People have plenty of choices in an opening. Some choose to play the dynamic and well analysed main variations, while some choose to play subtle yet promising side line and others choose to play some razor sharp surprise gambits like the ones we s...
Sometimes you read about a neat trap in a book and you try to play it, but no one ever plays the right moves. Either they know about it and avoid it, or they don't know about it and accidentally avoid it. But sometimes they fall right into it. ...
Today we will take a look into another uncommon opening, The Icelandic Gambit. Even though this variation is not as sharp as the Kings Gambit opening that we studied a couple of weeks ago, this opening has its own sharp pit falls. Personally I (Ma...
I'm definitely a candidate for "most excited that chess.com added chess960." I remember when I first joined the team in January, Erik and Jay asked what ideas I had about the future development of chess and chess.com. I told them that in my opinio...
I'm definitely a candidate for "most excited that chess.com added chess960." I remember when I first joined the team in January, Erik and Jay asked what ideas I had about the future development of chess and chess.com. I told them that in my opinio...
If you study an opening long enough, and play through enough master games with that opening, and play a lot of games with it yourself, you start to get a feel for which moves are accepatable or playable within the framework of that opening. Such ...
Paul Keres was born January 7, 1916 in Narva, Estonia and died June 5, 1975 in Helsinki, Finland. He became one of the best players in the world in the 1930s and remained near the top for almost forty years. In 1938, Keres came in first at AVRO, a...
Sometimes openings have certain positional or thematic goals that they wish to accomplish. For example, in the King's Gambit (1.e4 e5 2. f4), one of the primary goals for White is to open the f-file and get play against the square f7 with a rook...
“Every once in a while a man comes to the game and changes the way the world looks at it.” This is a quote from an advertisement portraying Sachin Tendulkar as the “Man” and the game obviously being “Cricket”. If you do not know Sachin (You most l...
ML asked: I've been having problems deciding on an opening repertoire for Black. I've been trying all sorts of stuff – Sicilian Dragon, Pirc, French, 1…e5, Alekhine, and even 1...b6.I’m searching for a repertoire which I feel very safe and comfor...
José Raúl Capablanca Y Graupera was born in Cuba on November 19, 1888 and died March 8, 1942. He was a great chess prodigy who learned the game by watching at the age of four. He was the game's greatest natural talent and one of the greatest playe...
This is a game which I played couple of hours before writting this article. I played this game on Internet chess club and it was against strong player rated 2047 on 15 minute setup. After the game we talk about the game and about the life and I fo...
In my previous article, I gave a game illustrating the virtues of the Exchange Variation of the Caro-Kann and reasons that I play a line that has a reputation of being harmless. In this game, my opponent gives me an easier time of it playing a di...
As far as we see it, there are two very good things about studying an opening like the King's Gambit. One, you can dig up some games which are as old as the Mona Lisa portrait and you can understand how chess has evolved from a 'Direct Attacking'...
In this series of articles, I plan to cover the Leningrad Dutch (A84) and, more specifically, a recently-finished tournament that I've hosted called "The Siege of Leningrad." These articles will begin by explaining the opening, then by covering so...
Look in any chess opening book about the Caro-Kann Defense and you will find a very small percentage of the book devoted to the Exchange Variation. Usually only a page or two, the book will site a few lines as giving Black easy equality and dismi...
In this variation of the Queen's Gambit Accepted I play white and try to regain my gambit pawn and suffer because of it. Black wins the opening with a queen and knight tag-team, even though his king has been checked out of position. This game is...
James West is a Life Master from New Jersey (where I used to live also). Although he has for most of his carrer played the Sicilian Defense as black in response to 1. e4, he later switched to the Philidor Counter Gambit (PCG) (1.e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3....
Many amatuers (like me) realize the large amount of theory that can come after both 1.e4 and 1.d4, yet we don't want to play sidelines and give up trying for an advantage. For a good portion of those people (including me) we turn to flank openings...
The M-Tel Masters is held every year since 2005 in Sofia, Bulgaria with six to grandmasters playing a double round robin. Veselin Topalov won the first three in 2005, 2006, and 2007. In 2008, the winner was Vassily Ivanchuk. Topalov came in second...
You may have seen opening analyses that cite statistical evidence regarding how well an opening fares. Those statistics are based overwhelming on games by players with ratings over 2200. What would we discover if we looked only at amateur games? H...
I've noticed there are fewer resources available to those who want to learn about the Colle-Zukertort, a solid, positional chess opening system for White. Thus, I thought I’d make a quick-start guide for anyone who wants to try it out sometime. Th...
If you're like me, you don't read much opening theory. You play Chess, enjoy it, but don't know many of the nuanced trap lines that have been developed over the years. You probably, like me up until this evening, have never even heard of the Magnu...
Srikanth Narahari asked:The following variation of the Smith-Morra Gambit is one of my favorite opening lines with White: 1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.c3 dxc3 4.Nxc3 Nc6 5.Bc4 e6 6.Nf3 d6 7.O-O a6 8.Qe2 Be7 9.Rd1 b5 10.Bb3 Ra7 11.Be3 Rd7 12.Rac1 Bb7 13.Nx...
