Introduction Sometimes in life, you get to know to meet and develop a relationship with complete strangers in a totally unexpected way. Back in 2020, I had a phase during which I read exclusively chess-related…
Chessentials Chess Quiz #2
Questions Great Female Players Question 1 Today is Valentine’s Day and is there a better way to celebrate the occasion but by giving spotlight to chess players that are often not given the credit they…
Chessentials Chess Quiz #1
Introduction Back in my student days, I used to be a big fan of pub quizzes. Every Friday, I would go to a nearby cinema where a weekly pub quiz competition was organized. Eventually, I…
Best Chessable Courses 2020
INTRODUCTION In 2019, I wrote my first yearly wrap-up of the best chess books I have read, with the hope that it will become an annual tradition. I was, fortunately, able to write the 2nd iteration…
Best Chess Books 2020
This post is an annual “chess-book-I-have-read” recap, featuring a list of my favourite books I have read in 2020. You can check the best chess books I read in 2019 here. Introduction 2020 has been…
Chess Player, Youtuber, Vast Knowledge Seeker: Agadmator Interview
Note: The cover photo for this interview was made by an amazingly talented artist, musician and chess enthusiast Adam Genesis. You can follow him on Twitter or go to his Youtube and check out the…
Chess Author, Player, Manager: Maaike Keetman Interview
Introduction WFM Maaike Keetman is a Dutch chess player who was a part of the Dutch Female National Team at the Baku Chess Olympiad in 2016. Outside of the Dutch chess circles, she is probably…
In Defence Of Elitism In Chess: 7 Reasons Why Elitism Accusations In Chess Are Vastly Exaggerated
Introduction In the previous post on this blog, I made an overview of the events in 2020 that led to the real boom of online chess and its unprecedented popularity. Unfortunately, as with almost everything…
What Caused The Surge in Popularity of Online Chess in 2020?
This post is the result of me answering a Quora question “Why is chess dominating Twitch right now?”. I reproduce it with some minor changes here. To say chess is dominating Twitch is arguably going…
How To Deal With Computer Cheating In Online Chess
In this article, I have analyzed 8 of my own games against cheaters. They can be found in the following lichess study and can also be downloaded for free in .pgn format on the following…
12 Types of Chess Players
12 Types of Chess Players? Way back in the past, I stumbled on a Quora question titled “What are 5 types of chess players?”. I read the answer by the user Charles Slade and thoroughly…
The Rise and Fall of Soviet Chess?
The cover photo was taken from a tweet by Douglas Griffin. A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled upon a very interesting Quora question titled: “Why has Russian chess faded so badly? They haven’t held…