There are chess games that have their own names. Everyone knows the 'Evergreen Game', the 'Immortal Game', the 'Opera Game', etc. We enjoy the genius and tactical skills of the winners and their names are engraved in the Golden Book of Chess. But ...
Last week we analyzed a common situation that happens in many different openings. Black voluntarily creates a 'hole' on the d5 square hoping to compensate it with activity of his pieces (it is especially typical for certain variations of the ...
As you might remember, in the "Personal Mona Lisa" series we analyze the best games played by strong chess players who as a rule are not that well known. Of course most of you probably heard about GM Isaac Kashdan thanks to his numerous books and ...
Last week we discussed the 'impossible' checkmate with just a king and a knight and today we'll analyze a similar 'impossible' checkmate with a king and a bishop. As all of you know, king + bishop cannot checkmate a lone king. But if you add...
What is an impossible checkmate? If you open any book for beginners it will inform you that a king and a lonely knight cannot checkmate an opponent's king. Moreover, if you only have a king and a knight and your opponent lost on time in an Interne...
This article introduces new series of articles dedicated to the magnificent play of our current world champion - Magnus Carlsen. A series of five or more articles will span different positional and tactical ideas that Carlsen effectively uses in h...
I decided to write on this subject after I saw the discussion in the comments section of last week's article where we talked about the tricky B+N checkmate. Somebody asked the question "why not Kd1 ??? what must we do after 58.Kd1 ??" Let's look a...
We will wrap-up this series about heritage in modern play by looking at one more position with a typical pawn structure. This position can arise from many different Queen's Gambit openings after massive pawn exchanges in the center where both side...
In last week’s article about insane, surprising, or beautiful finishes, I showed a horror story of a game by Irina Krush where she overlooked a mate in one (while three pawns ahead in an endgame), which cost her the World Championship for girls un...
When amateur chess players start a game, they tend to think in terms of winning. They hope to find some combination that will wow their friends and leave their opponent in awe. They want to play a great game so they can show members of their club,...
Most chess players discover this pattern thanks to the next notorious game (I give it as a puzzle, so you can try your tactical skills!) There is a strong evidence that the game is a fake and was never actually played but it is irrelevant fo...
In “Train Your Brain, Target Consciousness” (Part 1, Part 2) we took a look at weak squares and weak pawns. When studying things like this, you first look at the concept (in this case weak squares and/or weak pawns), you try to intellectually gras...
The so-called Lasker variation of the Scandinavian Defense (a.k.a. Center Counter) arises after this sequence of moves: I was not able to find one single game where the second world champion played the variation named after him. My guess is...
The pattern that we are going to discuss today is extremely common in the Sicilian Defense (the Dragon variation in particular). Therefore, if you play this opening for either color, you might want to memorize this useful tactical pattern. The r...
World Champion Tigran Petrosian is well known for his positional exchange sacrifices. A less known strategic idea that appeared in several of his games is the bishop exchange for the c3 knight in the King's Indian Defense (KID). In the KID, the da...
I was going to do Part 2 of Target Consciousness, but three reader questions (from Part 1) have convinced me to hold off on Part 2 for next week and instead revisit a painful subject for chess hopefuls. THREE READER QUESTIONS Mottsauce said: “I...
The pattern of the Crafty Queen requires Qh3, Ne5 and a bishop on the diagonal b1-h7 (usually Bd3) for White, and the black king should be castled to the kingside. Superficially it looks like the white queen is only looking at a good opportunity t...
What in the world is the Siberian Trap you might ask. Is it what Russians use in taiga to hunt the Siberian tiger? One of the World Heritage Sites, the Putorana Plateau, is composed of Siberian Traps | Image Wikipedia Well, if you ever tr...
Some time ago we discussed the chess version of the well known phenomenon called the butterfly effect. We could see how a piece or a pawn sitting at one part of the board could affect the outcome of the whole battle on the opposite part of the boa...
We are starting new series of articles that will cover the theme of classical chess heritage in the modern play. Most good chess players had to study the games of classics and former world champions to learn the tactical and strategic ideas. These...
It's not an unusual event for a stronger player — or, let's say, a better endgame player — to outplay a weaker one from an equal endgame. But what does this "outplay" really mean? To simply play stronger? I don't think this quite ill...
Today we will wrap-up the topic of blunders in modern play with three endgame examples from the recent Topalov vs. Laznicka match. The traditional Sachova Corrida Novoborska match, which took place in Prague, featured six games between these two t...
We continue with the topic of blunders in modern play and today's article features games from the World Junior Chess Championship 2013, which was held in Turkey and has just finished. (GM Yu Yangyi won!) The three examples featured today are about...
At this point we know who won the World Cup - former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik showed that he was of a higher class and won the tournament very professionally. But we will continue to look at the endgames played throughout the tournament, no...
