Hi everyone. I have returned to link-gathering after a one-week hiatus and man is there a lot of chess news! GM Fabiano Caruana is on a tear, and the race for the final 2 Candidates spots is closely contested and confusing. Meanwhile, cheating accusations are dominating chess discourse as GM Nakamura is being accused of cheating while streaming, and Niemann is (again) being not-so-subtly accused of somehow cheating OTB while the world watches him. Its a bit of a downer, but the rest of the chess world proceeds apace, with book reviews, breakthrough achievements and other chess news to highlight. Thanks for reading and I hope you all have a good weekend!
Books
Richard James reviews Speed Demon: The Fascinating Games and Tragic Life of Alexey Vyzhmanavin “If you’re interested in the human side of chess you’ll certainly want to read this book. If you’re interested in chess life in the last days of the Soviet Union, this is also a book for you.” I’m in! (British Chess News)
GM Jacob Aagaard with a fun, short interview with Charlize van Zyl on the Forward Chess Blog “Thinking Inside the Box is my best book because it was both incredibly personal and also the one with most important ideas in it. Kostya from Chess Dojo named it the best chess book of the 21st Century.” (Forward Chess Blog)
Nick Visel reviews Silman’s Classic Book, The Amateur’s Mind. I will be doing a podcast about the book soon as well. (Nick Plays Chess)
News
Fabiano Caruana won the Sinquefield Cup, and is having an epic year! (NM Vanessa West for Chess.com)
Leonard Barden provides an insightful primer for anyone having trouble keeping up with the Niemann and Candidates drama, “The American’s performance rating after scoring 8/9 was 2946. This number is not far behind the three greatest results in modern tournament history, Fabiano Caruana’s 3098 in the 2014 Sinquefield Cup, Carlsen’s 3002 at Pearl Springs, China, in 2008, and Anatoly Karpov’s 2985 at Linares, Spain, in 1994.” (The Guardian)
More insights on Niemann’s resounding triumph in Croatia, and the controversy surrounding it, from NM Anthony Levin (Chess.com News)
MVL catches you up on his chess tournaments up through the FIDE Grand Swiss The result of the FIDE Grand Swiss is of course a disappointment, as it was most likely my last shot at this World Championship cycle, and I couldn’t make the most of it. (MVL Blog)
Magnus, Ding and a cast of stars will compete in a Chess960 Classical Tournament in February. This chess variant doesn’t have enough names, so the organizers are referring to it as “Freestyle Chess.” (Chessbase News)
FM Brewington Hardaway earned a GM norm in Charlotte among other standout achievements (JJ Lang for Chess Life Online)
Drama
GM Vladimir Kramnik has been leveling cheating accusations at a breakneck clip, so Chess.com issued a response. “In the case of the recent accusations against Hikaru Nakamura by Vladimir Kramnik, we can say that we have generated nearly 2,000 individual reports on Hikaru’s games in our Fair Play system and have found no incidents of cheating.”
Chess Improvement
FM Nate Solon shares advice on How to go about Learning an Opening (Zwischenzug Blog)
Solal35 takes another data-filled look at how LiChess players spend their Lichess time (LiChess Blog)
Misc.
Rochelle Ballyntyne’s quest to earn the NM title was featured on the Today show. “I did this because I grew up poor, and chess helped me get into college.” (Video Excerpt on Today.com)
GM Alex Colovic on what is misunderstood about Emmanuel Lasker (GM Alex Colovic’s Blog)