Perpetual Chess Linkfest #112, February 6, 2025

Incredibly Liberating

Hello there chess aficionados.

QUICK ANNOUNCEMENT- If you are attending the World Amateur Team tournament next weekend, FM Nate Solon and I will be hanging at the Hilton hotel bar after the Sunday night round (February 16). Come by and say hi if you are there! And please remind me not to drink too much because I have to play two games the next day. (And then I will remind you the same.)

With that out of the way, enjoy the links, and the Super Bowl if you are into such things. Go Birds.

Chess Improvement

GM Noel Studer on what training for a marathon is teaching him about chess improvement. “It’s incredibly liberating to switch off the overthinking, focus on the process, and put all my effort into execution.” (Next Level Chess)

NM Matt Gross shares a helpful and simple set of exercises he developed to help him limit blunders. (MoveLibrary)

Ivan Veselov continues his exploration of endgame studies, explaining one of the all-time classics, The Savadraa position. (White to Move and Win) Answer and Analysis at 64 Squares

Lately I feel like I am being force-fed Freestyle chess by “big chess” and I am not overly interested. BUT I enjoyed this little primer of what FM Andy Lee learned from playing the variant more regularly. “Playing 960 dramatically increases the cognitive load of both players, making significant mistakes much more likely.” (Lit & Chess)

FM Nate Solon shares some good advice for learning openings by playing online games (Zwischenzug)

Sam Asaka is back from a blogging hiatus and dispensing some good chess improvement advice. “Things like talent do of course exist, but 2000 is something achievable for many players if they put in the work.” (Road to Infinity)

Books

Nick Visel reviews chess historian Taylor Kingston’s latest, Chess in the Third Reich. “It was shocking to see how much the war shaped the lives and careers of so many players whose names we may be familiar with.” (Nick Plays Chess)

Misc.

For any NYC-based readers, Kevin James Doyle is doing a chess-centric one-man-show. Please drop me a line and let me know what you think if you end up going! (Soho Playhouse)

What tactical shot did Max Euwe play here, on move 22? Find out in Sam Kahn’s feature on him from his Century of Chess series. (Chess.com)

Are top players playing too frequently to summon maximum focus? GM Alex Colovic thinks its possible. (GM Alex Colovic’s Blog)

Chess Podcasts and Videos

GM Jesse Kraai reviewed the chess-adjacent novel Intermezzo by renowned Irish novelist Sally Rooney. (Chessdojo)

This week’s guest on Perpetual Chess was Nikolaos Ntirlis, a computer engineer, author and leading opening theoretician. Nikolaos had a lot of good advice related to learning opening, choosing openings, remembering openings, etc. (Perpetual Chess YouTube)

News

Congrats to IM Justus Williams, who won Chess.com’s first NextGen Cup. Justus spoke of the lonely nature of pursuing chess improvement,and GM Maurice Ashley said: “I became an IM when I was 27-years-old, that's when I became an IM. I didn't become a GM until I was 33, I didn't start chess until I was 14. And you talk about that lonely road, it was a lonely road when I was going through it. You can't give up, you gotta keep believing.” (NM Anthony Levin for Chess.com)

Speaking of the lonely road, GM Jan-Krystof Duda opened up about his own recent struggles with motivation for chess. (Colin McGourty for Chess.com)

Leonard Barden also runs down the latest drama, and remembers the recently deceased British chess/poker trailblazer Stuart Reuben (The Guardian)

John Upham also looked back at the legacy of Stuart Reuben (British Chess News)

Magnus and FIDE are still squabbling as Magnus’ “Freestyle” event kicks off. Tarjei Svensen has all of the details. (Chess.com News)