When we learn the rules of chess and start playing, we never ask ourselves the question in the title of the article. We just enjoy the process of playing, that's all! But almost any person who has played chess for a long time is going to ask: "W...
One of the first things everyone learns playing chess is that the queen is the strongest piece on the board. Her power is amazing! She's worth nine pawns; she's majestic, extremely agile and has seemingly unlimited powers. Then, however, comes t...
For Jeremy Silman's article on the early life of Pal Benko, click here. Pal Benko: My ticket to freedom was, naturally, chess. First on my agenda was to qualify for an out-of-country zonal. Of course, I didn’t want to play in a Soviet-co...
The Global Chess Festival invites chess players around the world to celebrate chess. Now in its fifth year, the Global Chess Festival is an initiative by Judit Polgar that aims to unite the chess community and celebrate chess as a sport, science, ...
According to Wikipedia, a Hail Mary is a very long forward pass in American football, typically made in desperation, with only a small chance of success. So, what's a Hail Mary pass in chess? Let me explain. Say your position is completel...
The 2019 World Fischer Random Chess Championship quarterfinals are here, with star players like Fabiano Caruana (@FabianoCaruana), Hikaru Nakamura (@Hikaru) and Alireza Firouzja (@Firouzja2003) set to take on five other elite grandmaster...
On Thursday, the opening ceremony of the 2019 FIDE World Fischer Random Chess Championship took place live on Twitch.tv/Chess. In what resulted in four intriguing matchups, the following pairings were drawn at random to determine pairing...
At the end of the last century when I played one of the big American open tournaments (I think it was North American Open in Las Vegas), I stumbled upon a very interesting book at the concession stand. Well, since the book was written by GM John...
Hou Yifan, the youngest women’s world champion in history, tells David Cox about her journey to become one of the strongest female players of all time. Find out her thoughts on a "battle of the sexes" match against Magnus Carlsen, and why sh...
The updated standings and leaderboard information for Arena Kings season five are below. You can read the season five announcement here for complete details. Standings as of October 12 Rank Player Points ...
Siegbert Tarrasch was one of the best players of his time and definitely deserves to be included in the list of strongest chess players who never became world champion. Tarrasch. Photo via Wikipedia. Just like Reuben Fine, Tarrasch wa...
Television fans enjoyed the Emmys on Sunday night, and the shows Game of Thrones and Fleabag dominated the awards for primetime TV. Today, another audiovisual medium takes the stage. The world of chess streaming has been growing q...
Pal Benko was born July 15, 1928 and died August 25, 2019 at the age of 91. Instead of throwing endless games at you (okay, okay…I will throw you a lot of games), I first want you to understand Benko’s personality and who Benko r...
Football is sometimes called "chess on the gridiron." And by sometimes, I mean I just called it that. But the game is actually often compared to war, which is the most common metaphor for chess. And if football is war, the quarterback is the fie...
With tournaments happening every day on Chess.com, it is now easier than ever to have your brand represented during our official broadcasts. This overview will explain everything you need to know about sponsoring one of our events on Chess.com:&nb...
I bet you've heard the cliche that "chess is 99 percent tactics" thousands of times. While it is greatly overused and exaggerated to some degree, overall it is correct. The enormous strength of modern computers is based on their unmatched abilit...
Get your reading glasses out for this article! The number of books written about chess is tremendous. While that can be great for the chess world, it poses practical issues for many fans. Most chess players have their own favorites, but how do y...
Ask any chess player to name a grandmaster who deserved to be the world champion but never became one, and you will get a list of the usual suspects. Bronstein, Korchnoi and Keres will be on the top of the list, and then it becomes ver...
Do you remember the day you joined Chess.com? At first, it could all seem a little overwhelming (so many features and options!), but you gradually got the hang of it and, suddenly, you realized that Chess.com had become like your second home, wher...
In the end of 1984, the leading Soviet magazine Chess In The USSR published a big article about the first game of the world championship match Capablanca-Alekhine, Buenos Aires 1927. The author, master V. Goldin (no relation the U.S. grandmaster...
What is a pawn structure? From my online glossary, I define it as “the positioning of the whole pawn mass. Also referred to as the pawn skeleton. This positioning of the pawns is what usually dictates the types of plans available...
Reminder: Deadline for entries is 5:59 p.m. Pacific time September 2. The biggest event in online chess is back for 2019, and the field of 16 grandmasters is set for the 2019 Speed Chess Championship beginning September 2 at 6 p.m. PDT. W...
The concept of time in chess is one of the most difficult topics for young kids to grasp. While they have no trouble understanding how you can lose a piece, a pawn or the right to castle, the subject of losing time is usually confusing for them. ...
NM Bojan Lukajic's (@lasker_fiverr) notes on Chess.com are an incredible testament to the affection and appreciation of his students. Probably no coach on Chess.com has so impressed his students with such dedication and effort. NM Lukajic truly ca...
If you have seen the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer, you may remember one of the Washington Square Park hustlers who held a sign offering a photograph or a game with the man who beat Mikhail Tal. Just like most of the movie's chess...