in this article I present a number of strategies for black involving early queenside play with the Queen against the white opening with 1.d4 and 2.Nf3. Some of these are almost completely unexplored and provide scope for original work. That's pre...
This exciting game features a good alternative for Black to avolid the Four Knights, but Steinitz chooses the wrong defense and gets torn apart by Blackburne. Much of the action is at f7, though the center is the main battlefield.
I played in the Reykjavic Grand Open a couple of times. The winter storms throughout the event inspired some stormy weather at the chessboard. The game presented below involves a positional queen sacrifice that turns out to be well-justified. Tal ...
Here are a few endgames by Fischer showing important endgame concepts. Some are brilliant wins, others show how easy it is to go wrong in the final stage of the game. Don't forget to show the move list so you can see the alternative moves and int...
One of my favorite openings is the Pterodactyl and related systems. Black opens with g6, Bg7, c5 and Qa5. The early queen deployment is the characteristic of the Pterodactyl. In this article I will start out by presenting the countermeasures th...
This is a truly instructive game! Kasparov debates opening theory, successfully as usual. He works up a fierce kingside attack, augments it with queenside play, then uses a series of exchanges to render the enemy king indefensible. This was an imp...
Boby Fischer was a superb technician who knew how to turn small advantages into game winners. In this game, from my "Learn from Bobby Fischer's Greatest Games" (about to get a new edition), we learn how to enhance and exploit the advantage o...
Sometimes you infiltrate a piece into an enemy position, where it becomes trapped. Then you have to find a way to liberate it. In this game Smyslov sends his queen on an excursion to h7, where it becomes stuck for a while. But he finds a way...
We all know that a cramped position is bad. But where is the real danger, if there aren't good attacking lines aiming at the king? The brilliant Rashid Nyezhmetdinov shows us how to crack open the shell by opening up a file and using it as an inva...
Controlling the center is a key opening principle, but it has advantages in the middlegame and endgame, too. In this famous game, both sides complete all four of the openin goals (control center; castle; connect rooks; aim rooks). Therefore it is ...
Chess strategy is based on identifying weaknesses and attacking them. sometimes you need to infiltrate the enemy position with your pieces in order to get to the targets. This game is a great illustration of the art of infiltration.
Just kings and pawns, has to be simple, right? Actually, such endgames can be demonically complicated requiring deep thinking. I recently wrote a book, Of Kings and Pawns, with many tough examples. I present two of them here for your entertainment...
Some players think that an unorthodox opening is a good weapon against a superior opponent. I think such openings can be useful against an equal opponent or a weaker one, but against a superior opponent one can only hope for the oppoent to choose ...
The Polish Opening 1.b4 is not bad. There are some intersting gambit line. In this article I present Tartakower's King's-Gambitish approach. There is a lot of analysis of sidelines, so make sure you click the Move List button to see them!
It''s not Kasparov vs. The World, but a very spirited consultation game is taking place between NASA astronaut Greg Chamitoff - an amateur chess aficionado - and, well, anybody else who wants to participate. The game started last fall, when astro...
As Andrew Martin has the week off, let me pay a little tribute by presenting one of his games in the Sicilian Grand Prix Attack, the variation he helped establish as a major weapon in the 1980s. Here he plays a popular line against a defensive pla...
I thought I'd share some inspirational games from my nearly 50 years of chess. In these games I defeat powerful titled players. I have a somewhat unusual profile. I have beaten many stars, but manage to lose to many amateurs too. My rating of 2200...
The Terrapin is an approach for White in the Torre Attack after 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 g6 3.Bg5 Bg7 4.Nbd2 and then 5.e4. It is slow and unambitious, but very easy to play. It has been used by young Grandmasters such as Ponomariov and Radjubov. It can le...
Here is another fun, offbeat but playable opening. The Amazon Attack puts the queen at d3 to support light-square action. It can also lead to a Manhattan Gambit, as here, in a game with an interesting opening and flashy finish
For those who like radical, confrontational openings, 1.c4 g5 is worth looking at. I don't think it is very good, but White's avantage is not insurmountable. I bring it up because I was looking at the latest Randspringer reprint of its magazine ar...
Most beginners know that f7 is their target as White until Black castles. You need to know that f7 doesn't get ignored after castling. It is often still the target. The games in this article show you how important it is to keep f7 on the target li...
Although the Exchange Variation isn't aything to worry about, some players just don't like to suffer under the pawn structure. There is an easy way to avoid this, and it doesn't require knowing much theory. I'm tralking aout Cozio's 3...Nge7. The ...
For some reason some players get scared when faced with1.g4. There is no reason to fear this. True, if you waslk into the jaws of the beast, your head can get chopped off. But if you play sensibly there is no danger. Here are two examples of solid...
Fans of Scandinavian Openings might want to look at the Icelandic Gambit (1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Nf6 3.c4 e6!?) for a bit of fun. Here is a brief introduction.
