After 1988, my chess activity dropped off dramatically. The previous time it dropped off so much was 1983, when I moved to California from Massachusetts. But this time it dropped to almost nil. I only played a handful of tournaments in each of the years from 1989 to 1991, and none at all in 1992. Then in January of 1993, I moved to Hawaii. ( Read more... )

Fresh off my performance at the World Open in 1988, I played in my first US Open, in Boston. That was a lot of fun, and I did reasonably well, though not spectacularly (+6 -2 =4). I returned to CA after my Summer trip to the East Coast for these tournaments, and headed down to southern CA for the Software Toolworks tournament. I had a fairly ( Read more... )

I've enjoyed taking my trip down chess-memory lane so far. But when I think back to what I feel are my greatest chess accomplishments, four of them come to mind: Finishing clear second in the Expert Section of the 1988 World Open, reaching a rating of national master, winning the Hawaii State Championship, and achieving a 2200+ FIDE rating. All ( Read more... )

The Pan American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship used to be a fixture every year for the 5 days immediately after Christmas. The first year I played in this tournament for WPI was 1981. I was a junior, and our team consisted of one player from every year in school in descending order of boards... 1st board: Brian Haendiges (senior), 2nd ( Read more... )

In the Summer of 1983, I moved from Massachusetts to California for graduate school. While the permanence of this move was not known at the time, the Spring of that year would turn out to be my last chance to play in the Wachusett Chess Club Championship. I played in the club championship tournament on two previous occasions. The first was in 1979 ( Read more... )

There's something magical about that first time you travel with your friends, staying overnight for the first time without your family. For me, that magical trip was the 1978 Tanglewood Open. Five of us - Steve Courtemanche, Bob Anderson, David Allard, Greg Gaudet and I - all made the road trip out to the Berkshires to play this tournament (Bill ( Read more... )

Round 1 of the 1979 Newton $700 Open looked like it was going to be pretty uneventful. I managed to make the top half of the pairings with my 1600+ rating, and had the good fortune of being paired against a new player. In those days, players that were as yet unrated but had played some rated games were listed as "U" on the wall chart. If this ( Read more... )

In the late 70's and early 80's I played at a local chess club known as the Wachusett Chess Club. In the Fall of 1978, they started their annual Fall Swiss tournament. For reasons I can't remember, I was unable to show up for the first round, and was forfeited. I argued vigorously with the tournament director George Mirijanian that I should have ( Read more... )

In chess game #1, I described Steve Ducharme as "one of two superstar high school players" in the North Worcester County high school chess league. This game features the other superstar. Richard Boursy was a legend in his own time. He was a year younger than Ducharme (so he played in the league a year after Ducharme was gone), and IIRC, Boursy ( Read more... )

In chess game #1, I made mention of my penchant for gratuitous tactics. No game illustrates that better than this one. I laugh when I think back to my earliest years of chess, as I pointed to this game as a sort of masterpiece. While there are certainly some fun tactical themes, the play on both sides (especially that of my opponent) is pretty ( Read more... )