Online chess community where you can play chess, learn strategies and tactics, read chess news, see book reviews, find rules & tips, get free downloads, and more! http://www.chess.com/ 2007 Chess.com Starter question for 10: You have a critical match coming up, know you will be playing a very strong opponent and have half-a-day free at some point before the game. Do you... a) Go out drinking and cavorting with your pals on your time off, endi... http://www.chess.com/article/view/preparationinspiration Fri, 10 Feb 2012 09:57:41 -0800 http://www.chess.com/article/view/preparationinspiration Today we will look at bishop vs. knight endgame where one or both sides have connected passed pawns. Two examples feature an extra two pawns in these endgames and as we will see, having two extra pawns does not necessarily guarantee a win. The thi... http://www.chess.com/article/view/arch-arch-nemeses-connected-passers Thu, 09 Feb 2012 21:52:35 -0800 http://www.chess.com/article/view/arch-arch-nemeses-connected-passers 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 ton... http://www.chess.com/article/view/sos---secrets-of-opening-surprises4 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 07:10:30 -0800 http://www.chess.com/article/view/sos---secrets-of-opening-surprises4 Chess isn't all about winning games as if proving mathematical theorems. It isn't all about obtaining an advantage through superior preparation and then using technique to coast to victory. A big part of chess strength is craftiness in the heat of... http://www.chess.com/article/view/fighting-defense Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:58:19 -0800 http://www.chess.com/article/view/fighting-defense Here is a game I played in a G/60 tournament on 9/24/11. This game is the third of a four round tournament. Both my opponent and I have one point and need to win to have a chance of doing something in the fourth round. I am playing white... http://www.chess.com/article/view/identical-twins-the-kia-and-the-london-system Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:18:36 -0800 http://www.chess.com/article/view/identical-twins-the-kia-and-the-london-system The king is the main piece in chess, and the central object in any player’s thoughts. How do I protect my own king and checkmate the opponent’s monarch? While being quite valuable, the king can’t boast being mobile enough to figh... http://www.chess.com/article/view/brave-kings Mon, 06 Feb 2012 21:23:46 -0800 http://www.chess.com/article/view/brave-kings As the well-known legend goes, Ernest Hemingway once won a bet that he could write a short story which would have just six words. You see this story as the title of this article. It is a perfect story indeed: it has a beginning, a middle and ... http://www.chess.com/article/view/baby-shoes-for-sale-never-worn Sat, 04 Feb 2012 23:55:00 -0800 http://www.chess.com/article/view/baby-shoes-for-sale-never-worn The topic of today's article is piece sacrifice in bishop vs. knight endgames. The most typical scenario is to sacrifice a piece in order to get a passed pawn. This is common because in endgames the price of a passed pawn can be much higher than t... http://www.chess.com/article/view/sacrifice-in-b-vs-n-endgame Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:13:04 -0800 http://www.chess.com/article/view/sacrifice-in-b-vs-n-endgame If you follow my column, you will notice that I have not often been covering the most recent games from top-level tournaments. I don’t really want to annotate the same game that other commentators (and their computers) have already picked ap... http://www.chess.com/article/view/just-played Wed, 01 Feb 2012 22:07:24 -0800 http://www.chess.com/article/view/just-played "I read Winning Chess Strategies and RAYC 4th Ed. this year and then decided to enter my first OTB tournament in 20 years: the 2011 U.S. Class Championship.  "GM Timur Gareev, at over 2700, was heading up the master section, while I was settling... http://www.chess.com/article/view/winning-a-dead-won-game Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:41:53 -0800 http://www.chess.com/article/view/winning-a-dead-won-game http://www.chesspublishing.com/content/ "Have you lost faith in the Benko?" "You no longer write about it" My friend Max said, reminding me of an introduction I penned long ago. Now Max has a way of asking uncomfortable questions that insist on... http://www.chess.com/article/view/what-is-new-in-theoryjan12 Tue, 31 Jan 2012 07:47:58 -0800 http://www.chess.com/article/view/what-is-new-in-theoryjan12 While most of us prefer to be on the attacking side, quite often we end up under the opponent’s pressure. In fact, the nature of the pressure can lie in the chess realm and/or in the field of psychology. By chess pressure we mean a long-last... http://www.chess.com/article/view/under-pressure Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:57:20 -0800 http://www.chess.com/article/view/under-pressure It's been two month since we did our first tactical Super-Test, so now it is time to check your chess skills again and compare them to the best players in chess history! Let me remind you that unlike typical tactical tests, here in most of the pu... http://www.chess.com/article/view/tactical-super-test--2 Sun, 29 Jan 2012 00:00:59 -0800 http://www.chess.com/article/view/tactical-super-test--2 Aotearoa, or "the land of the long white cloud", or simple New Zealand as most of you know it hosted an exceptional event- the Queenstown Classic Chess Tournament. It is exceptional first of all for its occurrence-- only once every three years-- a... http://www.chess.com/article/view/in-aotearoa Fri, 27 Jan 2012 22:01:11 -0800 http://www.chess.com/article/view/in-aotearoa No two pieces have faced off more often, or with greater acrimony, than the bishop and knight. With today's article we are starting a series on bishop versus knight endgames. Here are a few examples that show different scenarios that can happen in... http://www.chess.com/article/view/start-of-the-series-bishop-vs-knight Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:32:07 -0800 http://www.chess.com/article/view/start-of-the-series-bishop-vs-knight Tactics naturally flow from “tactical weaknesses” – an unguarded piece, an exposed king, two heavy pieces on the same line, etc. Often this weakness is out in the open and the only question is if it can be utilized. But occasiona... http://www.chess.com/article/view/uncovering-a-tactical-weakness Wed, 25 Jan 2012 23:10:46 -0800 http://www.chess.com/article/view/uncovering-a-tactical-weakness The Tradewise Gibaltar Chess Congress, the strongest Open ever, is underway and the excitement is building. The top seeds are truly inpressive: 1 4102142 Svidler, Peter g RUS 2749 bio   2 13401319 Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar g AZE 2747 bio  ... http://www.chess.com/article/view/the-boys-are-back-in-town-and-girls Wed, 25 Jan 2012 03:01:10 -0800 http://www.chess.com/article/view/the-boys-are-back-in-town-and-girls Nowadays powerful chess engines have become routine assistants of competitive chess players. Both amateurs and professionals use them to analyze their games, prepare opening lines, evaluate certain positions, etc. Most websites that broadcast game... http://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-engines-evaluations Tue, 24 Jan 2012 22:50:49 -0800 http://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-engines-evaluations Vivasyriaa (1651) – JoLou77USA (1259), chess.com 2011 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 Ah, the Philidor Defense! There's a lot more to this interesting opening than most realize. 3.d4 Nf6 Gambit lovers occasionally try 3…f5.   &n... http://www.chess.com/article/view/philidors-ghost Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:11:09 -0800 http://www.chess.com/article/view/philidors-ghost Last week we analyzed games where it was wise to spend a whole tempo and play h2-h3 (or h7-h6 for Black) to avoid a very unpleasant pin.  But sometimes it is a good idea to play such a move even if the pin is not our concern at all. In order to u... http://www.chess.com/article/view/a-useful-waste-of-time-part-two Sat, 21 Jan 2012 21:05:25 -0800 http://www.chess.com/article/view/a-useful-waste-of-time-part-two