According to a fairly trustworthy source: "Isidor Arthur Gunsberg (November 2, 1854 – May 2, 1930) was a chess player, best known for narrowly losing the 1891 World Chess Championship match to Wilhelm Steinitz." "In the late 1880s and early 1890...
Here is something you don't see very often... On the 17th move of the game, Tartakower decides to sacrifice his rook for a few pawns. Although his attack seems to go nowhere, he then calmly completes his development. Eventually, he is able to use...
I haven't featured a Karpov game in quite a while, so here goes... On his eleventh move, his opponent (Velimirovic) either decides to sacrifice his queen or commits an oversight. Still, there is work to be done for the full point, and Karpov is a...
Have you ever played a chess game with a "ringed piece"? In these games, "a ring or band is placed around a particular piece, and the player giving odds must checkmate with that piece" (Source: Wikipedia). The following game depicts Max Lange pla...
Happy Thanksgiving! This very interesting game features an unexpected series of sacrifices that culminate in mate. Blackburne always seems to one up his sleeve at every crucial junction in the game. Each time, he is able to revive what seemed li...
Is this game a composition? That's what I'll let you decide. Some say that it was. In any case, it's quite instructive. It features a classic sacrifice, but in unusual circumstances. The foresight of Perrier is also quite notable. I suggest that e...
This is an Alekhine game that you may not have seen before. On his tenth move, he takes a bold risk with the classic Greek gift bishop sac. He even has the audacity to quietly castle in the middle of an attack! Several more quiet moves follow, but...
This game is yet another fantastic effort by the great Mikhail Tal. On his 11th move, he sacrifices a knight, apparently for no reason. However, after whipping up an attack on Szukzszta's king out of nowhere, Tal throws in a couple of neat sacrifi...
Ignatz Kolisch was, according to historical calculations from Chessmetrics, the number one chess player in the world from 1867-1868. Although he did not frequently play in tournaments, he was known for his aggressive style, which often produced so...
Leonid Stein was one of the great Soviet chess grandmasters of the 1960s. The Ukranian won three USSSR Championships, and came up short in several attempts at becoming world champion. Several times, Stein qualified for the Candidates' Tournament (...
This is a rather intriguing game. First of all, both players appear to miss a three-fold repetition in the middlegame (or they both choose to ignore it). The ending is quite crazy. Both players rush to queen their pawns, and at one point, there ar...
Here is another game that is full of pins. Radjabov uses several of them in succession around his twenty-fifth move. They are quite unexpected, and his opponent has no way to avoid losing his queen. The rest, as they say, is a matter of technique ...
This game features yet another ridiculously bold king march. Petrosian decides to keep his king in the center and spurns castling when it becomes clear that Cardoso is mounting an attack. He then snatches at the opportunity to win some material, c...
I haven't posted a Reshevsky game in quite a while, so here goes... This game of his is notable because he manages to get one of his knights to the sixth rank. It then stays there for the rest of the game, and completely disrupts Treysman's plans...
Here is a very unique game. The final position features five queens on the board, which is most likely a record. The opening features Mackic attacking his opponent, Maksimenko's kingside relentlessly, but to no avail. Maksimenko fights off the att...
This is a rather entertaining game that features the pin quite often. After an interesting opening, both kings are exposed, which leads to a rater double-edged fight in which both players fight to stay alive and checkmate the other side first. Ehl...
Since the chess.com staff seems to have run out of good April Fool's Day jokes, I have decided to post an article on joke chess problems. They are puzzles in chess which use humor as a primary or secondary element. ...
Conventional wisdom says that when we are behind in material, we should never trade pieces. And yet, in this game, that is exactly what happens. White appears to sacrifice a rook for nothing, and is apparently lost by move 11. However, amazingly e...
This game is extremely weird and entertaining at the same time. Both players try to push through a mass of pawns to promotion, black on the queenside and white in the center. Black promotes two (!) times and at the end has two queens for a rook. Y...
This game features a rather unique attack. Korchnoi puts some pressure on Fischer's queenside, but throws away his advantage there with a few errant moves. This allows Fischer to attack his opponent's king without nay opposition. With the aid of a...
This must be one of the craziest chess games ever played. This is not a typical Maroczy game, as he and Forgacs duke it out with one wild, unpredictable move after the other. Even the uncommon opening (ten straight pawn moves!?) is notable. Here...
Grandmaster Varuzhan Akobian is currently one of the United States' highest ranked chess players. He became an IM at the age of 16 and a GM at the age of 20. Akobian has won three World Opens, played for the U.S. in two Chess Olympiads, and qualif...
This is an intriguing game. After Gomes is forced to weaken his kingside pawn structure, Netto uncorcks an extremely subtle 14th move. Its purpose is only made clear after his next few moves, in which he blasts open the g-file and finds a winning ...
This is another game in which Bobby Fischer comes up with another ingenious idea. On his twenty-third move, he seemingly sacrifices his rook, and then reveals his point when he traps the black queen in his own territory. After that, he springs a f...
In this game, Berkes' slightly passive opening allows Judit Polgar to establish a lead in development. Berkes decides to set a trap, which Polgar seems to fall into. However, a White's neat 14th move showed that Black was actually the one that had...
