Jeffrey Ashton

I played in the Texas State Championship this Memorial Day weekend. I actually finished it a few hours ago, and I am completely exhausted (physically and mentally). I am struggling to stay awake as I type this. I heard that playing a game of chess is as physically exhausting as 3 rounds of boxing. Karpov lost 30 pounds or so when he played in the World Championship one year. I have always been a little skeptical of these "facts" but I personally feel like I can sleep for a whole day. Luckily I am taking a little trip to Dallas for a couple days so I can get some rest. These are my overall results with a brief summary of the game (the ratings are rounded). Round 1: White - Win against Chris Toolin (2150) I was winning, he was winning, then I won. I played the opening and middle game extremely well. I won a piece, but he got compensation. In time pressure I made a few errors and he stood better. For a few moves he was completely winning (if he played the winning move I could ha

As many of the readers know, I have been studying chess for a few hours a day for the past couple of months. Ben Finegold has been doing a great job of coaching me and I would like to thank him for all of his help. Also I am very happy that he is healthy. His hospitalization gave everyone a good scare. As well as working with Ben Finegold once as a week, I started working with Grandmaster Yuri Shulman. I know Yuri

Black to play and eventually checkmate white (or force white to sacrifice his queen to defend). This puzzle is probably good for about the 1100 rated player, although anyone can solve it. Look for the answer in the "comments" area. This is a game where I am White. I am playing against my coach at the time, International Master Rade Milovanovic. He is the first coach of the University of Texas at Dallas chess team and has been there ever since. I was a freshman in college when he joined the team. During that year our team was a lot different than it is now. For one thing, we only had about six masters total. We only had the man-power to send one team to tournaments. Now University of Texas at Dallas often sends three strong teams to tournaments and could send five if they wanted to. Rade helped our team win several National and Pan-American chess championships. I not only thought of him as my coach, but also a close friend. He would often invite members of the team over to his