Any experienced tournament player knows that playing for a win with the black pieces can be quite challenging, especially against a well-prepared opponent. Indeed, in most openings, White gets some initiative right from the start of the game due t...
Some chess games played by legendary players featured such impressive new concepts that they instantly became iconic. As time passed, these concepts turned into chess axioms. According to Wikipedia, "In classic philosophy, an axiom is a statement ...
I have no doubt that you've heard the saying, "Chess is 90% tactics" many times. It is so overused that it is impossible to trace who said it first. While in general I agree with this statement, I would still slightly modify it. So, channeling my ...
There are certain classic games that really show the "ABCs" of chess. They demonstrate some basic chess concepts that any educated player must know. The following famous game by Alexander Alekhine is one of them. You can find it almost in any book...
The 2023 FIDE World Championship was an unusual event. First of all, it is very uncommon to call an event the "World Championship" in the absence of the unquestionable world's number-one player. It is also unusual to see so many hard-fought games ...
Most chess players know World Champion Alexander Alekhine as a master of attack and combinations. They might be surprised to learn that some great players considered Alekhine's strategic talent as the main reason for his success. I don't have the ...
GM Magnus Carlsen has produced hundreds of brilliant games, so when you saw the word "epic" in the title, you probably envisioned one of those sparkling attacks with multiple sacrifices. While this game indeed features many attacks, counterattacks...
There are thousands of ideas in chess. Some of them are very basic, and others are so complicated that you cannot help but think: "Who was the genius? Who came up with this idea first?" Unfortunately, in most cases, we will never know the answer. ...
If you frequent chess forums, you are probably familiar with the never-ending debates about the strength of chess players from various eras. There will always, for example, be a person making the traditional claim that any decent master today woul...
You have to admit, my dear readers, that the title of this article probably made you think that I was going to talk about GM Bobby Fischer's famous book for beginners. And you would be wrong! While this book is decent, with all due respect, there ...
The title of this article probably sounds absolutely crazy to you since gasoline makes fires stronger. Yes, in real life it is absolutely impossible to put out a fire with gasoline, but here we are talking about the wonderful world of chess, where...
Computers have dramatically changed our perception of the game of chess. The biggest change is probably the lost sense of a big mystery. Long gone are the times when chess aficionados around the world for years analyzed complicated positions that ...
While the recent FIDE World Championship match was rather disappointing due to its anticlimactic finish, it had its crown jewel: game six. The longest game ever played in world championship history had such rich chess content that it deserves a wh...
These days only a lazy person doesn't speculate about the year when GM Alireza Firouzja will become the World Champion. Indeed, it is very difficult for me to imagine what kind of an event could prevent the current world #4 (he actually hit the #3...
As we all know, Hamlet's famous question "to be or not to be?" essentially meant "to live or not to live?" In chess, when you're deciding whether to castle or not to castle your king, in many cases you are choosing between the life and death of yo...
For many generations of chess players, Aron Nimzowitsch's famous book My System was sort of a chess bible. World Champion GM Tigran Petrosian admitted that as a kid, he kept this book under his pillow. Another world champion, GM Mikhail Tal, regre...
For many readers, the title of this article might look weird. The possibility of stalemating your opponent usually means that you are in charge of the game. If you are in the driver's seat, why would you settle for a draw? Moreover, just earlier t...
Any experienced player knows that chess is all about pattern recognition. At least this is true of chess played by humans. In this article, I argued that one of the biggest competitive advantages World Champion Magnus Carlsen has is his unique mem...
For an average beginner, the road to a rating in the range of 1400-1600 is pretty straightforward. Learn as many tactical patterns as possible, get yourself familiar with some basic opening principles, and you are there! Notice, I said that the ro...
Are your ready to stretch your chess thinking? When you're playing a chess game, no one tells you which positions require tactical or positional solutions. GM Surya Ganguly provides several practice examples. See if you're up for the challe...
Learn the best way to use your pawns to help you win the game! Simon Williams, the Ginger GM demonstrates the best uses of each pawn and their unique strengths and weaknesses. Try The Challenges! Not what you're looking for? Go back to the...
In chess, beginners find that they don't know much about the openings, have a small amount of tactical understanding, and positional play is something from Mars. Fortunately, after a while, you will get a bit better. However, if you really want to...
How should you handle tough positions? NM Jeremy Kane has faced his share and demonstrates three techniques to handle trouble. You can complicate and get counterplay. You can simplify to a draw, or you can persistently improve your pieces until th...
How do grandmasters avoid losing, even when they get into trouble? Join GM Dejan Bojkov as he demonstrates his five key strategies for defending bad positions: recognizing key priorities, fortresses, stalemates, perpetual checks, and "the sticking...
