Articles by Theo Slade

I recently asked Theo Slade if he'd like to write for our blog. But it turns out he has been a regular contributor to British Chess Magazine for a few years now! I knew about one article he had written, but didn't know about the others. So he's already writing a fair amount.

Fortunately for us, his articles are available even if you don't subscribe to British chess periodicals. In recent months he has allowed the Central Florida Chess Club to post his articles on their website. Here's the first one, Culture Shock, which many of is at the club have already seen. This covers some of the differences between English and Florida chess cultures. (Yes, it's really US chess culture, but each of the bigger states will have their own particular culture.)

One of the big points is that in the USA we use delay time controls instead of incremental time controls. This is something I wonder about myself. Increments were first proposed to a wider audience by Bobby Fischer. (Off the top of my head I can't remember if anyone else suggested the idea earlier.) As far as I know, we're the only major chess country who prefers delay to increments, and I just don't understand it. Increments have been popular online since the days of ICS, and that got its start at Carnegie-Mellon University. So why USCF tournaments prefer delay really baffles me.

Regardless, you can read Theo's article there, as well as play through the game he annotates. I recommend it, and I will link to the other articles in coming days, or readers can find them on the CFCC website. Enjoy!