Shelby Lyman on Chess: World Champion of Self-Description Sunday, November 1, 2015 (Published in print: Sunday, November 1, 2015) Magnus Carlsen hardly seemed himself at the recent world rapid and blitz championships in Berlin, Germany. After successfully defending his...
A World Class Chess Teacher
Shelby Lyman on Chess: A World Class Teacher Sunday, October 25, 2015 (Published in print: Sunday, October 25, 2015) Bobby Fischer had an insatiable drive for chess mastery — his search for knowledge and perfection making him a superb...
Chasing Magnus?
Shelby Lyman on Chess: ‘The Paranoids Are After Me’ Sunday, October 11, 2015 (Published in print: Sunday, October 11, 2015) Magnus Carlsen, the 24-year-old world champion of chess, may be getting the willies. I am reminded of a Bobby...
Chess is much more relevant than you think
Shelby Lyman on Chess: More Relevant Than We Think Sunday, October 4, 2015 (Published in print: Sunday, October 4, 2015) “Chess is the touchstone of intellect,” we are told by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It is also an affair...
Chess: The Battlefield of Life
Shelby Lyman on Chess: The Battlefield of Life Column c2251 for release Sept 14 Sunday, September 20, 2015 (Published in print: Sunday, September 20, 2015) Sports are curiously contradictory. They range in character from activities that are pure, or...
Not as easy as people think
Shelby Lyman on Chess: It’s Hardly a Cakewalk Sunday, September 13, 2015 (Published in print: Sunday, September 13, 2015) Few of us will question that life is synonymous with struggle. The humanly contrived competition that we call “sports” raises...
Knight power!
Chess by Shelby Lyman on September 5, 2015 – 12:01 AM For both the novice and master, the seemingly eccentric knight poses special difficulties. For the beginner, especially a child, explanations of how the “horse” moves are often befuddling....
The biggest impact in chess history
Chess by Shelby Lyman on August 22, 2015 – 12:01 AM According to the grandmaster and chess historian Yuri Averbach, chess was played throughout most of Europe by the 11th century, Originally, a training tool for the warring upper...
Chess was used to train young princes
Shelby Lyman on Chess: Instrument of Survival Sunday, August 16, 2015 (Published in print: Sunday, August 16, 2015) Yuri Averbach, a former Soviet champion and the world’s oldest grandmaster at 93, is also a chess historian. Assuming that chess...
Astoundingly precocious Fischer
Shelby Lyman on Chess: Precocity By Any Other Name Column 2245 for release August 3 Sunday, August 9, 2015 (Published in print: Sunday, August 9, 2015) Bobby Fischer was astoundingly precocious — as he proved in 1958, at the...