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 Most chess players would be thrilled to be an International Master for 20 years, but I am certain that Ben Finegold was overjoyed to finally drop the IM title after winning his 3rd GM norm at Susan Polgar's SPICE Cup Invitational in September. Bo...http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/americas-newest-grandmasterThu, 12 Nov 2009 21:13:52 -0800http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/americas-newest-grandmasterEdward Lasker said that "An intriguing phenomenon which links mathematics, music, and chess is the fact that child prodigies have been known in only these three fields." This wonderful aphorism recently set me to thinking about the intricate conn...http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/the-tirolean-spa-had-the-chess-boys-in-itSun, 08 Nov 2009 12:14:56 -0800http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/the-tirolean-spa-had-the-chess-boys-in-itOne of Bobby Fischer's famous utterances is that "Chess is life." For him that statement may have had a more literal interpretation than for most of us, but metaphorically I do believe that chess is life.  However, life is not a chess game so muc...http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/chess-is-life5Sun, 01 Nov 2009 20:56:16 -0800http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/chess-is-life5When I studied the life of Richard Réti, I discovered that I have two things in common with him.  First, we both started our chess careers with an "inauspicious" beginning, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.  They were writing about Rét...http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/the-inauspicious-reacutetiMon, 26 Oct 2009 21:53:47 -0700http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/the-inauspicious-reacutetiThis blog will begin and end with my two favorite practical chess jokes.  In my recent blog, "What's Inside YOUR Chess Mind?" I presented 10 chess positions discussed by Aagaard in his book that attempts to gain insight into the minds of chess pl...http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/chess-jokes-practical-and-otherwiseSun, 18 Oct 2009 22:28:36 -0700http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/chess-jokes-practical-and-otherwiseThe hypermodern Pirc Defense, which begins 1. e4   d6 2. d4   Nf6 3. Nc3 g6 is named after the Slovenian player Vasja Pirc, who was born in Idrija on December 19, 1907.  Pirc had both victory and defeat in the Slovenian capital city of Lj...http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/pircs-and-ponziani-schemesSun, 11 Oct 2009 21:43:47 -0700http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/pircs-and-ponziani-schemesOne of my most popular blogs is The Longest Possible Chess Game and I thought it would be interesting to look at the other end of the scale and consider not only the shortest game possible, but also other kinds of chess shorts.There are eight vari...http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/chess-shortsSat, 22 Aug 2009 07:11:45 -0700http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/chess-shortsAagaard's book Inside the Chess Mind reminds me of my typical game.  It's brilliant in conception, but falls short in execution.  In this thin text Aagaard presents the reader with the following 10 challenging diagrams:   For all but p...http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/whats-inside-your-chess-mindTue, 18 Aug 2009 19:06:20 -0700http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/whats-inside-your-chess-mindAll chess players have heard the famous maxim by François-André Danican Philidor (1726 - 1795) that "Pawns are the soul of chess," and most are probably familiar with Philidor's Defense.  But what was he thinking when he suggested 2...d6 instea...http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/what-was-philidor-thinkingFri, 14 Aug 2009 11:06:32 -0700http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/what-was-philidor-thinkingRaymond Smullyan is one of those towering intellects in the tradition of Da Vinci and Godden.  His Wikipedia page describes him as a "mathematician, concert pianist, logician, philosopher and magician," to which I would add Professor Emeritus of ...http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/the-chess-mysteries-of-professor-smullyanSat, 08 Aug 2009 07:29:44 -0700http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/the-chess-mysteries-of-professor-smullyanPetrov's Defense, 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6, is another one of those defenses whose creator was not the player honored with its name.  (Or is it the defense that is honored with the player's name?)  The defense was known in Lucena's time, which was hu...http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/petrov-and-the-mysterious-morphy-self-mateSat, 01 Aug 2009 13:26:07 -0700http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/petrov-and-the-mysterious-morphy-self-mateIn Part 1 of this blog I discussed mental processes for move selection as advocated by authors such as Silman, Purdy, and Heisman.  I also noted the extreme difficulty of actually putting into practice any kind of thinking technique.  I would no...http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/chess-thinking-part-2-the-dilemma-resolvedSun, 26 Jul 2009 13:01:23 -0700http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/chess-thinking-part-2-the-dilemma-resolvedAfter five full years of studying chess books, I think I've done a reasonable job of acquiring some basic theoretical knowledge of the game from authors such as Horowitz, Chernev, Silman, Nimzowitsch, Soltis, Reinfeld and many others.  Yet how ma...http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/chess-thinking-part-1-the-dilemmaTue, 21 Jul 2009 21:48:23 -0700http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/chess-thinking-part-1-the-dilemmaAs indicated in its title, strategy is the topic of the book The Art of Planning in Chess (Batsford, 2006) by  Grandmaster Neil McDonald (pictured). The book consists of 36 annotated games that are selected to illustrate how strategy can evolve a...http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/review-the-art-of-planningThu, 16 Jul 2009 10:50:00 -0700http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/review-the-art-of-planningThe Nimzowitsch Defense, 1. e4 Nc6, is named after the über-famous Aron Nimzowitsch (1886—1935), whose last name at birth was the 4-syllable ‘Niemzowitsch’.  The opening, as others we have looked at in this series, was ...http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/nimzowitsch-in-4-syllablesWed, 23 Jul 2008 19:33:54 -0700http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/nimzowitsch-in-4-syllablesNot long ago, Sigma Xi, a research society of nearly 60,000 scientists worldwide that includes several Nobel Prize winners, asked their members to document how they first became interested in science.  Was it a teacher?  Something they r...http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/what-was-your-chess-sparkFri, 18 Jul 2008 13:30:15 -0700http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/what-was-your-chess-sparkThe Danish grandmaster Bent Larsen (1935- ) has enjoyed playing out-of-favor chess openings since he was a child.  This trait began around the age of 12 when he read a book that said modern chess masters were cowards for avoiding the King&rsq...http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/who-suggested-1-b3Sat, 12 Jul 2008 20:51:00 -0700http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/who-suggested-1-b3A few days ago, American expert (USCF 2038) Tim Moroney, while competing at the World Open in Philadelphia, told me about a puzzle in which there 6 pawns all lined up on the same file.  Intrigued by this morsel of information, I investigated ...http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/6-pawns-on-a-fileTue, 08 Jul 2008 14:47:51 -0700http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/6-pawns-on-a-fileIn Steinbeck’s sequel to his famous book Cannery Row, his richly deep and delightful character Doc proclaims that “chess is possibly the only game in the world in which it is impossible to cheat.”  He was, of course, talking...http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/chess-cheatersFri, 04 Jul 2008 22:48:08 -0700http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/chess-cheatersChess is a mental playground for mathematicians.  How many ways can you place 8 rooks on a chessboard such that none of them attacks another?  This is similar to the 8 Lonely Queens problem that I discussed in another blog.  For the...http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/8-lonely-rooksWed, 02 Jul 2008 11:09:26 -0700http://blog.chess.com/kurtgodden/8-lonely-rooks