This principle applies no more so than in the tricky d-pawn 'specials' (Torre Attack, London System, Stonewall and the Colle Systems). Here I'm going to show 2 games which I hope may be useful in illustrating this: one of my own games and then a...
"The pawn (♙♟) is the weakest . . .piece in the game of chess, representing infantry, or more particularly armed peasants of pikemen."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawn_(chess)] It's true that a pawn only has a value of 1 point. But let's try to l...
One of the dilemmas of modern chess is that opening theory has grown to huge proportions. The advent of computers and databases mean that there is plenty of information about a player's tendencies, strengths, weaknesses, etc. Throw in some strong ...
Part I:Discovery Discovery is a way to devastate you opponent's material using a check by moving aside a piece and placing that piece where you can threaten opposing pieces. one of those pieces would be already lost, since your opponent has to do...
When I used to attend the chess class at the Fremont Public Library every Friday afternoon, Richard Shorman often used to show us the games of Morphy and Capablanca. I tend to play crazy games these days (see the game with Bobras), but that sort o...
Here is a game from the 2009 Reykjavik Open, GM Oleksienko - IM Grandelius with full annotations and commentary: This game was a very instructive lesson about pawn play, especially flank pawns. When you advance your flank pawns as ...
Here is a game from the 4NCL, WIM Winkelmann - GM King with full annotations and commentary: In this game we saw a dramatic rating difference between the two players. It was white at the disadvantage and black as the much higher ...
Improve your Chess via Active Learning ACTIVE LEARNING is any strategy that involves students in doing things and thinking about the things they are doing (*) You could study the following material either by skipping the test and going directly ...
The pawn is a very vaulable piece in the game of Chess. Pawns can make blockades which can control the game or the double pawn which can hurt you in the endgame. In this position, even though white has a blocked bishop, the pawns ...
Here is a game from the 10th EICC, WIM Drljevic - IM Maksimovic with full annotations and commentary: This game was a very sound strategical effort by black. The first part of the plan was to force open lines on the kingside with h7-...
Here is a stategy that makes you have an edge on your oppoents. No matter if you are White or Black, you have three major goals to have an edge:Take control of the board. This is very crucial of controling space or territory. Chess is war and taki...
Ok, I know it sound weird but what color piece is better? What color piece is going to make you a champion? For all my chess skill, I chose Black because, well of course, white always go first but however black let you know what opponent is thinki...
Smothered mate is a way of checkmating your opponent by turning their own pieces aginst their king. You will need to use sacrifice to perform smothered mate. Here is an example from a game I played. My opponent did not decide correctly which piece...
Hi there. For my first try as an article, i wanted to show you a game I played yesterday in a tournament that uccured in my club. This game starts like a King's Indian, but we are soon arriving in a typical structure, called Maroczy bind. At t...
This exciting game features a good alternative for Black to avolid the Four Knights, but Steinitz chooses the wrong defense and gets torn apart by Blackburne. Much of the action is at f7, though the center is the main battlefield.
After World War I, a group of players came to fame whose ideas were to cause a considerable revision in chess thinking. Aaron Nimzowitsch (1886-1935), Richard Reti (1889-1929), and Gyula Breyer (1894-1921) headed the school. Also Saviely Tartakowe...
Last week, I annotated a win over GM Nidjat Mamedov (viewable here). While the game against Mamedov may have made that line of the King's Indian look like a forced win for White, chess is rarely that simple. Continuing with the same theme of the b...
I played in the Reykjavic Grand Open a couple of times. The winter storms throughout the event inspired some stormy weather at the chessboard. The game presented below involves a positional queen sacrifice that turns out to be well-justified. Tal ...
How do you think when you get to a quiet position? Do you try and calculate a lot of variations, or do you try to make long-term plans? Normally, in the absence of a lot of tactics, these are the sorts of positions where strategic thinking trumps ...
Seems like I've been meaning to post this since I began my stay at chess.com, but I never got around to it. It's a good demonstration of why it is never a good idea to leave a piece misplaced. Garry Kasparov shows us how to take advantage of it. ...
Hey guys, Yeah, I was playing a game over FICS. It was a poor game for the most part, with blunders on both sides, but the ending I played great :)
Here is a game from the 2009 German Championship, IM Beikert - IM Wippermann with full commentary and annotations: In this game we saw white take a quiet approach in combating the Sicilian which is known to be a very dangerous op...
This is a truly instructive game! Kasparov debates opening theory, successfully as usual. He works up a fierce kingside attack, augments it with queenside play, then uses a series of exchanges to render the enemy king indefensible. This was an imp...
A long misunderstood factor of chess for many beginners and some advanced players is the concept of strategical planning. Many people think that planning in chess is a long and hard calculated sequence of moves, 30 moves deep, in which it assure...
