It may not be a game of inches, but chess often comes down to a slight advantage. Sometimes, we have to take initiative to create opportunities, which is often the case in king and pawn endgames. If your skills are raw in this common scenario, ref...
In the age of endgame tablebases and engines rated 3300+, it is difficult to imagine a relatively basic endgame that even grandmasters have difficulties to play and evaluate. The endgame "two bishops vs. a rook" with all pawns on ...
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 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...
Everyone’s had the unfortunate experience of playing an opposite-colored bishop ending. Like a mirage, you never know how they got there, and you definitely didn’t intend on it. Nevertheless, they have arrived. These mirages don’...
Endgames should be simple. Right? With a majority of pieces removed from play, calculation becomes minimal. Wrong! At one time or another, you may have found yourself on the losing side of a winning endgame. Perhaps you've been fortunate e...
Let us begin with a small challenge. Take a look at the following diagram: It is the starting position, stripped of all pieces except kings. If you managed to examine it without a yawn, eye roll, or grimace, you have passed the test . ...
Zugzwang in chess seems like a simple concept: being forced to move even when it's disadvantageous. To me, zugzwang is the saudade of chess; a straightforward idea on the surface, but a profound and fascinating concept on the in...
The study of theoretical endgames is a necessary evil. For most players, it is a rather torturous experience simply because there is no room for innovation or creativity. However, as any strong gandmaster will tell you, there are several th...
Last week, we dissected Magnus Carlsen's positional mastery by examining two of his finest strategic victories. However, modern chess demands universality, and it is impossible to become world champion and attain the highest rating in history thro...
After winning the Mexico City tournament in 2007, Viswanathan Anand had become the world champion. Anand defended his title for a first time by defeating Vladimir Kramnik in the 2008 match held in Bonn, Germany, He again defende...
After defeating Veselin Topalov in their 2006 match, Vladimir Kramnik was officially the undisputed world champion -- although he had been largely regarded as such since his 2000 match victory over Garry Kasparov. In 2007, a round robin tourname...
Many beginners tend to assume that pawn endings are easy to master. After all, with material so limited, how hard can it be to untangle the complexities of any given position? The answer, as any endgame maven will tell you, is unequivocal: ...
So far, I have only been covering the world championship matches where the title actually changed hands. However, since this series has turned into not just a look at the instructive and beautiful endgames played at the highest level of chess, b...
By 1990, Garry Kasparov had done what nobody had done before since the creation of the world championship: defended his title multiple times against the clearly best challenger. All in all, he and Anatoly Karpov played five quite grueling matches ...
With Anatoly Karpov having "inherited" the world title, he was eager to win as many tournaments as possible to prove that he was worthy of the title. And this he did. Besides winning such tournaments as Milan 1975, Las Palmas 1977, Bugojno 1978...
After Bobby Fischer won the world championship in 1972, he was a hero -- not just in the U.S., but for chess players everywhere. But being a hero is not for everyone. Always hard-working and ambitious, Fischer had fought more against himself tha...
In our exploration of the endgames from the world title matches, we have now reached the most famous of all matches -- the so-called "Match of the Century." Besides the unusual and brilliant character of Bobby Fischer, this match is so well reme...
For the first time since Alekhine, there was a world champion not named "Botvinnik" who was also not merely renting the title for a year. The Armenian named Tigran Petrosian held the title of world champion, with his unusual, "left-handed" style o...
Mikhail Tal had come and gone; the older Mikhail (Botvinnik) was still on the throne of chess. But in 1963, another archetypal chess player which had heretofore not been seen made his appearance. Tigran Petrosian was born in 1929 in Tbilisi, Geo...
Throughout the second half of 1960 and the first few months of 1961, the world had an unusual sort of champion. Throughout most of the history of chess, its world champions have been -- at least to a large extent -- pragmatic and balanced players....
Marzaduri R- IM Sveshnikov V. 1/2 This game was a draw, but I found a nice plan to win for white, I share it with you.
Mikhail Botvinnik had regained the world championship in 1958, but soon after the chess world's attention was captured by the rapid ascent of a young player with an unusually sharp and creative style: the Latvian Mikhail Tal. Frequently ma...
At the time that Vasily Smyslov became world champion, a rule was in effect giving the previous champion an automatic rematch in the event that he lost the title. Mikhail Botvinnik benefited from this rule twice -- the first instance was with Smys...