Notes from the 'sphere

1. zenpawn shares his strategy for eating vegan during a four-day chess tournament.


2. The Hungarian Knight continues the discussion on children's chess, competitiveness and whether it's important to have winners and losers with "Winning Isn't Everything." You may want to read the preceding posts first -- from BCC Weblog "With no winners, isn't everyone a loser?" and from The Chess Mind "You're All Winners! All of You! (Or are You?)."


3. J'adoube confirms that "400 points in 400 days" isn't just a marketing slogan. In fact, he's entitled to a 72 day vacation if he so pleases.


4. What do you suppose James Wilson is going to blog about now that he has reached "Z"?


5. With Castro in the news again, Michael Goeller attempts to clarify the historical record regarding the Cuban Dictator's game with Bobby Fisher -- fascinating pictures and analysis.


6. His days as an e-mail spammer presumably past, Braden Bournival has returned to the local tournament circuit with a tie for first in the 56th New Hampshire Open.


7. There has been lots of action in the chess blog listings as of late. Among the new additions you'll find two blogs named Chess Improvement, The Center Square (a Kenilworth Chess Club member), Chess Crusade (seeking the holy grail of chess excellence, no doubt), My Chess Games (which three days in, doesn't include any games), and several Spanish blogs primarily from Uruguay (some of which can be found in the new Non-English Chess Blogs section of the sidebar).


8. Like last summer, many blogs have also been heading in the opposite direction -- to inactive status, e.g, Bobby Fischer Chess Blog, Chess Corner, JDK Blog and Chess Vault. Most notably, after showing quite a bit of patience, I finally removed GMs Chabanon and Charbonneau from the sidebar.