Hello again chess enthusiasts. The two big chess stories of the day are that 1) With the much anticipated arrival of March 1, FIDE has given “bonus points” to all active players rated below 2000, intending to help to combat rating deflation. 2) Apparently the FIDE Candidates is in some danger of not happening due to Visa issues with some of the players. There is lots more info about these and many other stories in the links below. I hope you all find something of interest and wish you all a good weekend- Ben
Chess Improvement
Fascinating post from cognitive scientist and chess amateur “NDPatzer” about why improving our chess thought processes is so challenging. “Depending some on how you measure it and what kinds of material you’re asking someone to remember, human working memory has a limit (or we usually say capacity) of about 4-5 items. That’s going to be a big problem for our algorithm because while Stockfish can just store moves in some kind of structure like a matrix or list, the human mind has only a few slots to use for the same purpose.” (LiChess Community Blog)
Dan Bock on Why he Memorizes Opening. “Memorizing moves you don’t understand is wrong. Cutting off your memorized line in the middle of a critical variation is wrong. Memorizing moves you’re unlikely to face is wrong, and to that end the database of games played by amateurs on Lichess is essential for knowing what moves opponents at your level play most often.” (The Chess Improvement Lab)
Is it possible to improve at chess 1% a day? (The Say Chess Blog)
“The OnoZone” on the Life Lessons he has Drawn from his Chess Frustrations “I am a better father because I worked on my negative self-talk. I worked on my negative self-talk, because I noticed how bad it was during the analysis of my chess games.” (LiChess Blog)
Vjekoslav Nemec shares some good advice in this edition of “Coaches Corner” In my view, without having the time (or will) to do the work outside of the lessons, paying for lessons is throwing the money in the wind.” (Chess.com Blog)
GM Alex Colovic writes about how to approach the moment in a game where you realize your advantage may have fizzled (GM Alex Colovic’s Blog)
FM Dalton Perrine shows some instructive highlights from the recent Southwest Class Championship in Texas (Chess Chatter)
“TheChessCorner” looks at Magnus’ Blitz Repertoire with Black. Here’s the TLDR:” It is a pointless exercize to prepare against Magnus. He plays so many different systems” (Chess.com Blog)
A Book Review
Sean Marsh reviews FM Andrew Burnett’s Dragon Masters: The Life and Times of the Fiercest Opening in Chess (Forward Chess Blog)
News
Today is the day that those rated below FIDE 2000 were given free rating points! (Tarjei Svensen for Chess.com)
Team C-Squared is through to final in the Chess.com team event, they will play the winner of Hess and Naroditsky vs. Hikaru and GothamChess (NM Anthony Levin for Chess.com)
FIDE is launching a “ChessMom initiative,” which provides childcare to top female players competing in the Olympiad (NM Vanessa West for Chess.com)
More annotations from GM Keith Arkell “I took in the top dozen or so boards, and it was striking to observe that for every IM/GM/experienced player there was a tiny child! These kids are becoming a formidable force at ever younger ages, and it was not even surprising that when the dust had settled, a nine-year-old was one of the joint tournament winners. (ECF Blog)
LiChess is making some cool upgrades to its tournament broadcast page (LiChess Blog)
There is some good stuff on the NIC blog of late, including IM Christof Sielecki annotating a model game (New in Chess Blog)
Olga Kaye writes a chess dispatch from Toronto and says they are ready to host the Candidates (if it happens)! (Chess.com Blog)
JJ Lang on the Djerba Masters, where GM Daniel Dardha and GM Hans Niemann shared first (Chess Life Online)
Top level chess is relatively quiet, but Chessbase News has the latest on the Shenzen Masters (featuring Giri and Erigaisi) and the Prague Masters (with Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa)
Misc.
More Chess History from Sam Kahn- there are rumors that Alekhine attempted suicide during a difficult chess period in 1922 (Chess.com Blog)