John Chirillo News Today

Hello chess friends! This month’s column was inspired by a reader! Matthew Brodhead sent in his game against John Cissik, and analyzing his game gave me the idea for this month’s column. GM Savielly Tartakower (whom I love to quote!) once said that any opening is good enough to play if its reputation is bad enough. What he meant was that once a line gets a reputation as a loser, it becomes fodder for those who are willing to work to find improvements and use them to gain points in competitio...

“In ‘miniature’ games, errors are soon magnified” - Dylan Loeb McClain, New York Times Hello chess friends! Welcome to the annual miniatures column, where we limit the entries to games of 25 moves or less in length. For this year’s selection, all of the games were won by the players of the black pieces. The games are presented here in order of ECO Code.

Greetings chess friends! I beg your indulgence for this month’s column; I am just now finishing up the manuscript for a book that is to be released next year (details later!), and this month’s column is an idea I have had for some time, and for which I have many recent games (including several of my own) to work with. This allows me to make use of some recent post-game analyses. So, without further ado, I offer you my testimony on behalf of the Queen’s Gambit Declined!

News Flash! 2022 US Chess Absolute Championship! Correspondence Chess Master Tim Corkum (WI) is the 2022 US Chess Absolute co-champion. Corkum won on tiebreaks over CCM John Walton (WA). Both finished with a score of 7½ points, with 3 wins and 9 draws.  They split the point in their game. This is Corkum’s first Absolute championship. Play began March 1, 2022. The tournament continues but there are no others that can catch the champion.

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