In this week's edition I would like to continue with last week's exciting theme! The knowledge of typical and common positions is a giant step towards chess mastery. Russian folkore tells us that there exist 300 secret positions that-- if learned...
Classic: Of the first or highest quality, class, or rank; serving as a standard, model, or guide. --Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. 05 Jan. 2010. There are no precise criteria for defining the classics in chess. It would be a game ...
“When I play White I win because I am White, when I play Black I win because I am Bogoljubow!”Efim Bogoljubow (April 14, 1889 - June 18, 1952) was a Russo-German chess grandmaster who won numerous events and played two matches with Alexander Alekh...
Francois André Danican Philidor (September 7, 1726 – August 31, 1795) was born in Dreux France. His father was seventy-nine at the time! He was a French composer whose operas were successful and widely known in his day and who was a famous and rem...
Richard Teichmann (24 December 1868 – 15 June 1925) was a strong German chess player, easily of grandmaster strength! In 1890 he was a student of modern languages (becoming fluent in several of them) and studied in Berlin where he also improved hi...
There are chess players that, despite being outstanding players, did not reach the fame of their other, more famous, colleagues. This is the case of Jacques Mieses (February 27, 1865 – February 23, 1954) who was born in Germany and moved to Englan...
“Chess, like love, like music, has the power to make men happy."Siegbert Tarrasch (March 5, 1862 – February 17, 1934) was born in Breslau the hometown of Andersen and Zukertort. The young Tarrasch learned to play chess when he was 15 years old. He...
Gioachino Greco (1600-1634), known as Il Calabrese, was born in Celico, in the province of Calabria, Italy. Greco was a notable chess player and writer. His hand-written booklets, originally presented to his wealthy patrons, about opening traps an...
Philipp Stamma (c. 1705-1755), was born in Aleppo, Syria, but moved to Europe (France and Italy) and established himself in England after 1737.Stamma was a chess master and pioneer of modern chess, but his reputation rests principally on his autho...
Karl Schlechter (1874-1918) was born into extreme poverty in Vienna, Austria. He learned to play chess at the age of 13 and very quickly become one of the strongest players in Vienna and one of the strong masters of the late 19th century.In the ch...
While I was writing my last article about the “Janowski Bishops,” I found an exciting game between Janowski and Chajes, New York, Rice Tournament, 1916. The combination conceived by Janowski, besides being too deep, has an interesting history. Fif...
Dawid Janowski (25 May 1868–15 January 1927) was born in Wolkowysk, Poland, but soon relocated to France. His chess career began in the “Café de la Regence” in Paris, becoming one of the most brilliant players of his epoch!He started his professio...
Joseph Henry Blackburne (1841–1924), nicknamed "Black Death," started playing chess as an adult but reached master level in mere months. He learned how to play draughts as a child; however it was not until he heard about Paul Morphy's exploits aro...
The games of the old masters were characterized by a more free-wheeling attitude with respect to material. A development advantage was the holy grail for chess players, and they would strive for that lead by sacrificing whatever it took. Pawns wer...
The London 1883 chess tournament was one of the most important competitions of the nineteenth century where most of the leading player competed. It was won convincingly by Johannes Zukertort (22/26) ahead of Wilhelm Steinitz (19/26) by three point...
“The Scientist”In the Vienna 1873 chess tournament Steinitz unveiled a new "positional" style of play which was to become the basis of modern chess! Forget those wild attacks. Prepare a position and follow it through, using the logic of the positi...
Part 1: The Austrian MorphyWilhelm Steinitz, born in Prague on May 14, 17 or 18, 1835 or 1836! (the date has never been ascertained) was the last of thirteen children in a very poor family and the first acknowledged World Champion of chess. He was...
Harry Nelson Pillsbury (1872-1906) was a chess genius! At age 22, he won Hasting 1895 one of the strongest tournaments of all time and the most important of the 19th century, since it assembled the entire cream of world chess! His illness and earl...
Frank James Marshall (August 10, 1877 – November 9, 1944), was born in New York City, and lived in Montreal, Canada from ages 8 to 19. His father taught him chess when he was eight years old. During the period from 1904 to 1909, Marshall won four ...
Miguel Najdorf (1910-1997) was born in Warsaw, Poland. He was playing at the Buenos Aires Olympiad in 1939 when World War II broke out, and decided not to attempt to return home, taking Argentine citizenship.Today I want to share with you a myster...
Zugzwang: A situation in which a player is limited to moves that cost pieces or have a damaging positional effect or A situation in a chess game in which a player is forced to make an undesirable or disadvantageous move.According to Nimzowitsch, w...
Rudolf Spielmann (1883-1942) "The Master of Attack" and "The Last Knight of the King's Gambit"! He was a lawyer but never worked as one! He learned to play chess while still a boy and was exhibited in public as a prodigy. He loved complex position...
Today we will see one of the most beautiful Dutch defence games ever played. The winner Savielly Tartakower (1887-1956) was born at Rostov-on-Don in 1887. His native language was Russian, but he was a subject of Austria-Hungary, and in World War I...
In his moment, Akiba Rubinstein (1882-1961) played the most perfect chess of the epoch! Many of his games were models of precision. He played the endgames like the gods! said Tartakower, a leading master at the time. Before World War I, Rubinstein...
