Profound opening preparation is one of the key ingredients of overall success in chess. Luring your opponent into a trap, inventing a powerful novelty, knowing your openings well – all this will boost your confidence and create problems for your o...
The Tarrasch is fairly positional, but computers seem to like the fluid piece play and have contributed to the development of the well-established main line.
Two of the top grandmasters of the last twenty years met at Biel in 1993 to contest the Meran Variation. Boris Gelfand would win the game and his second interzonal. Viswanathan Anand, the future world champion, would lose, but keep the line as ...
Back in the day the ultimate opening was the Najdorf Poisoned Pawn, constantly under debate by the world's best players. It is still seen today, though not oftn in elite tournaments. Our theory includes contributions fro blind tournaments and the ...
by GM Magesh and GM Arun After writing opening articles for the last two years, I should admit that it tends to become more monotonous and less creative. So there I was just staring at the roof one day wondering 'what should I write about next we...
The Classical Sicilian is not as popular as it was in the 20th century but remains a rich and complex choice. Mikhail Tal helped define the main lines and his ideas remain relevant. Today we examine the Classical Main Line as played by World Cham...
What other opening has a 300-page book starting at move 13? The dragon is one of the most obsessively studied openings yet the verdict is still unclear! In this installment of Megatheory we will examine some of the main lines, featuring a brand n...
Bent Larsen (pictured) was born March 4, 1935 and died September 9, 2010. He was Champion of Denmark six times from 1954-1964. He was a candidate for the world championship in 1965, 1968, 1971, and 1977. He won the interzonal in 1964, 1967, and 1...
by GM Magesh and GM Arun Choosing to play a sideline sometimes helps a lot in avoiding a bunch of complicated theory that has been well analyzed and established by the elite players. It is quite common these days for players to venture into no...
Ernst Gruenfeld was born November 21, 1893 and died April 3, 1962. He was Austria’s top player and one of the world’s best in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1950, when FIDE began awarding titles, he became an international grandmaster.Gruenfeld scored 10...
by GM Magesh and GM Arun This week we shall see a very modern interpretation of the Najdorf Classical system from the Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2011 between Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura. Usually the classical system is more of a positi...
When I was young chess players used to eagerly await various chess publications containing the latest games and articles on opening theory. Certain openings were the subject of tremendous scrutiny, and most advanced chess players were familiar w...
By GM Magesh and GM Arun The Tata Steel Chess 2011 (used to be known as the Corus, Wjk Aan Zee) has produced some wonderful chess games for the fans. I have decided to share a very nice game today played by Alexey Shirov against Vladimir Kram...
Mastering the Chess Openings Volume 4 320 pages Gambit 2010 $29.95 ISBN 1-906454-19-1 For several decades now John Watson has been one of the finest writers on chess, and his latest volume lives up to the standards of his previous work. T...
by GM Magesh and GM Arun After more than three months of break, I (Magesh) finally decided to play a couple of tournaments during the holiday season. My first one was the UTD GM tournament in which I did not fare very well. GM Alexey Dreev pretty...
Capltal asked: My rating is 1130. For Black, I’m interested in both 1.c4 e5 and 1.e4 e5! However, both have many variations so I bought two books: THE MARSHALL ATTACK by Bogdan Lalic and THE PETROFF DEFENSE by Forintos and Haag. Is it a good ide...
by GM Magesh and GM Arun This week we shall see the King's Indian Attack by Robert James Fischer, who is considered by many to be the greatest player of all time. Fischer employed the King's Indian Defence with the black side frequently and trie...
This week we shall see the King's Indian Defence Samisch Variation. Samisch Variation in the KID is the most direct approach of refuting the KID structure. White protects the e4-pawn with f3 and starts an attack on the kingside with Be3,Qd2,g4,h4 ...
Alexander Tolush was born May 1, 1910 in St. Petersburg and died March 3, 1969 in the same city, then known as Leningrad. Tolush won the Leningrad Championship four times from 1937-1947. He played in the USSR Championship ten times. His best resul...
This week we shall see an interesting game in the Queen's Gambit Declined between Alexander Moiseenko and Artur Jussupow from the European Rapid Chess Championship. Moiseenko being a 2650+ player for quite some time and an opening theoratician who...
by GM Magesh and GM Arun The Modern Defense is not one of the mainstream opening choices for elite chess players. However, it still surfaces at the top as an occasional surprise weapon. It is quite natural that several side lines that were dee...
by GM Magesh and GM Arun The London Chess Classic tournament has ended with Carlsen retaining his crown for the second year. Though he needed some luck to have that miraculous save against Kramnik from a totally lost position in the penultimat...
Robert Byrne was born April 20, 1928 in New York City. He won the United States Championship in 1972, won seven medals representing the US nine times in the Olympiads from 1952-1976, played in three Interzonals placing as high as third (1973), and...
This week we shall see an idea against the Benoni system. The g3 fianchetto system is one of the strongest replies against the Benoni. Benoni is one of the dynamic systems where Black seeks counterplay on both wings and white needs to be careful i...
