Target Skill Range: Advanced Path (Rated 1800-1999) Tasks: Develop "endgame thinking." Master king activity in the endgame. Understand the winning and drawing chances of opposite-colored bishops. Improve your understanding of en...
Target Skill Range: Advanced Path (Rated 1800-1999) Tasks: Play 50 standard time control games. Analyze your personal games. Document your mistakes. Work through these lessons. Follow Chess.com/news. Wow! You've venture...
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: Master Path (Rated 2000-2199) Tasks: Solve tactics, tactics, tactics, and ... tactics! Solve studies. Practice calculation. Play blindfold chess. Complete these tactics-themed lessons. You probably thought y...
Target Skill Range: Master Path (Rated 2000-2199) Tasks: Learn the following master-level pawn structures. Master the art of maneuvering. Learn to use your pawns actively. Study the exploitation of pawn weaknesses. Identify critical...
Target Skill Range: Advanced Path (Rated 1899-1999) Tasks: Improve your understanding of piece imbalances in the endgame. Study common endgame types which arise from your opening repertoire. Win queen versus rook. Improve your e...
Target Skill Range: Advanced Path (Rated 2000-2199) Tasks: Analyze all games with a computer. Compete on the leaderboard. Start a blog. Play solitaire chess. Compete in a major open. Congratulations! You've made it to t...
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...
Sitting in a coffee shop in Tokyo that’s little known but adored by those who frequent it, I was staring at the most beautiful and delicious cappuccino on Earth. This was my second one, but before I downed my drink I thought of IM Jo...
Pictures of a chess board and chess pieces are very popular in ads for banks, insurance companies and similar businesses. The companies want to underline their wisdom and strategic thinking. Unlike dice, cards, and other games of ch...
You’ve all heard the joke about how the first rule of CrossFit is you must talk about CrossFit. And the second rule is that you must talk about CrossFit. So let’s talk about CrossFit. And chess. There are many parallels between chess...
BeekeeperBob wrote: “I am a 19 year old who has been toying with the idea of making chess a career for me (either playing professionally or teaching chess). Unfortunately, I currently have no official ranking. So before I go spending the m...
Do you think your team has what it takes to win the $20k top prize and the title of PRO Chess League Champions? By now you've read our announcement, and you can't wait to join the PRO Chess League, right? Not only do you think your cit...
One of the great joys of chess is to sit back, relax, and review a game filled with subtle maneuvers or insanely wonderful tactics. At times, the game might be a masterpiece. At other times, the game might offer only one incredible moment, but tha...
Occasionally I run into players who think that Bobby Fischer "did it all by himself." I.e. he locked himself in his room, studied chess until he was world class, and then burst onto the tournament scene. Uh, no. Every day after school, Bobby w...
Tactics. After thousands of books written on this concept, after the development of several excellent tactical training tools (such as Chess.com's own Tactics Trainer), after the release of countless free engines that serve as paragons of tactical...
Once in a while, a game grabs my attention due to some amazing positional concept or, less often (I say “less often” since most tactics are rather repetitive), due to a really interesting tactical battle. Usually you’ll see these...
Mt. Whitney, the hightest peak in the contiguous United States Nestled within the Sierra Nevada Mountains at the base of the highest peak in the lower 48 states, the high desert community of Lone Pine became the unl...
GMs Hikaru Nakamura and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave are doubtlessly deep in preparation for their upcoming Grandmaster Blitz Battle Championship semifinal match on August 24 at 10 a.m. PST. They are surely doing countless ...
The 2016 Summer Olympics are underway right now in Brazil as 207 national delegations compete for medals in 28 sports, 41 different disciplines, and 306 total events. Unfortunately for chess fans, the royal game is not among them. And don’...
In our article last year, we talked about how to improve your positional chess. Today, I want to give you an opportunity to test your strategic skills. The game we'll use for our quiz is quite remarkable. Anatoly Karpov is...
Axorcist wrote: “My question is this: Who do you consider to be the greatest chess theorist of all time? I have never read a good review on who really had the most influence on the development of knowledge in our beautiful game. Was i...
Boris Gelfand’s musings in a recent interview on the benefits of children playing chess for its own sake - “Only a fraction will play professionally, but the rest will acquire the skill of strategic planning and the habit of thinking, ...
This week, we’ll take a look at a young Indian player, Sakshi1234567. She had this to say: “I am 13 years old. My father taught me chess when I was 10. I’ve been taking the game seriously from October 2015. I want to become a g...
