Chess_Enigma asked: You and other authors recommend creating an opening repertoire according to likes, dislikes, study time, etc. You lay down some basic examples like 1.e4 and Sicilian defenses are for tactical games and demand more study time a...
Capltal asked: My rating is 1130. For Black, I’m interested in both 1.c4 e5 and 1.e4 e5! However, both have many variations so I bought two books: THE MARSHALL ATTACK by Bogdan Lalic and THE PETROFF DEFENSE by Forintos and Haag. Is it a good ide...
Here is a list of chess terms and personalities and their pronunciation. Abramov (ah-BRAHM-ahf), Lev - Russian arbiter and Correspondence International Master (IM)Acs (larch), Peter - Hungarian GMAdorjan (A-door-yan), Andras - Hungarian Grandmast...
Roberto Grau was born on the 18th of March 1900, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was a strong Argentine chess master and, above all, an exceptional and marvelous chess columnist and chess writer. It was his father, an amateur, who initiated him in...
[Ed note: I am very pleased to kick off the new year with a tremendous tournament report from a new chess.com contributor, GM Sundararajan Kidambi. Happy New Year's!] The Indian National Championship is one of the strongest tournaments in the co...
The 3rd Remco Heite GM tournament recently was played in Wolvega, The Netherlands. The winners of the previous events, Van Wely in 2006 and Macieja in 2008, participated. There were six players competing in a round robin. The final crosstable show...
This comprehensive series instructs on perhaps the most practical and commonly reached type of endgames (Rook Endings). It is designed to take a chess player with the most limited knowledge of basic rook ending ideas -- to a master level understan...
Even before my 3 part series on How to Study Master Games, I had gotten various letters asking about the ultimate value of non-master games. Also, many people have asked me how to improve their attacking skills. I addressed the “do non-master game...
A few weeks ago, Joanne Addison, widow of International Master Bill Addison, saw an article I wrote at chess.com about players that quit chess. I used a statement that Pal Benko wrote in his autobiography that wasn't quite true, and Joanne correc...
Henry asked: You often talk about studying master games, but is one master game as good as another, or are certain games better than others? Silman: In Part One of this three part answer to Henry’s question, I pointed out that one of the main r...
Promoting chess and helping other people is very important to me. That’s why I reply to lots of messages every day and give many interviews. Of course, many of the questions are getting asked over and over again. To avoid acting like a parrot and ...
BCG1 asked: Now that you admit that you make things up I am very upset. I religiously followed your training advice by pounding down the 22,000 calories daily, as you recommended, and now weigh 800 lbs! I tried the “professor of exobiology” on so...
The summer of 1967 is known as the Summer of Love (The Beatles, hippies, Woodstock, etc). I think the summer of 2010 will be remembered as the Summer of Spain. First Spain wins the soccer World Cup, then Nadal wins Wimbledon and the Spanish celebr...
One of the best things I ever watched on TV is the episode of "Seinfeld" called "The Opposite". There George Costanza announces "My life is the complete opposite of everything I ever wanted to be!" and then Seinfeld convinces him that “if every ...
Mikeyt asked: How realistic is it for me to set a goal of achieving a master chess rating? To help you out, I’ll give a little info on my background. In my younger days I played myself to a 1900+ USCF rating without ever putting serious study in...
Rudolf Charousek (September 19, 1873, Prague – April 18, 1900, Budapest) was a Hungarian chess player. He had a tragically short career, and he was once called by Reuben Fine the John Keats of chess. A brilliant player and a tremendous talent,...
Mr. Dahl wrote: I’d like to ask about a certain Scandinavian Main Line variation I came up with. It is 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qa5 4.d4 c6 5.Bd2 Qc7 (me and my friends playfully call this the Finnish Variation). Is it sound for Black? I’ve been...
Mikhail Chigorin (12 November 1850–25 January 1908) was born in Gatchina, near Saint Petersburg, and was the founder of the Russian chess school as well as the first grandmaster from Russia. He served as a major source of inspiration and influence...
“He was not popular with his colleagues; he was surly, arrogant, conceited, and almost paranoid. People were out to poison him. Noise bothered him. Everything bothered him. Not naturally, he was in constant controversy with other players. They obj...
The world famous Mihail Tal was born in Latvia November 9, 1936. By the time he died June 28, 1992 he was celebrated for his achievements, style, and personality. On his way to winning the World Championship from Mikhail Botvinnik in 1960, he had ...
In my last tournament in Navalmoral, I finished with 7.0/9 and in clear 3rd place behind Fedorchuk (who beat me in a game I annotated here last I week: http://www.chess.com/article/view/building-a-fortress). I had 5.0/7 going into the last day, an...
The Ruy Lopez is one of the most popular positional openings. In fact, Capablanca recommended to play the Ruy Lopez in order to improve your positional play. So, what should a tactical player do in order to avoid the notorious " Spanish Torture"?...
Chigorin Ruy Lopez and the Mystery of Statistics Niranjan Navalgund asked: My question is about the Chigorin Variation of the Ruy Lopez. 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.c3 O-O 9.h3 Na5 10.Bc2 c5 11.d4 Qc7 12...
The Best Opening Ever by meniscus The Scotch, 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6? 3. d4! is a direct attack on Black's audacious attempt to blockade the white e pawn and form a cowardly defence* of this blockade. White can claim a psychological victory as e...
