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In my last article I discussed “fetish chess moves.” I consider a move to be a fetish if it’s out of the ordinary, has serious positional clout, and gives the person who played it such deep pleasure that his reaction can almost b... | Read More
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I’m going to come clean here. It’s time to let the cat out of the bag and admit to something strange and weird. It concerns my chess, and it’s about a particular chess move. No, I’m not going to wax poetic about a favorite opening or favor... | Read More
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Chess openings are a bit like fashion - they follow trends. Certain lines become popular and then just fade away. In most cases, an elite player (or most likely his team) prepares an opening for a tournament and then everyone else follows his lead... | Read More
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Any real fan of chess can tell you that, in many ways, chess is a lifelong addiction. Hundreds or even thousands (in some case, tens of thousands!) of chess books take over an apartment or house, chess sets can be found in bathrooms, bedrooms, kit... | Read More
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Chess isn’t just about playing a human or computer opponent. Chess history can become a lifelong addiction, chess news is avidly followed by people who stopped playing decades before, and going over master games can be exciting, relaxing, instru... | Read More
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Continuing on the topic of Typical Positions in 1.d4 openings, one cannot not mention Nimzo-Indian Defense! This opening is one of the most complex and the resulting positions can be very hard to handle. In my preparation for the US Women's Champi... | Read More
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No time to study opening theory? Shock your opponent with an SOS! With an SOS you deviate early (usually before move 6!) from regular lines in mainstream openings. So you will reach positions you have actually studied without having memorized tons... | Read More
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Not all openings require knowledge of specific lines; this is especially true for 1.d4 openings. I have been playing 1.d4 for many years now and with minimum energy spent on openings, I manage to get high scores vs like-rated opponents. This is pr... | Read More
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This week I will be reviewing a unique book - 200 Open Games, by the former "Vice-World Champion", David Bronstein. Rather than fully annotated games, this book presents 200 short vignettes, each followed by an un-annotated game, with one diagram.... | Read More
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I’ve been retired from over-the-board combat since the end of 1999. Though I probably will never play again, I have (from time to time) toyed with the idea of competing in the World Senior Championship, which (if you win) not only makes you ... | Read More
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Chess is a game of knowledge and skill. Yet many players - as evidenced from the majority of questions I get on the show - seem to think improvement initiatives lean toward the knowledge side, typical questions being "Where can I learn more about ... | Read More
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The year was 1969, I was 15 years old and had just made the trip from San Diego to beautiful Santa Monica to participate in the American Open (which, at that time, was held in the luxurious Miramar Hotel). I got there early, checked out the playin... | Read More
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Today we will continue with typical plans arising from the Queens Gambit Declined. I had a chance to experience the lack of knowledge in one critical and very popular line last weekend, while playing in the Philadelphia Open. The game ended favora... | Read More
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I opened the show by randomly selecting a position from one of my Chess.com friend's slow games:
I spent about the first 15 minutes of the show analyzing the position. My general considerations were that White was slightly better due to the act... | Read More
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How to evaluate a position?
In this article I would like to cover a topic or even a skill which is very important for practically every chess player. I really like asking my students one little question: "How do you evaluate a position?". In many... | Read More
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We are wrapping-up the column on Intuition and I would like to take a look at few games from the Candidates Tournament that is currently underway in London. Carlsen and Aronian are two favorites of the tournament and we will analyze their games an... | Read More
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In an earlier four-part article we saw how powerful the Classic Bishop Sacrifice (sacrificing one’s Bishop against h7) can be. However, now and then we see games where the Bishop is tossed to h7 (not sacrificing anything at all) just for the... | Read More
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When I introduced this column I mentioned that I probably wouldn't be covering many opening books. However, I decided to write a review of this fairly old book on the French by grandmaster Lev Psakhis from the "Complete..." series. Why?
Well, fi... | Read More
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No time to study opening theory? Shock your opponent with an SOS! With an SOS you deviate early (usually before move 6!) from regular lines in mainstream openings. So you will reach positions you have actually studied without having memorized tons... | Read More
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With the last few articles we studied Magnus Carlsen's comments after the games from the recent London Classic and analyzed the ones that had to do with intuitive approach towards the position. Today I would like to concentrate of some of the posi... | Read More