Ryan M. Thomas, MD

What a pleasure to finally meet the legend, @SusanPolgar! I’m looking forward to her book coming out on March 11! #chesspunks

@mencikdavid Congratulations!!

LADIES AND GENTLEMAN HARD WORK PAYS OFF! After many setbacks I have won my first ever senior classical tournament and in style with 1 round to spare! #chesspunks

How do you get better at chess endgames? Why are endgames so hard? The way is to create building blocks that you understand backwards and forwards. Then you can master more advanced manifestations 🧑‍🎓 Exhibit A: the Skewer!!

This made me happy!

@JenShahade Bah I missed this! Happy birthday and happy new year!

Thanks to all of you for your Happy Birthday wishes, and Happy New Year to All of You!

Proud to share a major milestone: $1,000,000 raised for the Naroditsky Memorial Fund. We are actively securing a venue in Charlotte for the inaugural Naroditsky Memorial Blitz & Rapid Tournament, to be held in 2026. We will release exact venue, date, and format once it's all set. Grateful to everyone who helped make this milestone possible. ~2 weeks left for the founding donor stage, all info here: givebutter.com/naroditsky 🙏

@psprof101 @Sarahhuniverse Or g, I mean 9.

@Sarahhuniverse The only thing I learned in this video is that some people don’t know how to write x.

Mathematics Equation Solving Method 🇪🇺 vs 🇺🇸 🎥 : Credit to the Owner

The Year of No Excuses …or how I took my USCF rating from 1583 to 1758. Read now: open.substack.com/pub/kamrynheid… #chess #chesspunks

All about Fortresses, starting now! youtube.com/live/ADNjuoibE…

it's that time of the year

I want to plan my 2026 and choose the three or four events I will cover next year. • I favor large opens and festivals with more than 250 participants. • Good vibes are a must, I work only with nice people 🙂 • I love scholastic events — photographing kids is always a joy! • I prefer to travel overseas, ideallt Asia or America. • Well-paid gigs are welcome, but if you are on a budget, do not be shy. I do plenty of pro bono collaborations, I am in this for the experiences, not the money. Just make a nice pitch! Besides making your event look great, I have a large enough following to help promote it on social media. I also bring 30 years of experience working at all kinds of events and a business-minded approach, so I can help in many ways. For now, the only dates locked in my schedule are May 17 to 24, when I will join my @Killer_Chess friends in Roquetas, Spain. Other than that, I am flexible.

The digital edition of December's Chess Life magazine is now available for all members, and a print edition will be in mailboxes by mid-month. @ChessMike wrote the cover story on Danya, and there's annotated games by @FabianoCaruana and many, many more. new.uschess.org/chess-life-mag…

I have some exciting news for you! I have published my first ever review of a chess book on chessreads. If you are not following @chessreads you are missing out on many great chess book suggestions! #chesspunks

Tomorrow, Saturday November 29 at 1 p.m. U.S. Central Standard Time, I’ll be live-streaming with @CLTchesscenter Executive Director @PeterGiannatos to talk about the plans and goals for the Daniel Naroditsky Memorial Fund. Peter will go into specific details about the initiatives that the fund will support and explain the finances necessary to pull off its vision. Peter would love to answer your questions. Feel free to leave them below or tune in Saturday and ask them in the live chat. I believe that if the foundation can meet its fundraising goals, it will provide meaningful and lasting benefits to the chess community for decades to come. Hope you can join us Saturday, or watch the the recorded discussion afterwards. Watch live: youtube.com/live/NLNKx9wuL… Donate: givebutter.com/naroditsky

@mencikdavid Your list provides a ton of insight for all players but the fact you found them in your own play speaks volumes for your improvement. Keep going!

One truly learns best from their own mistakes. The amount of best moves I saw but didn't play in the previous classical tournament that I just finished reflects a lot about my confidence on the chess board and especially in my confidence in my defensive skills. CONT #chesspunks

@ilyassahinMD This is the exact reason that editors of scientific journals (like myself) need people like you to critically and expertly review manuscripts when called upon (I’m sure you do). It has become increasingly difficult to get quality reviews of manuscripts from qualified reviewers.

