Chess Club Live Blog

 Okay straight off the bat I was like didn't Grandmaster Lev Alburt already do a book about these 300 most important positions?  Yes, he did and this was a re-imagining of his book. So the positions and the categorisation of the positions are very different. This works really well. If you are as busy as me, I am a fully time Fintech programmer, Co-Founder of the world's biggest grassroots chess community, and app developer and Netflix binger. So not much time.  The question is if you study these positions will you become super strong? The answer is categorically NO, but if you get an ML (machine learning) algorithm to search for all the similar positions and you train your neural network (brain) on those positions night and day in a deep learning training system you will be unbeatable. I can. I have a couple of hundred million master-level positions in a searchable database and I can specify each of those themes IM Thomas Engqvist has highlighted and can build a flashcard...

  IM Cyrus Lakdawala is prodigiously good at publishing books and always seems to find titles that most club players at a bookstall would browse if not buy outright. We all have been his victims at some time or other if you are a typical tournament chessplayer. We lose a chess game then flock to a bookstall buying opening books, middlegame strategy and endgame tomes like it would have made a difference. His latest book is no exception given that it is a book that supposedly teaches the reader how to beat the world chess champion and strongest-ever chess player by Elo. It is very curious that the book kicks off with a chapter about how Magnus avoids loss by either a win or draw, which seemed a rather strange way to delve into his defeats given the book's title. Another curious fact is that Magnus Carlsen now owns New in Chess so this book is about the owner of their book publishing company and may explain the curious first chapter. As you know with my reviews I don't necessarily...