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Chessville
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Jon is also the author of the extremely excellent (I can't recommend it highly enough) The Chess Analyst (read John Knudsen's Review of The Chess Analyst). Oh yes - there's the website of his... Chess Is Fun is presented in a two-frame format, where the viewer can move the vertical dividing line left or right, depending on which side of the page he or she wants to focus on.
The left frame serves as a sort of Table of Contents, while the right frame contains the content. And what content! Major sections include: Book Reviews / Chess Store ... Great Game Archive ... Free Chess instruction ... Chess on Stamps Exhibit ... Attempted Chess Humor ... For Advanced Players ... Chess BLOG ... and the Message Board. Within each of these sections, real treasures lie hidden away. In the section "For Advanced Players", for example, are four articles reprinted from the APCTNews Bulletin, including Through Time and Space with Stephen, an annotated game (Stephan Gerzadowicz - Jon Edwards (APCT: 87RF-1)) from the introduction of which the following excerpt was taken: For baseball, for me at least, it's Fenway Park. The Green Monster, the nostalgia, and the fans. Every game is more an intimate night out than a sporting event. In postal chess, for me at least, it's playing Stephan Gerzadowicz. Part of the charm, I know, is that I grew up not far from his East Templeton home. As a teenager, I attended the Fitchburg Chess Club where Stephan, George Mirijanian, Brian Warnock, and others helped me week after week to improve my play. Stephan's postcards arrive with the same wit that we've come to expect from his columns and books. And there's his chess style, a passionate conviction in fianchettoed bishops and a slow steady buildup that lulls one opponent after another into structural suicide. It's almost as if Stephan has discovered the deep, hidden nature of the game, the precise tempo of play dictated by the obscure space-time relationships in chess. I've often thought that we have all been taught to play incorrectly, valuing too greatly the power and beauty of the mate in three while undervaluing the precise ways in which each piece affects the space around it. I know that Stephan understands all of this better than the rest of us. The Attempted Chess Humor section contains the must-read Uncle Fred's Gambit, among others. Other sections likewise contain hidden gems, but you'll have to search them out one by one - there is no overall site map to guide the inquisitive visitor. That is about the worst thing I can say about this site! The pages contain almost no graphics, so they load fast (except for the Chess On Stamps section, where your patience is rewarded with scans of some of the many and varied stamps in Jon's collection). The diagrams provided on some pages are fairly low quality, others, particularly in his Chess BLOG, are very clear and easy on the eyes. The Chess Blog section is of particular note. It is updated several times weekly, with news, tidbits, and annotated games from current events (Linares 2004, Reykjavik 2004, e.g.) but mostly classic games from the distant and not-so-distant past. Recent fare has included the likes of Petrosian,T - Bronstein,D [E65] Candidates Tournament Amsterdam (2), 1956; Ljubojevic,L (2510) - Browne,W (2500) [B95] IBM Amsterdam, 1972; Gligoric,S - Pachman,L [C18] Munich, 1958; and Botvinnik,M (2700) - Szilagyi,P (2400) [A07] Amsterdam, 1966. The occasional composition sneaks in there as well, including this little work from Richard Reti:
It looks hopeless for white... like so many of Reti's compositions, how can the white king catch the advanced black g-pawn?1.e7 Bb5 Required to prevent e8(Q) 2.Kc5 And here's the key. White attacks the Bb5, gaining the time needed to catch the g-pawn 2...Be8 [2...g3 3.Kxb5 g2 4.e8Q+] 3.Kd4 g3 4.Ke3 Bc6 5.e8Q+ Bxe8 6.Kf3= White has succeeded in catching black's passed pawn. The Message Board appears underutilized, containing just 462 posts as of this review. The Great Game Archive contains a large collection of games, replayable on a JavaScript board, and sorted by player, opening, or tournaments and matches. Even tactical and endgame themes are represented in this section. Novice players will benefit from his Chess Instruction section. All things considered, this is one
of the best self-produced chess sites on the web, and one you should
definitely check out. Jon's fantastic analytical skills, his ready wit
and polished writing style all make this a must-see site. The BLOG
alone is worth it's weight in gold. Thanks Jon, for this gift to the
chess community! Read this 1997
Interview With 10th US CC Champion Jon Edwards at the famous
Correspondence
Chess site.
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