Chess blogging

There's a very highly ranked chess player here in South Bend who's just taken up blogging. Dennis Monokroussos is a USCF master with a flair for writing and teaching, as you can tell from the clear and lively posts. The site takes chess both seriously and lightly -- look at today's satirical chess problem*, for example, or the account of a lively game at this week's chess club evening. Yet there is close interpretation of moves and positions -- the site is clearly about chess ideas as well as the beauty and foibles of the game.

I take a lesson, too, in prose writing from Dennis, who doesn't seem to be able to write very many sentences in a row without trying out a distinctive word choice. One of my favorites involves a position where the White player trades too many pieces and can no longer defend himself:

...and now, of course, it's over, as my bishop hoovers the White pawns.

Dennis sees positions and moves as opportunities for talking about ideas in brief bursts that illuminate. For example, when a player mounts an attack with bishop and queen that seems doomed to exhaust itself, Dennis asks for the principle:

This [attack] is complete nonsense, but it's important to realize why it's nonsense in this case while in other, not too dissimilar positions, it's a reasonable speculative sacrifice. The difference here is that my queen's help is too far away - my remaining pieces aren't in or even approaching contact with the Black position. Accordingly, Black should be able to consolidate...

The clarity of the writing is immensely important, because chess is as complex as any player is able to manage. You also see the generosity that is so important to blogging -- tactful and modest about victories, happy to praise other good chess sites, and welcoming of comments. Few blogs accomplish this much in so short a time. All the site needs now is a blogroll for keeping track of some of those good links he provides in the posts -- especially since these lead to an active chess blogging community, as we see in the blogroll at the Boylston blog.

*And now for that satirical puzzle -- White to move and mate in 6 moves:



Dennis and his readers discuss the solution here. Your move...