Perpetual Chess Linkfest #87, June 28, 2024

Layoffs, Cancellations, Acquisitions and Chess Books

Hello again chess connoisseurs! It’s been two weeks since I last left you and in that time a lot of chess book reviews have been written, the top players have resumed action in Romania, and another record is soon to be broken by a chess prodigy, I don’t have any pontificating to do about these matters, so I will leave you to read the chess articles of your choice. As an editorial note, we are still on a bit of a summer schedule here. With a holiday weekend forthcoming next week, the Linkfest will next return on July 12. Until then, be well, and try not to hang your pieces- Ben

Chess News

Are there too many Grandmasters these days? IMO, there aren’t, but I like the idea proposed by Yasser to help differentiate elite players. “GM Seirawan thinks there should be a distinction for the top 10 in the world. Mr. Seirawan suggested naming that elite group “All-Stars,” with the designation renewed every six months. He wrote, “The idea being a player might retire being a ‘five-time all-star GM’, as a distinction.” (FM Dylan Loeb McClain for the NY Times)

GM Serper’s columns never disappoint. In this one he looks at instructive blunders from the Clash of Claims Match. White to Move and Win Material. Answer within his Chess.com column

The Superbet Classic is off and running, with Caruana and Gukesh the early leaders (Peter Doggers for Chess.com)

GM Hans Niemann beat GM Vidit Gujirathi in a unique exhibition match which also featured some NFL players playing chess. (Dr. Alexey Root for US Chess, photo also by Dr. Root)

FM Tani Adewumi won the US Cadet Championship, a junior invitational tournament (JJ Lang for US Chess)

The seemingly dodgy $4 million dollar chess tournament is now confirmed dodgy. GM Hans Niemann withdrew and the tournament is cancelled. Via Hans NIemann’s X

Unfortunately, Chess.com laid off approximately 5% of its staff. Best wishes to those affected by it. (Chess.com CEO Erik Allebest’s statement via Reddit)

The Global Chess League is returning for a second season, and will be in London this time (Chessbase India)

Books

FM Dalton Perrine highlights the 15 chess books the most influenced him. Some gems in here! (Chess Chatter)

Quality Chess offers previews of two forthcoming books that look great, a new translation of Chess Survivor by Andor Lilienthal, and The Mental Game by Alexander Galkin. You can find excerpts and descriptions within the linked blog post (Quality Chess Blog)

Speaking of Quality Chess, there was big news in the chess business/books intersection, as it has acquired New in Chess and Everyman from Chess.com (Tarjei Svensen for Chess.com)

An epic, expensive, two-volume biography of Emanuel Lasker by Hans Renette has recently been released. SimaginFan shares a few thoughts on it (Chess.com Blog)

FM Nate Solon on what he finds to be wrong with many chess strategy books (Zwischenzug Blog)

Nick Visel reviews 1001 Exercises for Beginners. “Overall, this is a great tactics book — especially if you don’t already have one for beginner to intermediate club players.” (Nick Plays Chess)

This exercise is definitely not for beginners. White to move and win, FM Andy Lee walks you through how he solved it on Lit & Chess

FM Richard Webb reviews the newly revised The Art of the Endgame by GM Jan Timman. ‘I heartily recommend this labour of love to the endgame study which will give the reader many pleasurable hours.” (British Chess News)

Chess Improvement

Dr. Benjamin Portheault looks at the psychological factors at play when we are upset after losses (MindCreaser Blog)

GM Dmitry Gordievsky bestows us with another opening repertoire deep-dive, this time focusing on GM Daniel Naroditsky. Danya often goes for offbeat lines such as 4. g3 in double king pawn openings. Lots more details on the LiChess Blog

GM Alex Colovic reflects on different faces of chess talent. “I remember reading somewhere that what is easy for you is where your talent lies. I also think that talent for chess can be fragmented - not all chess players are equally talented for all aspects of chess: some are better at memorising lines, others at playing technical positions or at calculation of variations.” (GM Alex Colovic’s Blog)

David Hamm wrote about learning to live with his game-costing blunders. “We have to be kind to ourselves as chess players because the game is hard and the journey is long.” (LiChess Blog)