Category Archives: Chess

En Passant VIII

Coffee in Hyde Park: I had the misfortune of being stuck in down town Hyde Park needing a coffee without access to a car. I started at Sip and Savour where I ordered a cortado. They did not know what … Continue reading

Posted in Chess, Coffee, Food, Travel | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Vale instantchess.com

One of the few time wasting activities I still indulge in is speed chess. (1 minute per player for the entire game is the slowest time control I play online.) There are a number of excellent free online sites available, … Continue reading

Posted in Chess | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Me versus Magnus

I’ve recently been distracting myself with the new Magnus Carlsen “app,” a free chess app for the iPhone whose distinguishing feature is that it tries to play “like” Magnus did at various ages. It does seem like a very tricky … Continue reading

Posted in Chess | Tagged , | Leave a comment

What is my Kasparov Number?

This has been a fun week in sport, what with England slaughtered at the Gabbatoir and Anand sliced up by Carlsen’s endgame magic. The latter games were fascinating if not necessarily exciting per se; consisting more of slow grinds rather … Continue reading

Posted in Chess, Cricket, Waffle | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

Gerookte paling op de Albert Cuypmarkt

My mother grew up in, as she would affectionately say, the rat infested slums of Amsterdam (complete with tales of giant rats crawling inside the toilet bowl and sleeping two to a bed). I finally had the chance to visit … Continue reading

Posted in Chess, Food, Travel | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Winning the Chocolate

Once a month, there is an (unrated) round robin blitz tournament at the Evanston chess club. The time controls are set on five minutes (a little slow for me, I usually play one minute games online), but it’s nice to … Continue reading

Posted in Chess | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment