“For a reader living in the free world the word “thief” perhaps sounds like a reproach? But you misunderstand the term. In the underworld of the Gulag the word is pronounced in the same way that the word “knight” was pronounced among the nobility – and with even greater esteem, and not loudly but softly, like a sacred […]

A business-minded chess buddy of mine recently asked why I bother with plastic sets and the like. Some of your “artistic wood jobs,” he eloquently pointed out, sell for almost the same price as the old Jaques sets from London, “but the plastic ones are losers straight off the bat.” Everyone was entitled to this […]

DUBLIN: Old Norse; Dyflin, from the Gaelic An Linne Dhubh, adopted into Classical Irish as Dubhlinn; dubh, meaning ‘dark, black’, and linn, meaning ‘pool, pond’, referring to the murky tidal waters of medieval Dublin Bay, in the early eleventh-century, a Viking stronghold held by Sigtrygg Silkiskegg, the High-King of Dyflin and step-son of Brian Boru. […]

THE JAILBIRD They had seen the best of times. They had seen the worst of times. This is the tale of two Argentinian Campo sets that had fallen down on their luck; one spending many years in storage, the other an unkempt drifter, bumming from one collection to the next. And as you may have […]

Abbreviations:MMP (the MacMillan Project)RRP (the Rob Roy Project) PdA (Piezas de Ajedrez, an Argentinian Youtube channel) FADA (Argentinian Ajedrez Federation) FFS (let’s get a move on) I absolutely adore working week in and week out with different chess sets from different parts of the world and consider myself very fortunate in being able to do so. Many […]

For the first time in many, many months we had friends stay over for the Canada Day weekend (July 1st – 4th) and after a sumptuous dinner and a few cold bevvies some lively games of nine-man-morris and chess were had outside on our patio. Today is Monday the fifth, and I’ve just spent the […]