Sam Trenholme’s blog
Chess writings
April 10, 2026
I have been writing a lot about Chess lately. Below are links to my recent articles.The plan
I am slowly working on an open content (public domain) book on how to play Chess well enough to beat your friends. Some background...
Many many moons ago, people were constantly insulting me and making fun of me at the local club I hung out at because I couldn’t play Chess very well. I was just never taught by my father or anyone else how to play Chess.
After having enough of everyone beating me at Chess, I took action. I bought some books, but they didn’t help me very much. I then joined a local Chess club. It was there I started to improve my Chess.
I remember the leader of the club, a strong Chess master (about 2200, which was impressive—the other people I knew with ratings had a rating like 1700 or 1800) got together with me and showed me all of the mistakes I was making in how I played Chess, and told me how to play better.
With his help, and by looking at some books I had, and by practicing my skills by playing all of my friends, I got better at Chess. Pretty soon, I was playing in the weekly tournaments we had at the local Chess club. I even got a draw (via perpetual check) in the very first rated game I ever played of Chess.
While I lost more games than I won at that local Chess club, I was becoming a much better player. At this point, I was winning almost all of the games I was playing with my friends, because my ability to see weaknesses in my opponent’s positions was being refined, and I was leaning tricks like how to spring an opening trap in the commonly played Petroff Defense.
Once I got good enough to beat all my friends, I moved my focus from getting better at Chess to getting a job paying a living wage, and moving up the career ladder in the then fledging Internet industry.
But my passion for Chess never fully died. I am now, many many years later, writing a book which, if I finish, will be an open content book on how to play Chess, along with a passing mention of Chess Variants.
The reason I have an interest in Chess Variants is because, back when everyone was beating me at chess, one of my buddies mentioned that world champion Capablanca tried to get people to play a Chess Variant he proposed; this piqued my interest in Chess Variants, an interest I still have to this day.
The articles
This is what I have written so far: