Welcome readers to Linkfest #40. This week’s compilation of chess articles is jam-packed with some informative chess history look backs, insightful chess improvement posts, and more. Without further ado, here are this week’s chess links…
Chess History
Douglas Griffin with some great annotations and pictures covering the 1973 Leningrad Interzonal (Soviet Chess History Blog)
Sam Kahn writes about the debut of the Marshall gambit, among other fun historical chess nuggets “Between the workouts of the Marshall Gambit and the Sicilian Dragon at this tournament, a fairly distinct American style had emerged — rough and ready, with a willingness to mix it up tactically, and with relatively less interest in the 'objective truth' of a position.” (Chess.com Blog)
David Martinez shares the story of one of one of the “Kings without a Crown”, Salo Flohr (Chess.com Blog)
FM Dylan Loeb McClain writes an “Overlooked Obituary” of Sultan Khan, a legendary chess player of the 1920s and 1930s. “Hooper and Whyld surmised that Khan overcame his lack of knowledge about openings because he was among the best players in the world in the middle-game phase and among the top two or three players in the endgame phase, along with Capablanca.” (The New York Times)
Chess Improvement
GM Alex Colovic on why he Loves Chess “Chess training has helped me enormously in life to obtain clarity in almost any situation.” (GM Alex Colovic’s Blog)
FM Nate Solon on How to Use Spaced Repetition to Study Chess (Zwischenzug Blog)
IM Jakob Pfreundt would like to Discuss the Topic of How you All Visualize Chess Positions “I know chess players around 2100 Elo who report to be capable of visualising entire positions without any problems, while some considerably stronger players (around 2300-2400) appear to be comparatively bad at blindfold chess, even though they are very decent chess players, clearly capable of calculating very well.
While this is anectodal, it seems to be the case that better at visualising does not necessarily imply better calculator.” (LiChess Blog)
Sam Asaka on the Unavoidable Scourge that is Rating Obsession “You should truly internalize that any single result (and the rating change that follows) is absolutely meaningless to your overall improvement trajectory.” (Road to Infinity Blog)
Book Review
NM Han Schut Reviews GM Matthew Sadler and FM Steve Giddins’ new book, Re-engineering the Chess Classics (Chess.com Blog)
Top Chess
The Cairns Cup kicks off tomorrow! (JJ Lang for US Chess)
GM Fabiano Caruana is off to a Blazing Start in Norway Chess. NM Anthony Levin shares tons of interesting details related to the event. "I don't think you ever expect the King's Gambit, but it was not an unpleasant surprise," said Carlsen after his Armageddon game with Nakamura” (Chess.com News)
The Dubai Open is ongoing with a strong field featuring Erigaisi, Niemann, and others. GM Aravindh leads through six rounds (Shahid Ahmed for Chessbase News)
Leonard Barden on Norway Chess, The British Championship & more “Looking ahead for possible future targets, an Argentinian talent, Faustino Oro, has just set a new world record for the youngest ever 2300 Fide rating, at nine years seven months.” (The Guardian)