Mr. Woodrow asked: Playing as Black, I have responded to 1.d4 in a number of ways. I have tried variations of the Nimzo-Indian, the Gruenfeld, the King’s Indian, the Queen’s Indian, the Bogo-Indian, the Queen’s Gambit Declined, and possibly other...
The more experienced we are in chess, the more subtle our understanding of the game is, and the easier it is for us to tell which move is good without even calculating the variations. It’s a mixture of feelings, experience, knowledge of the key pr...
The Sicilian Dragon remains a deadly weapon in the tournament arena. Black is still turning out miniatures, and exploring new vistas. Today I present three short interesting wins for Black, in some of the interesting Dragon landscapes. ...
Petroff's Defense is one hard nut to crack when Black plays with a proper understanding. It guarantees solid play for Black without any longterm weaknesses and that is precisely the reason why we see so many Petroff games played at the top level. ...
Sometimes games with interesting ideas are overlooked because they were played in a casual online game. In this article I present a fascinating Evans gambit game played against one of America's most serious opening analysts. Black uses the move .....
Henrique Mecking was born January 23, 1952 in Brazil and became an International Grandmaster in 1971. He won the Petropolis Interzonal in 1973 an the Manila Interzonal in 1976. After each interzonal win, he lost a quarterfinals Candidates Match, ...
The Catalan is one of the most difficult openings to play against in our opinion. With reasonable play, White can almost guarantee that he will not lose and in addition get a good chance of securing a small advantage that will allow him to push B...
Explanatory Opening Books and a Reader’s Pet Line James asked: I hope I’m not writing this to you in error, but I seem to recall a recent article of yours on choosing an opening, when someone asked if there was a text that explained the plans in...
Las Palmas 1996 was the first ever category 21 tournament. The players had an average rating of 2756. Garry Kasparov, the world champion at the time, and Anatoly Karpov, his immediate predecessor, were playing. Viswanathan Anand, Vladimir Kramnik,...
in this article I present a crucial game in the history of the Dragon Sicilian. In 1970, Andrew Soltis brought forth a concept which has remained a popular for decades. Instead of allowing White to ram a pawn up the rook file, he decided to stop i...
John Watson was born in 1951 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. He earned the title of International Master, but is better known as a chess theorist and writer. He has written dozens of books and pamphlets. His Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy: Advance...
Time and again our top players have broken the rules and strategies of chess that bind an ordinary eye. As we start believing a particular variation is out of fashion or a particular move is anti-positional, those lines get revived by some inspiri...
Last week we saw Black's perspective of the Chebanenko Slav and this week we will continue studying this system, but from White's perspective. As we have given the main introduction about the style of this opening in the previous article, we shall...
The Budapest Gambit Revisited 33speedo asked: Hi I was wondering what your opinion is about the Budapest gambit for white and black? Dear 33speedo, In an earlier article on chess.com I mentioned that I personally had always done well against...
This week we shall study The Chebanenko Slav.This system is considered to be a super solid opening and the number of its followers seems to be growing fast.This system has become popular in the last few years thanks to the efforts of Grandmasters ...
This week we shall deviate from studying main lines and focus on a side line instead. At the request of some of our readers, this week we shall see The Fried Liver Attack (aka The Fegatello Attack) in the Two Knights Defence. The first known game...
The Petroff Defense. The name itself rings a “boring” bell to many people. Also called the Russian defense, the Petroff has a reputation of being a drawish opening. Considering the high percentage of draws turning out of this opening it is defini...
As I noted in the previous article, "No Fire From This Dragon", English GM Jonathan Mestel recalls receiving a telegram from the British Chess Federation at the World Student Chess Olympiad in Mexico City in August of 1977 that read "Miles says b...
Alexander Beliavsky (Belyavsky) was born December 17, 1953 in Lviv, Ukraine. He is now living in Slovenia. In 1973, he won the World Junior Championship. Beliavsky won the USSR Championship in 1974, 1980, 1987, and 1990. He was a candidate for the...
For anyone who follows professional chess at the top the level, it is obvious that the Alekhine defense is not a common choice at the Super GM level, and this is not without good reason. In many cases, White is able to get a reasonable space advan...
The Dragon Variation of the Sicilian Defense has always been considered an enterprising, adventurous opening for Black. The Yugoslav Attack vs. the Dragon has always been considered the "acid test" of the variation and is one of the most heavily ...
Mark Evgenievich Taimanov was born on February 7, 1926 in Kharkiv. He became a grandmaster in 1952 and was one of the world's top players for years. His record of playing in 23 USSR championships was matched only by Efim Geller. He tied for first ...
Two Opening Questions No-Name asked: A recent book by GM Glenn Flear advocates playing against the exchange Queen’s gambit thus: 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Bg5 Bb4 (Which my mentor GM Hans Berliner says is bad) when he only covers W...
Alexander Alekhine is undoubtedly one of the strongest chess players of all time. His games have been a source of study for most of the young and upcoming players. One of his big contributions other than the brilliant games he has given to the che...
