In the second instalment of my series on the pivotal moments in computer chess history, we move on from the Automata of the Enlightenment era to the first chess computers of the early 20th century, a comparatively different world in which modern scientific pioneers built their own 'Mechanical Turk'. As early as 1912, Spanish civil engineer and mathematician Leonardo Torres y Quevado began to construct his 'El Ajedrecista' (which translates as 'The Chessplayer'), a mechanical prototype that...
Group C of the PRO Chess League Summer Series could not have had a more dramatic start. In a group with three PRO Chess League playoff teams, tensions were high on Saturday, as the Armenia Eagles, Moscow Wizards, Mumbai Movers, and Sao Paulo Capybaras each looked to make a strong opening statement.
Tajikistan's only grandmaster, Farrukh Amonatov, entered the Summer Series as a relative unknown among PRO Chess League fans, but led the Mumbai Movers to five points. Even with a...
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.
The fourth season of the LCWL (Live Chess World League) got under way last week and the first games in the 1st division were played over the weekend. LCWL is now in it's 4th season and keeps growing every season. The league has four divisions with National Team clubs from Chess.com. Each matchup consists of Team matches in live chess where members of the club duke it out.
This season there are 3 matches in each matchup, one bullet match, one blitz match and one rapid chess960 match.
Team Iceland...
Eight chess masters will play a Swiss tournament on Wednesday to try to qualify for the FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss in the Isle of Man this October.
Four of the highest-placing men and women in the past four months of Titled Tuesday will play two Swiss tournaments Wednesday followed by championship mini-matches, with one qualifier spot on the line in both the men's and women's sections. When the Titled Tuesday tournament was won by a player already in the FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss, the qualifier...
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...
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...
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...
