Perpetual Chess Linkfest #163, April 24, 2026

Chess Improvement

IM Junta Ikeda wrote about the benefits and potential risks of self-talk during games. “Before your next tournament or serious games, ask yourself: What do I want to do better today?” (Infinite Chess)

FM Dalton Perrine on the value of simple study plans and drilling calculation. GM Javokhir Sindarov said “ Very concrete calculation is best basic element of modern chess.” (Chess Chatter)

Just as Rocky had many sequels, GM Eugene Perelshteyn is back to lay out the opening training plan for his NM friend Mike’s dive into chess deep end, competing at the Naroditsky Memorial. I am excited to watch tbis story unfold, and will be interviewing Eugene and Mike for the Perpetual Chess Podcast tomorrow. (Grandmaster Secrets)

Reviews/Features

FM Mike Klein spoke with Jen Shahade about Thinking Sideways. "When you see a chess position… many people stop [at intuition] and just play that move,” she said. "But we want to do better than that… come up with at least three candidate moves… evaluate each one and pick the best one." (Tarjei Svensen for Chess.com News)

It is never too late to review my book, Perpetual Chess Improvement! Jostein Langstrand from Patzerreview enjoyed it, although he thought some readers might wish for more concrete advice and study plans. The truth hurts! (Patzer’s Review)

IM Sagar Shah provides a great interview and article about GM Vaishali’s long road to the top. “(She and Praggnanandhaa) would arrive (at the chess academy) by 8:30 a.m., have breakfast, attend classes from 9:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. and eat all three meals at the academy just to maximize training time.” (Chessbase India)

The New York Times did a feature on the thriving scholastic chess scene in NYC. (Emily Belz for the New York Times)

Chess News

Legendary Armenian GM Smbat Lputian was arrested on alleged charges of fraud and forgery. (Peter Doggers for Chess.com)

Ascendant Turkish star, GM Yagiz Erdogmus became the youngest ever to break 2700. (The Chess Mind)

More on Erdogmus’ ascension with lots of other fun tidbits from professional chess from Leonard Barden (The Guardian)

“Do we really assume that a 19-year-old is just done?” GM Fabiano Caruana, as quoted by Colin McGourty in a summary of Magnus and Fabiano’s early World Championship match assessments (Chess.com News)

Misc.

Was Euwe over Alekhine the greatest match upset of all time? Sam Kahn provides you a blow by blow of the match. “Game 14 is Exhibit B for the Alekhine-was-drunk thesis — he castled directly into a brutal h-file attack. Surprisingly, he was able to hang on for a long time, but the result was a foregone conclusion, and, suddenly, the three-point lead was gone and the match tied.” (Chess.com Blog)

That’s it for this week, catch you all next week! - Ben

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