player posts something about chess on your wall.

4 min read 2022-05-31 22:53:12

After two years and three months of not playing any tournament chess, I finally returned to action this weekend in the 2021 (not a typo) CalChess

3 min read 2022-04-28 02:53:05

What I did during the pandemic. One of the best things about being a writer is the moment when you first hold a book in your hands that has your

6 min read 2022-01-01 04:26:03

One of the first things that kids love to do, after they learn the rules of chess, is to tamper with the rules. I’m not sure why. For example,

3 min read 2021-12-27 04:44:58

Here is your trivia question for today: Who is the first chess player to simultaneously be #1 on both the USCF’s list of top players 50 and older

4 min read 2021-12-11 09:49:34

Magnus Carlsen won his fifth world championship in resounding fashion today, beating Ian Nepomniachtchi in the eleventh game to close him out by a

1 min read 2021-10-27 16:10:49

FEAR Existentially, that’s probably at the heart of today’s blog. But fear has some strong

1 min read 2021-10-24 02:43:09

Walter through the years. Last Sunday, my father Walter Nance passed away at the age of 88. Walter taught me to play chess when I was about 7 years