Interesting reading

     I recently came across a blog and an editorial that were interesting and I thought I’d share them. A blog that is quite interesting and deserves to be wider read is one that oddly doesn’t seem to have a name. 
     It’s a blog by Douglas Griffin of Scotland. At the age of 12, in 1979, Griffin began competitive play and in 1980-1989 represented Scotland at every level from Under-14 to international. In the early 1990s his professional career caused him to gradually give up over-the-board play. His FIDE rating is 2270. 
     Griffin has a fascination with the Russian language and culture and over the the past 15 years he has translated the annotations to a great many games from classic Soviet-era books and periodicals. On his website he shares some of the results of his labor. There are only 17 posts dating from 2016 although some months actually have more than one subject. The blog also has some nice photos which I have never seen before. Definitely a blog worth visiting. I only wish Mr. Griffin would do more material.  Visit
     There is also an interesting old (2015) article in The Guardian titled "Grandmaster crash: the inside story of how English chess pawned its future: In the 80s, English chess was second only to the Soviet Union in the world game. Now we’re being outdone by Egypt and Peru. This is the tale of how a defecting grandmaster, an ousted chief executive and a spot of online mudslinging left the most cerebral of contests in raucous meltdown.” Read article
     If you can read Russian you can occasionally find Russian chess books that make for great reading.

My book of Lilienthal's best games

     Once upon a time somebody wrote a book that translated Russian chess words and phrases into English.  It was available from the USCF, but I can't remember the title or who wrote it. See this article: Why Russian to English is difficult for Machine Translation.



What you can do is download this Excel spreadsheet: Chess Vocabulary in 17 Languages