As a column wrap-up I would like to present a series of positions to solve. I will move from easier examples this week that are aimed at 1200s to harder ones in the next two weeks. In this Final Exam for my column's readers, it is important to tre...
Planning needs to be done in a controlled environment. Creating a plan at a chess board is like carefully planning a scientific experiment. The similarities are that one has to account for all the possible things that can go wrong, sketch an outli...
I was asked to write an article to help players of about 1200 strength with planning. I questioned myself: how do 1200s play? What is the difference between 1200 and 2200 rated players for example? Of course, masters see so many more hidden resour...
Pawns do not go backwards – this is an expression which shows how committal pawn moves can be. Moving a pawn to one square does not seem to be the most important decision one makes in the course of a game. But sometimes one such move can be of cru...
This is a placeholder for the second video in the series "Thinking your Way to Chess Mastery." We will study Gruenfeld Exchange theory and... understand it. :) Two related games in this segment: Bhat-Kudrin US Championship 2010 and Curt H...
The past article generated many positive responses and seemed to be helpful for the readers to better understand the training process for achieving better results in chess. That is why I would like to continue upon the previous topic, despite the ...
If you are a class player and want to improve you need to have some feedback on your play. There should be someone who can look at your game from a different angle and pinpoint weaknesses you need to work at. Usually, this should be a qualified tr...
The big match Anand- Topalov is underway. There is plenty of coverage of the games on chess.com as well as other chess websites. Naturally, talking about something else in chess, when everyone seems to talk about the match does not make much sense...
This article is a companion for my Chess.Com video lecture. We will use this game to understand the key steps to improvement: Update: on May 22, 2010, I posted the solutions in this article (right next to the questions). Inspect Infer Double-...
Recently, Ben Finegold an American who became a grandmaster at age forty said that he wants to win every chess game equally. When not quite getting what he was saying, Ben clarified to me by giving the example from the King's Island Open where the...
Mikhail Botvinnik, a World Champion for fifteen years between 1948-1963, with two brief interruptions had a tremendous impact on the development of the chess game. Dominating the chess world for such an unbelievably long time required character an...
To come up with a correct plan one needs to have a correct positional evaluation. We were taught that a bishop is better than a knight in open positions, that the two rooks are better than the queen, etc. This common sense knowledge guides us dur...
Our life-preservation instincts generate fear and awareness of danger. At a chess board a player also experiences similar reactions. One can hear from time to time that this or that chess player has a "good sense of danger." Among super-grandm...
Today we will look at examples where forming plans involved moving the pawns. Pawn moves can change the structure of the position and the associated plans. We open the game by sacrificing pawns and grab space by pushing them forward. Sometimes, ad...
Today’s article features two losses that happened because one of the sides (which happened to be me) did not have a plan in the game. To have a plan in any position is a very important step in choosing a move and a trend that the game will follow....
A chess player has to know how to use a variety of methods of chess strategy. Super grandmasters mastered numerous methods of leading chess battles. This is why it is good to go over their games and learn typical plans. Today’s two examples are ta...
Today, as promised I will look at the positions that the readers posted. Two positions were similar in that one side had a material advantage but had trouble finding a winning plan. It is very hard to win a winning position. It is hard from a psyc...
A chess player should follow strong GM-tournaments like a business person follows the Wall Street Journal. First of all, one can see modern opening trends and adjust his opening repertoire accordingly. Secondly, and more important in my opinion,...
Last article featured two positions from the Aeroflot Open, which was hosted in Moscow. Grandmaster Le Quang Liem won the event, scoring an impressive 7/9 with 5 wins and 4 draws, and 0 losses. Going into the last round Liem shared...
The two positions that I posted for you to solve are new to me as well. The first one David sent me and I believe it is as a position from a Chess.com TV lesson, while the second position my coach gave me to solve. These two positions are not that...
The art of attack in chess is really much simpler than you think. It comes down to one simple rule: Remove the defenders! Everything else is just a variation on that theme. You see it all the time, but here is a wonderful example as Grandmaster Sh...
In this game, White plays the initial phase of the opening well enough, but then he starts to drift with some questionable and unnecessary moves, which allow Black to work up a strong queenside initiative. At that point, White: recognizes the pro...
I have stated that chess pieces are connected. As a result, I have been asked to explain how pieces are connected. The way a player deploys the pieces should take into consideration their coordination. The first part of this is simply development....
In this game, the players castle on opposite sides, which usually signals attacks on both sides. Both players pursue their chances on each side, but Black misses something that costs him the exchange. But he stays calm and uses the time White sp...