T:👉 Son dönemde tartışılan Kore COVID-19 aşısı–kanser çalışmasıyla ilgili daha önce ayrıntılı olarak potansiyel sorunları konuşmuştuk. * O eleştiriler bilimsel dünyada da yankı bulmaya başladı. Kanada’dan epidemiyologlar eleştirel Letter to the Editor yazdı. ** Yazarlar bizim de vurguladığımız bazı noktalarla birlikte çalışmadaki temel hataları çok net özetliyor: 1-Solid tani organ tümörlerde 1 yıllık “indüksiyon” iddiasının biyolojik olarak imkânsız olması 2-Aşılı grupta artmış sağlık sistemi temasının tanı sayısını yapay olarak yükseltmesi (surveillance bias) 3-Lag-period uygulanmaması (≥6–12 ay dışlama yapılmalıydı) 4-Propensity matching’in yetersizliği ve residual confounding 4-Çoklu test düzeltmesi olmadan 29 kanser tipinin taranması 5-Sonuçların nedenselmiş gibi yorumlanması İtalya’dan da Preprint bir analiz yayınlandı. *** Bu bağımsız analiz ise tüm meseleyi başka bir açıdan ortaya koyuyor: Makaledeki ham rakamlardan hesaplanan “crude cancer incidence rate” yani kaba kanser insidans oranı ulusal Kore istatistikleriyle uyuşmuyor ve beklenenden >%20 düşük. Bu kadar büyük bir sapma çalışmanın örnekleminin temsil gücünün zayıf olduğunu ve sonuçların ciddi şekilde hatalı olabileceğini gösteriyor. Bu iki eleştirel çalışma, daha önce ifade ettiğimiz metodolojik sorunlarla tam bir uyum içinde. Artık yalnızca bireysel bir eleştiri değil; bağımsız araştırmacıların da aynı noktalara işaret ettiğini görüyoruz. Dergi editörlüğü de gelen bu bilimsel geribildirimler doğrultusunda makale hakkında resmî inceleme süreci başlattı.**** Bu bir sansür değil. Tam tersine: hatalı metodolojinin halk sağlığını yanlış yönlendirmesini önlemek için yapılan bilimsel kalite kontrolüdür. Eğer hatalar tespit edilirse, makale muhtemelen geri çekilecektir ama bu detaylı değerlendirme sonucunda olur. Makalenin tasarımındaki sorunlar ilk bakışta bile belirgin olduğu için, bu incelemenin yapılması hem yerinde hem de bilimsel açıdan son derece olumlu bir gelişme. Detaylı tespitler sonucu ne olursa olsun paylasmaya devam…

@natesolon Yusupov series over the board…this is the way.

Online tactics trainers, like the puzzles on Chess.com or Lichess, are very convenient. But there's a huge trap. They tempt you into developing a terrible thought process. The way these work makes it incredibly tempting to enter the first move you see, wait to see how the computer responds, and take it from there. That can work okay for puzzles, but in a real chess game, it's disastrous because if you made a mistake, you might have just lost the game on the spot. I call this the Guess and Check method, and it's a terrible thought process for a real chess game. By doing puzzles, you're getting better at pattern recognition, but at the same time, you're reinforcing a terrible thought process. On the whole, you may appear to be treading water, and this can cause plateaus. What you actually need to do, when you see a promising first move, is to investigate your opponent's possible replies and make sure you have a good answer to all of them. Only once you've done this should you make your first move. You can try to stick to this while using online puzzle trainers through sheer force of will, but a more reliable way is to write down your answer on a piece of paper. This forces you to commit to the whole line before moving.

Sharing my first podcast interview since losing Danya. It wasn’t easy to talk about, and honestly it wasn’t my best speaking effort, but it was the first time I’ve discussed this openly. Thank you to @Bennyficial1 for giving me the opportunity to speak. More than anything, I hope the chess community finds some of the answers they’ve been looking for here, and can begin moving toward peace. Danya deserved a chess world defined by compassion, not conflict, and my hope is that this interview contributes to that direction. ❤️ youtu.be/ekyt2Csrzhk?si…

This initiative does not seek retribution; it aims to build the positive, lasting legacy that Danya cared so deeply about. To me, Danya wasn’t just a colleague or a public figure, he was my friend. Leading this initiative means the world to me. This memorial fund is about choosing creation over destruction, legacy over anger, and building something that reflects who Danya truly was. If you choose to be involved, it would mean more than I can express.

The Charlotte Chess Center, the CCC Foundation, and GM Daniel Naroditsky's family have launched the Naroditsky Memorial and Fellowship Fund today to honor Danya's memory and legacy. We're honored to support with a $100,000 donation. The link to learn more and donate is below 💚

@ScoobyChess Your reply is so much easier to read now…

It’s unfortunately happened… I didn’t think this day would come… I had to increase the text size on my phone.