Now He Tells Me

Michael Goeller is a chess blogger par excellence; it’s hard to think of anyone who plies the craft with more finesse and sophistication. While the rest of us fill our columns with the usual fluff— gossip, cross tables, the odd grip-and-grin photo, and our failures to scale Mt. De la Maza,—Michael’s blog the Kenilworthian is full of real chess, analyses and annotations of important games, openings, variations, novelties and so on. I picture him laboring for hours and even days over pithy posts like “Urusov Analysis - 3...Nxe4 4.dxe5 Qh4,” and “Refuting 5...Nxe4 in the Scotch Four Knights.”

Michael’s latest contribution to high-end content aggregation is a collection of sources and links on the Traxler/Wilkes Barre counter attack, some of which he gets from Dennis Monokroussos.

It’s great stuff; I only wish he’d published it before FM Aleksandar Stamnov sprang the Traxler on me in this game at the North Avenue Chess Pavilion earlier in the summer:



Yes, I know: serves me right for playing the Fried Liver Attack against a master. Notice that every move White (moi) made beginning with 7. Ke2 was not only wrong but probably the worst one possible in each position. Anyone can blunder, even Kramnik, but to do so repeatedly and spectacularly takes a special gift, you must admit.

Thanks, Professor Goeller. I will attend to the lesson promptly.