The man behind the notes

Meet Steve Lopez, writer, Blues singer, self-confessed chess freak – and one of our longest-standing contributors. He is a leading expert on ChessBase software, having run the USA hotline for our company for many years.

In fact the name "T-Notes" is derived from the ChessBase annotation function that is executed by pressing "T" while entering a game. It is used to "take back the last move and enter a variation".

Steve Lopez has been writing about computer chess since 1992. Among his other electronic books are Danger Zone!, How to Choose a Chess Opening (with NM Alex Dunne), and Battle Royale: The 1924 New York International Chess Tournament. His web site, The Chess Kamikaze Home Page, was named one of the Internet's "most interesting" chess sites in the July 2001 issue of Chess Life magazine.

Steve wrote and produced numerous radio dramas, documentaries, and comedy in the 1980's and 1990's. He wrote a monthly sports simulation gaming magazine column in the mid 1990's. He currently writes a weekly computer chess column and a bimonthly chess biography column, published on various commercial Internet sites. His other current projects include conducting independent research on American Civil War infantry tactics and small or obscure battles of that war, as well as analysis of period military manuals.

Steve is an avid online correspondence chessplayer, an occasional postal chessplayer, and an absolute fiend for offhand pub games. He's also collected chess software and stand-alone chess machines for more than ten years and has well over 200 programs and machines in his collection.

His sports interests include soccer and fighting robot competitions. Among his hobbies are wargaming (board, miniature, and computer), book collecting, and accumulating interesting memorabilia for his office (known as the Skull Cave).

Steve lives in Maryland and spends a truly ridiculous amount of time walking the Antietam and Gettysburg battlefields with his twin sons.

On to Steve's T-Notes