Two matches in the Riga Grand Prix's first round went all the way to the Armageddon game to force a decision. Only Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov reached the second round without needing a tiebreak.
With tiebreaks at both the Wimbledon final and the cricket World Cup final, it was fitting that the 2019 FIDE Grand Prix saw its first two Armageddon games today as well. It didn't go that far at the Moscow leg, but in Riga the fans got treated as early as the first round.
As another...
This Saturday, four new teams will enter the PRO Chess League Summer Series. The Armenia Eagles, Moscow Wizards, and Mumbai Movers each will be looking to earn a spot in the Summer Series Championship. Alongside the Eastern Division heavyweights, the Sao Paulo Capybaras will be looking to make the most of their PRO Chess League debut.
PRO Chess League pundits have struggled to pick a clear favorite to win the group. While Armenia, the 2018 PRO Chess League champions, was initially...
There is a well-known chess joke (or maybe not even a joke!) that it is much more difficult to sacrifice a pawn than a queen.
Indeed, in most queen sacrifices you get huge dividends right away, since it is difficult to imagine a player sacrificing his queen just to get (for example) a good square for his knight. Therefore, it is relatively easy to predict the outcome of many queen sacrifices, like the next one:
From the other side, most pawn sacrifices are done for positional gains and so it...
The Tarrasch Defense is a complex opening, but you can learn the main line with this lesson. Find out how to play the critical position after White plays Bg5.
I've discovered him while searching some on King's Indian Defense. Against 1. d4 it seemed to be his main choice during his short career and life.
Leonid Stein, born in Ukrania on Nov 12, 1934, won 3 Soviet championships and many international events. He also participated successfully in Interzonal tournaments. Regarding the latter, he should be considered a victim of the limit representation FIDE rule. Although he had great results in Stockholm 1962 & Amsterdam 1964, results that would allow...
Parham Maghsoodloo outfoxed Alexey Sarana in Thursday's Junior Speed Chess Championship quarterfinal match, with strong finishes in both the 5|1 and 3|1 segments. The Iranian grandmaster won 15-11 and will now face the winner of Jeffery Xiong and Benjamin Gledura in the semifinal.
Maghsoodloo was hoping to become the second Iranian player to reach the Junior Speed Chess Championship final four (Alireza Firouzja earned his spot earlier this week). Maghsoodloo entered...
This month we are pleased to meet Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, known as MVL, the French number 1 and member of world top 5.
Chess.com France will follow closely his quest for the world title that will require being qualified for the next Candidates tournament. Thus, the next Grand Prix will be crucial. That's why we will watch it carefully on our channel. Jurmala Grand Prix (a seaside resort near Riga in Latvia) will take place from July 12 to 25, and our pair Vlad Tkachiev and Kevin Bordi will comment...
The FIDE Grand Prix cycle resumed today in Riga, Latvia. This is the second Grand Prix tournament, following the Moscow Grand Prix won by Ian Nepomniachtchi. Each Grand Prix is a 16-player knockout event in which the players play two classical games before advancing to tiebreaks.
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave hadn't won a classical game in 21 games, but today the relevant number wasn't 21—it was 19. He needed just 19 moves to break his unfortunate streak.
Against David Navara's Caro-Kann Defense,...
What is pawn structure?
From my online glossary, I define it as “the positioning of the whole pawn mass. Also referred to as the pawn skeleton. This positioning of the pawns is what usually dictates the types of plans available in a given position due to open files, space, pawn weaknesses, etc.”
In my previous article (Learning Basic Pawn Structures), I showed how important (and fairly easy) it is to use pawns. Here I will give you structures that are more complex. However, whether...
