You sit down at the board or your computer and wait to see how your opponent will start the game. As they reach for the e-pawn, in your mind you roll your eyes and mutter, "Here we go again." With that quick sulk out of the way, it's...
In chess, an opening transposition occurs when a sequence of moves leads to a position that is more commonly reached by a different move order—same resulting position, different paths to reach the position. Transpositions can be a powerful...
Written by Olya Kaye Back in the post-war, torn down Soviet Russia in the early 1960s, my grandfather made a move that significantly impacted the lives of the next three generations of women in his family. The move was simple: he taught my mothe...
This began many years ago as an experimental type of entry in the chess.com forums. Originally conceived to be an examination of the development of chess throughout the entire 19th century, since it never garnered the i...
Do you want to learn an excellent and diverse opening without a lot of theory? IM Keaton Kiewra teaches the course for you! The Trompowsky Attack (1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5) is an excellent try for an advantage that can easily throw Black into shark-infest...
At one time there were no official titles in chess. In 1950 FIDE created the Grandmaster, the International Master and the International Women Master titles. The first two sets of titles weren't based on rating...
The Introduction The U.S.S.R team totally demolished the U.S.A. team in a Radio Chess Match played from Sept.1-4, 1945. Not only did this event shine a glaring spotlight on the Soviet chess advancement, but it sp...
Hikaru Nakamura, fresh off his 2019 U.S. chess championship, is back streaming chess on his popular channel. Today, Nakamura reviews the best games played by neural-network chess engines, helping you understand why these mysterious machine-learn...
The Austrian chess master Heinrich Wolf (1875-1943) is not exactly a household name for most chess players these days. Yet he is father to one of the most profound concepts in modern opening theory. If people have heard of Wolf at all, it is usu...
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...
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...
The yogurt. The dissident. The psychoanalyst Vladimir Zukhar staring from the front row. The 1978 world championship match between Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi had it all, and thus came in number six on Chess.com's list of most exciting worl...
Whew. Let's all sit down and breathe for a minute. It's been an exciting, and tumultuous year. 2017. How did it go so fast? For both Chess.com directors of content, Peter Doggers and this writer, it flew by largely from the window seat, as b...
From time to time I learn about strong players from the past that are generally forgotten now. I wrote about one such player in this old article. Today I would like to talk about another master who is pretty much forgotten today. Have you hear...
Target Skill Range: Master Path (Rated 2000-2199) Acquire the knowledge you need to approach the opening with confidence and achieve success! Tasks: Learn About Advanced Opening Preparation Expand Your Knowledge of Thematic Middlegam...
Target Skill Range: Advanced (Rated 1800-1999) Acquire the knowledge you need to approach the opening with confidence and achieve success! Tasks: Expand your Knowledge of Common Structures and Plans Learn About Creating an Opening Re...
Sometimes the best way to learn is over the board, sitting across from your teacher and analyzing a recent match. GM Dejan Bojkov has had many students excel greatly under his watch. In this series, you'll get to learn vicariously through Coach De...
GM Hikaru Nakamura and GM Pentala Harikrishna are set to face off May 4 at 10 a.m. Pacific Time in the second GM Blitz Battles Match. You may want to bring a cold glass of milk. "Naka" and "Hari" together make an incredibly spicy combo. The "nag...
I’ve gone out of my way to write articles about the importance of balance; everyone needs both tactical and positional/strategic skills (you also need endgame skills, but at the moment we will concentrate on tactics and strategy). To add a...
The Pirc Defense is still relatively unexplored for a major opening system. Both White and Black may avail themselves of many different approaches to the opening, and we have two outstanding grandmasters here to provide you with ideas on both side...
The Pirc Defense is certainly one of the most provocative openings. Black fianchettos his king bishop instead of immediately challenging in the center. White therefore has a variety of fierce attacking methods. Of these, the fiercest is the Austri...
Last week, we learned about the pre-war origins of the opening that would become the Modern Defense. Thus far, the Modern Defense did not have a real name, nor any kind of reputation. It was a curiosity which had been played a few time...
Like the Kan/Paulsen, the so-called "Modern Defense" is an opening with many names. When I first met it, as a beginning chess player, I knew it as the "Robatsch Defense." It has also been called the Ufimtsev Defense, the Kotov Defense, the Pi...
"If you had a choice of seeing the future or reading your opponent's mind as they apply to a chess game, which one would you do?" I never had that question before! If I could see the future (not with regards to the game), there are some options ...
Attacking 101: Volume #001 The goal of the books in this series (Attacking 101: Volume #nnn) is to provide detailed analysis of my own attack games played against lower rated players. The players are all rated in the range of 1000 to 1800 - the t...
