We’ve got lots more good chess content this week- enjoy!- Ben
When I interviewed NM Han Schut about some of the cool chess tools he had built using Claude code, I was inspired, but struggled to come up with unused chess ideas that I could build myself. FM Dalton Perrine is full of ideas, and built many of them, including a “Guess the Move” training tool. In this article he shows you what he has built. (Chess Chatter)
Most adult improvers think their rating is an average of their overall skills. It’s not. Your rating is tied directly to your weakest link.- GM Eugene Perelshteyn
There is a tendency to aim for perfection in your chess games, writes IM Junta Ikeda, but its often sufficient to find moves that are “good enough.” (Infinite Chess)
Why is chess so hard? Dr. Nick Vasquez boils it down to, “(When playing chess), We are asked to do the hardest thing ever, to remain aware of our thinking while fully engaged in calculation” (Chess in Small Doses)
Dr. Benjamin Portheault on NBA star Victor Wembayama, crying in sport, books, and chess. (Mindcreaser)
GM Alex Colovic shares advice for combatting pre-game nerves. “There are two states of mind you can have before a game of chess: you are either afraid or you are not.” (GM Alex Colovic’s Blog)
Mindful Chess Author, GM Paul van der Sterren reflects on learning to let go of results-oriented thinking. “Everybody loves to win; nobody likes losing, but winning and losing, satisfaction and disappointment, happiness and unhappiness, sunshine and rain, inevitably alternate in human life. There is no escaping the rainy days.” (Chess Life Online)
Has the continued development of engines led to significantly stronger play from humans? When looking at human move accuracy over time, Dr. Benjamin Balas was (surprisingly) unable to find convincing evidence. (Science of Chess)
Lauren Goodkind and Megan Chen wrote about what it was like to represent the U.S. in Peru. “For any female chess players reading this who are on the fence about competing internationally: take the leap.” (Chess Life Online)
Touching, long read from the NYT about how a casual Central Park chess game ended up changing two lives. (John Leland for the New York Times)
GM Tiger Hillarp Persson’s book continues to receive well-deserved praise. He rounds up some recent reviews and mentions. (Chess at the Bag of Cats)
FM Dylan Loeb McClain summarizes the good and bad of Ben Mezrich’s Checkmate: Genius, Lies, Ambition, and the Biggest Scandal in Chess. “Unfortunately, the subject at the heart of the story — chess — is not one that the author knows well, and in those sections of the book where he tries to explain the events of individual games, he can go wildly astray.” (New York Times)
Chess Structures Author GM Mauricio Flores Rios wrote about the books that helped him become a GM. (ChessReads)
Assubayeva has won the Norway Chess Women’s Event, while the Open section was tightly contested headed into the final round. UPDATE- now Pragg won. (NM Anthony Levin for Chess.com)
This newsletter is committed to remaining free but does use affiliate links. One way to help support it (and your chess!) is to sign up for special offers using the following links:
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GM Noel Studer-
GM Studer has published two popular courses- one with the goal of getting you to 1200, and the second designing a study
Check out Noël’s updated course on studying chess the right way here (https://courses.nextlevelchess.blog/courses/simplified-chess-improvement-system?ref=bc4be0)
Chess Publishing- Chess Publishing is a long-time newsletter with articles written by GMs and IMs about the latest in opening theory. GM Simon Williams has been working to make their online database modern and comprehensive. Check it out here:
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