Reading · Perpetual Chess Link-Fest

This page did not load. You can still read it on the original site — the toolbar below keeps your place in the directory.

Hi, just a quick announcement for anyone in the NYC area. Jordan Himelfarb, author of Interregnum: Inside the Grueling and Glamorous Battle to Become the Next King of Chess will be doing a book signing at the legendary Chess Forum on Sunday at 8:30pm. He is the guest on next week’s Perpetual Chess, and I greatly enjoyed his book. (Perhaps more importantly, Louisa Thomas reviewed it favorably for the New Yorker.)

Jordan traveled to all of the stops in the 2024 FIDE Candidates Cycle, and portrays the competitors in a very honest and compassionate way. I obviously followed these events pretty closely, and still felt like I learned more about the personalities of players like GMs Vidit, Abasov, Wesley So and Anish Giri. It is good bedside reading, as it is that rare chess book with zero diagrams! If you are NYC-adjacent and free on Sunday, I would recommend attending and picking up the book. On to this week’s links…

Chess Improvement

On the occasion of competing in the Silman Memorial in San Francisco, FM Andy Lee takes an instructive look back at what he learned from the Silman classic How to Reassess Your Chess. (Lit & Chess)

What is White’s Best move here? Find out on move 30 of GM Rafael Leitao’s analysis in the latest Super Chess Classic recap.

Chris Wainscott used Claude to vibe code a few chess study tools. Have y’all built anything? (On the Road to Chess Master)

One-year rating change by age group, active player-years line graph — Although I love to pontificate without data on the podcast, I like it even more when people actually research how much chess improvement can be attained by adults. Carl Labanz did some research and found some encouraging data. Check out his post for the explanation.

Misc.

Firouzja Withdraws From GCT Romania After Ankle Injury — Not that its any of my business, but has it been revealed how GM Alireza Firouzja hurt his ankle playing chess? The injury forced him to withdraw from GCT Romania. More from Tarjei Svensen of Chess.com here.

Writing one post could have been a fluke, but now two posts is a trend! Super GM Awonder Liang returns to the blogosphere to write about chess and AI. Worthwhile. “What happened to the players that refused the AI adoption? They gradually stopped becoming top players. Today, of the top 100 players, at least 95, and probably 100, use the latest engines or play opening moves suggested by the top engines.” (A’s Substack)

2x US Women’s Champion Jen Shahade is schooling the young bucks (and the young does) about how to think sideways, Read all about her book events here.

What would it be like if you could retire in your 50s and play chess full time? Paulo SantAnna did just that and has resuscitated his rating to a new personal high over 2100 FIDE. Find out his lessons learned and study recs in this week’s podcast. (Perpetual Chess YouTube) (Spotify)

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

Thanks for reading Perpetual Chess Link-Fest! Subscribe for free to receive new posts via email.

Perpetual Chess Linkfest #167, May 22, 2026

Chess Improvement

Misc.

Comments