There is a well-known chess joke (or maybe not even a joke!) that it is much more difficult to sacrifice a pawn than a queen. Indeed, in most queen sacrifices you get huge dividends right away, since it is difficult to imagine a player sacrifici...
What is pawn structure? From my online glossary, I define it as “the positioning of the whole pawn mass. Also referred to as the pawn skeleton. This positioning of the pawns is what usually dictates the types of plans available in a given ...
What is pawn structure? From my online glossary, I define it as "the positioning of the whole pawn mass. Also referred to as the pawn skeleton. This positioning of the pawns is what usually dictates the types of plans available in a given ...
The recent Grenke chess tournament turned out to be a one-person show, since everyone was watching and talking about Magnus Carlsen. The world champion's game against a young prodigy, Vincent Keymer, was especially intriguing. While the ...
What exactly is positional chess? I find some players get confused by the difference between tactical and positional chess, especially because both skills are needed to play a strong game. Therefore, I prefer to distinguish the two main ap...
There is a very powerful strategic chess concept called the Shvedova attack. What, you never heard about this mighty chess weapon? Shame on you! The Shvedova attack is named after a seven-year-old Russian girl, Alexandra Shvedova, who beautifull...
In my experience teaching, playing, and hanging out at the local chess club, I have come across many players who succeed in reaching a level in the 1600-2000 range but get stuck, often for life, trying to get beyond that and become an expert or ma...
In one of my recent articles I shared a story of how I became a lucky owner of an amazing book that really helped my chess development. This is how that article ends: "It might be a pure coincidence, but the next year after I bought The Test ...
The Chess.com member kurniadigautama asked: Something has been bothering me since I saw the game between GM Vidit Santosh and GM David Eggleston in The Chess.com Isle of Man international open tournament (round 1). In the game, we see that Vid...
Let me start with a disclaimer. While the title sounds sinister, I can assure you that no frog or any other animal was hurt for the sake of this article. It is just a metaphor! This is how Daniel Quinn describes it in "The Story Of B": If you ...
Nowadays, it is normal for chess players of all levels to make a quick draw once in a while. The so-called "Sofia Rules" and other measures that attempt to prohibit draws by mutual agreement are typically applied in elite tournaments and even worl...
A classic movie and literary ploy is when the hero must stay out of sight behind enemy lines, and decides to disguise himself as one of his foes. Students of classical literature might recall the ancient story about Achilles, the Greek hero of the...
For those that enjoyed my previous article, Test Your Positional Chess, let’s do it again. It’s fun to follow positional concepts, and it’s also extremely instructive. Please keep in mind that these puzzles aren’t li...
May 28, 1992. Moscow. The newly-established Russian Federation is enmeshed in social and economic tumult following the dissolution of the USSR. But chess fans have been treated to a small respite: a blitz tournament, broadcast live on television...
Even beginners know that castling is a very important part of an opening strategy since it moves your king away from the center into a comfortable home created by a rook and three pawns. But what if the new king's house is not so cozy, since the...
The games played by Jose Raul Capablanca have been analyzed in countless chess books, magazines and videos. Today, I want to show you two of his less famous games. Both were played against the strong American master Alexander Kevitz, and both de...
Strong and weak squares are a cornerstone of chess strategy. The definition of a weak square is very simple: it is any square that cannot be defended by a pawn. Usually such a weak square in our opponent's camp is the ideal place to put our pieces...
You don't play 3-check on the Chess.com live server? That's a shame. I thought we could be friends. Why is the game great? All that opening theory that masters know more about? Yeah, it's all useless. Draws? Almost never. Oh, and did I ment...
Hello, dear friends and chess fans! From today onwards I'll be writing my own blog in Russian. Please follow my articles and kindly share opinions and feedback. Today I would like to talk about a very important elem...
"It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you wil...
Ask chess players about the period known as romantic chess and they will probably mention the names of La Bourdonnais, Anderssen and Morphy. Indeed, all three of them were called unofficial world champions of their time. ...
In pursuit of a topic for my very first article on Chess.com, I decided to go over my recent games and see if anything interesting would come up. I got really excited when I touched down on my game against GM David Howell from the Winter Classic t...
Imagine you have been assigned to make a penalty shoot-out for your team. Your eyes are focused on the right side from the goalkeeper. You are determined to shoot there. Obviously, the goalkeeper prepares to jump into that direction. You gradually...
The best way to counter-attack a hater is to make it blatantly obvious that their attack has had no impact on you. (Tim Ferriss) For this article, I have chosen two classical games and three games from my career, to illustrate the method of aggr...
Sometimes, the point score doesn't tell the whole story. A queen and a pawn might add up to ten, but it's not always equal to two rooks. In this series, IM Daniel Rensch and GM Ben Finegold explore the many variations of unbalanced material a...