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 This is already the 10th blog post in the "Winning with the Berlin Wall" series! I hope I have been able to convince at least some people to change their opinion about this opening. The opening has a bit of a bad name because of its "drawishness" ...http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/winning-with-the-berlin-wall-10Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:52:19 -0700http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/winning-with-the-berlin-wall-10A bit more than a year ago I posted this blog post about a game I played against an IM and won in 17 moves. Today I won another quick game against the same IM, and this time it only took 16 moves to win! However, I should mention that my score aga...http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/double-bishop-mateFri, 23 Oct 2009 07:39:45 -0700http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/double-bishop-mateBelow is just a fun game I played today. Besides the annotations to the moves, there's not much else to say about the game other than that it was a tactical mess... Again, I didn't double-check all my annotations with an engine, so engines may no...http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/fun-in-the-accelerated-dragonThu, 01 Oct 2009 14:09:16 -0700http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/fun-in-the-accelerated-dragonThe English opening (1. c4) has always annoyed me as black. Sometimes it leads to 1. d4 positions through transposition, sometimes it can even lead to a Maroczy Bind kind of position, and sometimes it leads to totally original positions not found ...http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/the-difficult-englishWed, 30 Sep 2009 08:01:27 -0700http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/the-difficult-englishThis is just a short post on a funny game I played online today. We reached an endgame with Q+R+B each, but with opposite bishops. And what do you do in positions with heavy pieces and opposite-coloured bishops? Yes, you should attack! Make use of...http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/getting-h-pawnedMon, 28 Sep 2009 14:05:46 -0700http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/getting-h-pawnedFor a long time I was a very materialistic player. In the early stages of my "chess career" nearly all of my games were won by the player who won the most material. But also later on, I always preferred a bunch of material over some vague position...http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/who-needs-materialFri, 18 Sep 2009 14:29:57 -0700http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/who-needs-materialIt's been a while since my last blog post. The biggest reason is that I haven't played much chess lately, so there wasn't much to 'blog' about. But not too long ago I played in my first real tournament in months, and although my overall result was...http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/beating-the-najdorf-6Sun, 02 Aug 2009 08:36:25 -0700http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/beating-the-najdorf-6Below is the fifth game in the Beating the Najdorf series, and this time I beat a Grandmaster! Again, I used the 6. Bg5 variation, and we followed a long theoretical variation where black sacrifices the queen for three minor pieces. At first, I go...http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/beating-the-najdorf-5Mon, 11 May 2009 06:15:13 -0700http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/beating-the-najdorf-5After watching a very interesting DVD from Alexei Shirov on the Grunfeld I decided to pick up the Grunfeld again. His clear explanations about his games, but also about the way the opening is supposed to be played (with very dynamic chess, often n...http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/the-dynamic-grunfeldFri, 08 May 2009 09:36:41 -0700http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/the-dynamic-grunfeldIt's been a while since my previous blog post, mainly because my enthusiasm for chess dropped to a minimum in the last few weeks, but here's the 9th post in the Berlin Wall series! Again, it's about a game I played online, but this time the title ...http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/winning-with-the-berlin-wall-9Tue, 05 May 2009 11:05:57 -0700http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/winning-with-the-berlin-wall-9There are many places where you can find simple tactical puzzles (for example Chess.com's Tactics Trainer or Daily Puzzle) or more complicated puzzles with highly unlikely positions, where the key move is a totally unexpected move. There are only ...http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/magnificent-puzzles-24Sat, 21 Mar 2009 09:06:17 -0700http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/magnificent-puzzles-24After reading shootfilm's blog post about blindfold chess and how we can try it too, I decided to play some games 'blindfolded', first against Rybka, and then on the Internet Chess Club. Below is actually quite a nice game I played today, at a 7/0...http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/blindfold-chess2Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:52:07 -0700http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/blindfold-chess2Below is the 8th game in this series. This time black was a Grandmaster and I was white, and although I thought I was doing quite well (neutralizing most counterplay) I made one big mistake on move 22 which cost me the game. I actually found it qu...http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/winning-with-the-berlin-wall-8Sun, 15 Mar 2009 09:25:05 -0700http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/winning-with-the-berlin-wall-8Below is the 7th game in the Berlin Wall series. In this game, white had the curious idea of bringing his king to the action with Kg1-g2-g3xh4, but was punished for this. White's king soon felt uncomfortable and intimidated by the black rooks and ...http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/winning-with-the-berlin-wall-7Mon, 09 Mar 2009 09:46:25 -0700http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/winning-with-the-berlin-wall-7This post would have really fit in the "Beating the Najdorf"-series for the tactics and sacrifices, but unfortunately it was not a Najdorf-Sicilian but a Sicilian Kan game. But like I said, this didn't make the game less interesting or less sharp....http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/beating-the-sicilianFri, 06 Mar 2009 07:39:56 -0800http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/beating-the-sicilianPeople who play the 6. Bg5 Najdorf won't be surprised to see the word "tactics" in the title. Especially not if I also mention that the game I'm talking about was in the poisoned pawn variation (7... Qb6 8. Qd2 Qxb2). Games in that variation are n...http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/beating-the-najdorf-4---tacticsTue, 03 Mar 2009 07:57:09 -0800http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/beating-the-najdorf-4---tacticsBelow is a short game I played a while ago. Because black didn't play the typical Nc6-a5 to prevent b2-b3, I (white) could take over the domination of the queenside early on. Before we were able to complete our development, the game was suddenly d...http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/a-quick-knight-invasionMon, 02 Mar 2009 08:49:10 -0800http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/a-quick-knight-invasionRetrograde chess puzzles are puzzles where it's not the solver's task to find out how to continue the game, but to find out how the current position was reached. These positions generally look unrealistic and impossible, but there is usually one u...http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/retrograde-puzzles-5Sun, 01 Mar 2009 06:55:52 -0800http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/retrograde-puzzles-5Retrograde chess puzzles are puzzles where it's not the solver's task to find out how to continue the game, but to find out how the current position was reached. These positions generally look unrealistic and impossible, but there is usually one u...http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/retrograde-puzzles-4Thu, 26 Feb 2009 06:21:30 -0800http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/retrograde-puzzles-4There are many places where you can find simple tactical puzzles (for example Chess.com's Tactics Trainer or Daily Puzzle) or more complicated puzzles with highly unlikely positions, where the key move is a totally unexpected move. There are only ...http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/re-magnificent-puzzles-9Wed, 25 Feb 2009 18:15:57 -0800http://blog.chess.com/Phobetor/re-magnificent-puzzles-9