Opening choice is a very complicated subject, bound up not just in questions of chess theory and principles, but also in individual personality and style, and even the current state of society. When picking an opening today you need to consider ...
I am the proud owner of the obscure volume Pillsbury's Chess Career, published in 1922 by the American Chess Bulletin and written by two English amateurs, Philip Walsingham Sergeant and William Henry Watts. For several months i...
Let this video guide serve as the official reference point to help you find Chess.com videos on your favorite chess players throughout history! Chess.com has enjoyed lessons from the best coaches and players within our game. Hopefully, you&rsquo...
This article was published in the "British Chess Magazine" three months after Paul Morphy's death. It was obviously written as a memorial to Morphy and meant to showcase his genius as well as an attempt to explain his winning techniques. Th...
It is impossible to become a world champion without mastering every facet of the game. Most champions, however, are remembered for their proficiency in one particular area of the game. To this end, Wilhelm Steinitz is remembered as the founder o...
Take a walk with me on the wild side . . . of chess.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . When Tarrasch wrote, ". . .S...
Topic for June: the endgame (Please start submitting questions concerning the above topic for the next column.) The Bad Things About Speed Chess? (For answers to all other speed chess questions received, please read my replies in the for...
Last Friday, we discussed the first half of José Raúl Capablanca's chess career, tracing his meteoric rise through the lens of his finest positional wins. In 1921, after a decade of heated negotiations and parley, the final te...
Dr. Hermann von Gottschall Dr. Hermann von Gottschall (1862-1933) was a reputable German chessplayer and problemist. He also edited the German periodical "Deutsche Schachzeitung" from 1892-96 (having co-edi...
Last week, we looked at the origins of the exciting Evans Gambit. Today, let's find out how the opening has journeyed through history to modern day. While in keeping with his style, Wilhelm Steinitz's torturous defensive method against t...
The ancient Estonian city of Tartu lies about 2500 miles from Paris, France. In the 19th century Tartu didn't exist as such but rather was known as Dorpat under the umbrella of the Imperial Russian empire. Dorpat lay in Livonia, a part ...
This week we turn our attention to one of the most swashbuckling of openings: the Evans Gambit. Unlike some other openings whose first use was surrounded by mystery and uncertainty, the origins of the Evans Gambit seem fairly clear. ...
I'd written about Paulsen several times in different places. HERE is my article at Chess.com of which I'll consider this an extension. Why write more on Louis Paulsen? I am fascinated with the 19th century and chess during that era. ...
Below is an article published in several periodicals in late 1900. It appeared just shortly after the death of Wilhelm Steinitz and offers some astute appraisals of the chess players who contributed to the development of c...
The Northern Gambit The moves of the Danish or Northern Gambit are 1. e4 e5 2. d4 exd4 3. c3 - after which Black can accept the gambit with 3...dxc3 or decline it in a variety of ways. The Danish o...
In the 1890s women's chess in England, as in most places, was considered nearly inconsequential. To bring this arena to the forefront required dedication, energy and persistance. It so happened that man...
The Introduction: The second half of the 18th century into the early 19th century was marked with cultural changes previously equaled perhaps only by the Renaissance. There were great and important politica...
Topic for next month: Losing (Please start submitting questions concerning the above topic for the next column. Questions outside of that theme should be submitted to other Chess.com departments. If I get the opportunity to answer a different kin...
Although his association with Paul Morphy was somewhat minimal, Frederick Perrin's chess career was very often viewed though Morphy-colored glasses. When Morphy first arrived in New York for his national debut, Per...
Last week, we examined the origins of the Chigorin Defense at the end of the 19th century. In the following years, Chigorin used his defense many times and demonstrated its basic themes. Let's look at some of them. Black's play on t...
The Chigorin Defense is one opening whose history -- unlike some of others we have examined in previous weeks -- revolves around one man. And of course this is its namesake, Mikhail Chigorin. Chigorin was born in 1850 near St. Peterburg, where h...
QUESTION: Taylor_chess85 asked: “I would like to understand the type of games I am interested in playing. I am a beginner, and I thought that maybe I might make a database of every game certain people played with a certain opening. My idea is to...
I had a brief, though quite interesting, exchange with a gentleman not long ago. It started with a query concerning Louisa Matilda Ballard Fagan, the Italian born English chess player who scored 2nd in the Ladies' I...
I think about chess a lot. I think about chess news, chess history, chess openings and endgames, my chess friends (living and dead), beautiful chess games, and how my 4,000 chess books are pushing me out of my home. But my main chess thoughts ar...
