To toggle the user medal marker in ChessBase on a Win10 laptop, and you don't have a numeric keypad with a plus key, you can use PowerToys' Keyboard Manager to assign something like 'backtick' to 'plus key' Class:  G Topic:  techie ..read more

[SIMPLE AND SOUND: Basic openings for Black: Sicilian Dragon and King's Indian] Class:  G Topic:  Openings Praxis ..read more

Our junior organiser colleague Tim Onions is selling off some books for seniors at reduced and second-hand prices: see his website for details Class:  G Topic:  books ..read more

Lockdown and subsequent restrictions have given me time to browse the dustier reaches of my chess library, including Napier's Paul Morphy and the Golden Age of Chess, a compilation of his three booklets Amenities and Background of Chess, each a selection of 100 lightly annotated games to amuse and provide an educative ABC. Horowitz edited this combined work and commented: "Among the bright and pleasurable writings on chess, perhaps the brightest of all were the three booklets which W. E. Napier produced on his Amenities and Background of Chess-play. The overall impression of these booklets is ..read more

I started coaching adults at the Exeter club in 1993, about the same time as Alan Maynard started up the current incarnation of Exeter Junior Chess Club. I went looking for some useful resources for teaching, and there were some, but mostly I became a magpie, picking shiny bits out of various good books. I did find it irksome that so many books repeated familiar examples, and I thought I could at least pull those out for my colleagues, and that became the core of the Canon. I found particularly useful: * Tony Gillam - Simple Chess Tactics and Simple Checkmates * Euwe/Kramer - The Middlegame I ..read more

Some more time at home recently has meant I have been able to do something I've been meaning to do for ages, which is tidy up my database of teaching games, which I call the Canon. Sorry if you have an earlier version and have had to tidy it yourself. Why was it such a mess? Well, I've been doing this for a long while, and although the early attempts to give chessplayers some useful software were valuable, they were pretty primitive. The first version of Fritz that I owned did allow you to record, store and annotate games, but you couldn't add variations. Then, you could add a variation, but ..read more

Philidor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3Gfgggu8ew Smyslov https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAvrT52VXOI Taimanov https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sIj_6eyAoQ Other suggestions welcome! D Class:  G Topic:  Praxis ..read more

Coaching programme 2018 24 July Looking for weaknesses 31 July Creating and exchanging Strong pieces 7 Aug Openings round-up (Bird's, Budapest, second openings) 14 Aug Creating, spotting and dealing with threats 21 Aug [Something will happen this week I hope, possibly Time Control] 28 Aug The London System 4 Sep Changing habits 11 Sep Endgames  July 24 Looking for weaknesses A short task, but not an easy one: 1. Write down all the things you need to do to be a good chessplayer 2. From the list, tick all the things you are good at 3. From the list, put a cross against t ..read more

(A) Exeter 2½-5½ Newton Abbot (H) Graham Bolt 196 (B) ½-½ Paul Brooks 170 (W) Dave Regis 166 (W) ½-½ Alan Brusey 158 (B) Sean Pope 140 ½-½ Vignesh Ramesh Tony Hart 135 0-1 Andrew Kinder John Guard 130 ½-½ John Allen Will Marjoram 128 ½-½ Jacquie Barber-Lafon John Maloney 108 0-1 Mike Hussey Brian Aldwin 88 0-1 Z Grophulous Exeter 2½-5½ Newton Abbot Games to follow Class:  G Topic:  Praxis ..read more

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