Time flies. That's always the feeling when another year comes to an end—and it was definitely a great year for chess. Caruana winning the Candidates' (and a few more tournaments!), Nakamura winning the Grand Chess Tour (and the Speed Chess...
Most lower-rated players want to improve their game, but many just want to slug it out in blitz and have a great time. I certainly understand that! However, for those that want to be as good as they can be, they'll have to work hard. Play oppon...
With another year of chess history nearly in the books, what will fans remember most from 2018? The world championship draw-fest in London? Ding Liren's unbeaten streak? The FIDE regime change? Music as a weapon in esports? Time will tell, ...
Last week's article about Puzzle Rush provided great feedback, so I would like to thank you for your comments. When I see that people from different countries, different political views and different playing strength share passion for chess, I fee...
The Chess.com member kurniadigautama asked: Something has been bothering me since I saw the game between GM Vidit Santosh and GM David Eggleston in The Chess.com Isle of Man international open tournament (round 1). In the game, we see that Vid...
Chess.com's new game called "Puzzle Rush" is taking the chess community by storm! If you haven't tried it yet, you should. But be warned, the game is very addictive. While I doubt we will ever see "Puzzle Rush Anonymous," nevertheless, once y...
Magnus Carlsen bought himself another two years to work on his admittedly ailing classical game with a devastating, nearly cruel demolition of the undisputed challenger and co-king of slow chess, Fabiano Caruana, winning 3-0 in the rapid tiebreak....
The world championship match is over and now it is a part of chess history. Just like any big chess event, it has provided a lot of food for thought. For many chess fans the main takeaway from the match is that something should be changed so we ...
When selecting your opening repertoire as a beginner, you have to choose lines you like to play. IM Valeri "Tiger" Lilov helps you with this video series to find openings that suit your playing style. Not what you were looking for? Back t...
Everyone loves crazy tactics, and when all the games were brilliancy prizes it makes it even more fun. Imagine: If you solve it you can say, “I could have won that brilliancy prize!” Or, perhaps not. The tactics didn’t fall...
After a year of exciting chess, this weekend is the culmination of the 2018 Speed Chess Championship. Who will survive the final four and emerge as the champion after 12 hours of grueling blitz and bullet chess? Tune in to Chess.com/TV and Twitch....
I recently read an interesting article in Time, written in 2008 by then-world champion Viswanathan Anand, in which he argues that chess originated in India, and then traveled westward to Persia and ultimately to Spain. In the elegant f...
Magnus Carlsen defeated Fabiano Caruana in game three of the rapid playoff to clinch the 2018 world chess championship. After 12 draws in the classical games, Carlsen won all the games of the tiebreak to win 3.0-0.0. He has now success...
We all make mistakes playing chess, proving the old saying "to err is human."' However, it is one thing to miss a 30-move-deep variation like Fabiano Caruana did in game six of his world championship match. It's a totally different story wh...
In one of my first tournament games I fell into a well-known opening trap and lost very quickly. My very considerate opponent waited till the mandatory crying was over and came to me. "Don't be upset, Greg", he said. "The move I played in the op...
This is simply a compilation of sparkling games. My original intention was to title this Chess Brilliancies but upon reflection, I wasn't convinced the definition was applicable. I tend to think of brilliancies...
GM Jonathan Tisdall shares his reflections on the Carlsen-Caruana world championship at halftime. (You can read his preview of the match here.) For convenience, we've copied the games with GM Sam Shankland's annotations from our news reports. I ...
When I was a kid, I didn't watch much TV. You see, 40 years ago we had only two state-controlled TV channels in the Soviet Union, so most of the kids spent their time outdoors rather than watching boring news. Nevertheless, there was one weekly pr...
The most exciting world championships of all-time countdown ends with a nearly consensus pick: Bobby Fischer vs. Boris Spassky in 1972 in Iceland. The match tallied an amazing 72 points (with eight judges, a maximum score would have been 80), wh...
GM Jonathan Tisdall writes a preview of the world championship from a variety of perspectives. 1. The view from Norway The shopping app for my corner grocery store announced today that there is a special on chess books this week. Of course the...
Almost every chess player with the slightest interest in the development of the game knows of François-André Danican, better known by the appellation Philidor, a family name given to his grandfather, Michel Danican, an obois...
One of the leading Russian newspapers, "Izvestia," has published an interview with the president of the Russian Chess Federation and captain of the Russian Olympic team, Andrey Filatov. This interview got my attention when Filatov claimed tha...
The last European Chess Club Championship was a nightmare tournament for Peter Svidler. I don't recall another case of an elite grandmaster losing four games in a row against mostly lower-rated opponents! Only in the last round we could fin...
One of the most interesting aspects of the recent chess960 matches (featuring Garry Kasparov) in St. Louis, was their potential to develop some kind of rudimentary opening theory. It appears that the players enjoyed this opportunity as well. As ...
