About a year and a half ago, I had the honor of working with GM Yasser Seirawan for two days during his visit to the Bay Area. Yasser is a four-time U.S. Champion whose storied professional career spans more than 30 years, and he also possesses th...
"I get really nervous during important games; what should I do?" "I get really worried about my rating. Do you have any suggestions?" I think these two questions, while undoubtedly different, are in some senses closely related. As I have noted, ...
Hello everyone! It is an honor and a pleasure to be the new Friday columnist for Chess.com. Chess and writing are two of my greatest passions, and I am very excited to be able to combine them on a weekly basis. I cannot wait to start analyzing gam...
Before we leap into Part 5 of this 7-part series, I’m going to make one last effort to help the “Alekhine was afraid of Capablanca” people grasp a handful of reality. After you read this, feel free to misquote me (and other sourc...
WHY I WRITE ABOUT THE CHESS GREATS In my view, it’s important for chess fans to embrace a chess hero, and after studying his life and games, moving onto another chess hero. It’s fun, you learn a lot, and it makes the whole chess expe...
If you look on Wikipedia, or for that matter on almost any website that mentions it, including the official USCF website and the site of the US Chess Trust, You will notice that all these places honor Adele Ri...
I left Part 3 of this 7-part series with Alekhine beating Capablanca in their World Championship. Here’s how that article ended: The match itself was a long, extremely tiring affair that covered 34 games before Alekhine achieved the necess...
In this article, I will expand on some ideas that were presented when I wrote about preparing your opening repertoire. Many chess players have no clue on how to use the machine to their benefit. I hope that after reading my advice, you will have a...
There have been many chess clubs throughout the history of the game. About some of these we know a lot of details through books, periodicals and newspapers. About others we know practically nothing. Even some great clubs have left us bereft...
My favorite writer Hemingway, in his excellent "Moveable Feast," wrote about starting a day of writing: "All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know." This advice came to my mind as I neared the time to...
Every chess player dreams of improving his game. He might simply want to smash his friends. He might want that 1200 rating to turn into a 1600 rating. Or he might be sick and tired of not knowing why he lost games X, Y, and Z. Study certainly help...
The number one reason players lose chess games is... They move too quickly. First off, how long should a standard time control chess game last? The answer is 3 to 5 hours. Every titled player earned that honor by playing mostly five hour games...
Curse of the Hasty Pawn Advance EvgeniyZh (1192) – raj475 (1324)ICC Live Game (30-0), 2014 1.e4 b6 2.e4 e6 3.e5 I’ve seen many sub-1500 rated players make this kind of hasty pawn advance, and I will take this opportunity to make a comment abou...
"What can I do to get worse at chess? Right now I am playing too well." Great question, and possibly not as silly as it may sound. After all, GM Znosko-Borovsky once wrote a book called How Not to Play Chess, so why not look at ways to get worse?...
The style of journalistic writing from over a half century ago is somewhat different than that of today, in some ways perhaps a bit harder to read but in other ways more enjoyable. Looking through old "Time" magazines is also enjoyable and o...
I was a bit surprised at the comments about the study of master games made under my last Q & A (Snarky Silman, blah, blah, blah). As is always the case, everyone of every rating had an opinion. I’ve already written about this several tim...
I sometimes wonder if the lengthy, in-depth type of book review has any kind of future. Wouldn't it be better to just get it over with, hear the reviewer's superficial opinion, yadda yadda yadda, and move on? What's the point elaborating on argume...
One The Conflict That Never Was Jeffrey Baffo wrote (on Facebook): “Move First, Think Later. That book creates a major conflict between Jeremy Silman/traditional methods and what Hendriks is saying.” Answer: I’m answering this question for all...
Cafés or Coffee Houses probably originated in 16th century Turkey and quickly expanded into Persia, Arabia, Egypt and other Islamic nations. Even there they were havens for political idealists, philoso...
"What rules do you break the least (most)?" I'm a US Chess Federation Senior Tournament Director, so I try not to break any rules at all! For example, I never move my knights like bishops and I press my clock after each move. But I think the ques...
The following game (played in an over-the-board tournament) by Chess.com member pogorelich is remarkable. It not only offers us incredible tactics (most of which were missed by both sides) and amazing structures, but also lessons on how to study a...
My relationship with International Master John Grefe was complex, with many ups and downs. I met him two days after I arrived in San Francisco. At that time I was a penniless 18-year-old chess professional who was sleeping on a friend’s floo...
When, in 1995, Garry Kasparov employed the ancient Evans Gambit, I was thrilled - in part because I was a live witness to it, in his game against Jeroen Piket, at the Euwe Memorial tournament. But I was also a tiny bit annoyed, because I realized ...
"I read chess books and I understand them but when I get the same situations in a game I don't do the right things." This is a common complaint, but it is so generic that, unless I knew exactly what the viewer read and his chess situation, it is ...
