The question in the title of this article might look stupid to many readers. Indeed, who wouldn't like to study a game annotated by a strong player? Well, I am not sure that I have an answer to this question anymore. When I was a kid, an ann...
About 30 years ago, the famous Soviet coach Vladimir Zak wrote a book "The Ways of Chess Improvement." I already expressed my opinion about this chess personality in a prior article. Nevertheless, the book was quite interesting, mainly because Zak...
Endgames with opposite-colored bishops are probably the most difficult endgames for lower-rated players to understand. The common misunderstanding here is that all of these endgames are drawn. I wish I had a nickel for every time my students sai...
Even though chess and checkers have the same checkered board, these two games are completely different. Chess is much more complex and therefore it is chess, not checkers, that is frequently used in commercials to underline the depth of a b...
The 10th world champion Boris Spassky was married three times, but unfortunately all three marriages ended in divorce. Describing his first marriage, Spassky famously said, "we were like bishops of opposite color." When I saw this catchy phrase ...
Positions with material imbalances are difficult to play, especially for less-experienced chess players. You will never see a positional queen sacrifice or an exchange sacrifice in games played by people rated below 1700 or 1800. At this level, ...
The year 2019 was so rich for chess tournaments and exciting games that I decided to make my own list of the top 10 memorable games. It was not easy to choose from hundreds of great games, so chances are that your list would be completely differ...
People who followed the 2019 Tata Steel Chess India Rapid & Blitz will forever remember the last day of this super-tournament. First the live transmission brought us a strange five-move draw played by the world champion, Magnus Carlsen. Then...
A fork is one of the most important tactical elements in chess. There are dozens of different forks in chess, and I am sure you've seen many of them. Some of the forks are very common. For example, when I attend kids' competitions, I know that I...
The recent article by Vladimir Kramnik was quite fascinating. We've all had some weird "what if..." questions, like "what if people could fly?" or "what if there were no gravity?" Thanks to Kramnik and AlphaZero, we now see what happens to che...
Last week, we learned about two friends, Dave and Detective Ron Miller, who were trying to stop a crime by a madman. While we don't know if they managed to solve the maniac's puzzles (I hope they did!), let me show you how they could easily do i...
Just like most people who love chess, I have certain favorite players. Notice how many times I've mentioned Mikhail Botvinnik, Mikhail Tal, Garry Kasparov and Magnus Carlsen in my articles and you'll get an idea of my chess prefer...
"Darn it!" Dave couldn't hide his frustration as the ringing doorbell distracted him from Sam Loyd's chess puzzle. "Whoever is there, please leave." Dave was whispering while still trying to solve the tricky checkmate in two. But the doorbe...
Chess is a very complicated game that requires utmost concentration. Therefore most of the time chess players have a very serious facial expression. I doubt that a fianchettoed bishop or a semi-open file would make many people laugh. Yet th...
When I was a student of famous Botvinnik-Kasparov school, the two living legends didn't just teach us how to play chess; they also taught us how to work on chess. The homework that each student would get by the end of a session was invaluable! O...
As we discussed in the previous article, people love chess for a variety of reasons. Our favorite game is a sport, art, science, fight and more, all at the same time! One of my favorite features of chess was well described by the great Ema...
In past articles we've discussed why people play bad openings and how to deal with such dubious lines. Are these openings really that bad for your chess? While the answer might seem quite obvious, the reality is not that simple. Let me giv...
When we learn the rules of chess and start playing, we never ask ourselves the question in the title of the article. We just enjoy the process of playing, that's all! But almost any person who has played chess for a long time is going to ask: "W...
According to Wikipedia, a Hail Mary is a very long forward pass in American football, typically made in desperation, with only a small chance of success. So, what's a Hail Mary pass in chess? Let me explain. Say your position is completel...
At the end of the last century when I played one of the big American open tournaments (I think it was North American Open in Las Vegas), I stumbled upon a very interesting book at the concession stand. Well, since the book was written by GM John...
Siegbert Tarrasch was one of the best players of his time and definitely deserves to be included in the list of strongest chess players who never became world champion. Tarrasch. Photo via Wikipedia. Just like Reuben Fine, Tarrasch wa...
I bet you've heard the cliche that "chess is 99 percent tactics" thousands of times. While it is greatly overused and exaggerated to some degree, overall it is correct. The enormous strength of modern computers is based on their unmatched abilit...
Ask any chess player to name a grandmaster who deserved to be the world champion but never became one, and you will get a list of the usual suspects. Bronstein, Korchnoi and Keres will be on the top of the list, and then it becomes ver...
In the end of 1984, the leading Soviet magazine Chess In The USSR published a big article about the first game of the world championship match Capablanca-Alekhine, Buenos Aires 1927. The author, master V. Goldin (no relation the U.S. grandmaster...
