Michael Buss News Today

Celebrating the Tastemakers

Lawyers acting for the man who kidnapped WA four-year-old Cleo Smith claim his 13-and-a-half year prison sentence is manifestly excessive.

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...

January 1, 2024, will usher in two significant changes to the Golden Knights and Electronic Knights tournaments. The entry fee for both tournaments will be increased to $35 per section. Since the inception of the Electronic Knights in 2004, the entry fee has remained at $25. The last increase to the Golden Knights entry fee was in 2002 from $20 to $25.

Hello chess friends! This month’s column is the second in a series about the elements of chess analysis, using the email and correspondence games played by US Chess members as examples. The first column, looking at king safety, motivated a number of you to share your games, which is why last month’s column was something of a continuation of the first part of the series. This month we introduce the next element: time. Strap in folks, it’s another long one!  

With a nod to the Bard, we will once again look at games that involve attacks against the king. In response to last month’s column, I was sent our first game, with notes, by the winner. Patrick Walsh, also known as Konchog, describes himself as, “a deaf-blind chess player whose first tournament was the 1972 Texas Open – the tournament where Ken Smith introduced the Smith-Morra Gambit, and the tournament that also produced one of the finest endgames ever played, a masterpiece by Botvinnik a...

There are flag code rules to follow when it comes to flying your US flag at home – heres everything you need to know to celebrate July 4th correctly

The man convicted of abducting and killing missing West Australian teenager Hayley Dodd has failed to have his...

The man convicted of abducting and killing missing West Australian teenager Hayley Dodd has failed to have ...

Shopping For a Sicilian As I mentioned in a prior column, I tend to respond symmetrically as Black except against 1.e4. I have several approaches I use against 1.e4 from time to time (the French, the Caro-Kann, and even the Scandinavian), but I have always enjoyed the counter-attacking nature of the Sicilian Defense. The problem I face is in which line to choose.