2008 Burbank U18 Finals
The finals took place on 15th of November and here it goes the $2000 price to the winner. This tie breaker came to the boy Alex Carmanav.
Improve at 1 minute blitz!
The 1 minute blitz game, or any game with short time controls is one of the exciting treasures of chess, one that brings excitement and logic, anxiety and miracles, and triumph and failure together - all in mere seconds. This post is aimed at impr...
Mikhail Tal, castling weakened and attack the King
Am very sorry that my poor handling of English does not allow me to further develop this article. However, today I bring an interesting example of castling weakened and attack the King, in this case, with the mastery of Mikhail Tal, without dou...
Analyzing and demonstraiting
When you loose a game, you would think why did you loose? to know that, analyzing would be the best step for improving. Chess.com Already has an analyzer, so you can easily analyze your games. Analyzing could be fun, like if you make a blunder, yo...
Rook+King vs. King Mate
Today, I was playing a game on live chess. Our ratings were very similar. Although my rating was higher, he was a better player. He used many tactics on me to get the upper hand. During the endgame, he had a rook and a king when I only had a king ...
Are You an Investment Ranker?
Don’t you just love it when it comes to maturation day on a growth investment which grows all the way from launch day to pay day? Even better, imagine if you started with eight investments and all you needed was one to make you rich upon maturin...
Notes on a few Principles
Chess principles are not a list of don’ts like the ten commandments. Rather they are more like a list of do’s which all work together such that if you heed them, they will not only improve on your capabilities but tell you things like: • What sta...
Slow Progression
Here is a game from the 38th Chess Olympiad, IM Espinosa Flores - FM Cave with full annotations and commentary: This game is a great example of how to play a strong positional game. White methodically and slowly improved ...
Isolated Pawn: Strong or Weak?
Here is a game from the 2008 World Senior Championship, GM Jansa - GM Westerinen with full annotations and commentary: This game is a clear example to dismiss the myth that isolated pawns are always weak and should be feared. In ...
Backed into a corner
In this game, correct me if I am wrong, but the person playing white castling seemed to hurt him more than help him in the position he was in. Once he stepped up his pawn to stop my queen-rook attack, he left an opening for my knight to fork th...
Chess Problem
Target Audience: 1400-2000 Hey guys! The following is a position that occured in one of my friendly games with my friend in school. In this position, Black has a minor advantage with his rooks being stronger than the white rooks! I played Blac...
Bring queen out after 7 moves
Bring you queen out after 7 moves and you will always win.
Making Something Out of Nothing
Here is a game from the 2008 European Club Cup, IM Bogut - GM Grischuk with full annotations and commentary: This game was a great example of how to play for an advantage in what seems like a boring position with no chanc...
Give a pawn to get an open c-file!
In my last article I showed two examples, where a pawn was offered to get the control and use of an open file. The second example was the first game of WC- match 2008. Anand gave a pawn to get the open c-file for his rooks. You remember? : ...
Petrosian - and the better pawnstructure!
So please look at the following pawnstructure. It is clear, white has the better one! He has a protected passed pawn at d5 and black pawn at c5 is a "weak" one. Would do you think about endgames with that pawnstructure? Right, they are in most o...
Tips
here are some tips to improve an be a better sport in chess: Control the center Think of your opponent's move Plan every move. Keep your king side defensive Keep the other side offensive Use most of your pieces... Use the Queen, King. İn the e...
Systematic Strangulation
Here is a game from the 2008 SPICE Cup, GM Stefansson - GM Miton with full annotations and commentary: In this game we saw white play a nice balanced game. First he was able to put strong pressure along the black pawn on the ...
Winning Technique
Here is a game from the 2008 SPICE Cup, GM Kaidanov - GM Stefansson with full annotations and commentary: In this game we saw white go ahead an exchange for a pawn and the game entered into a technical phase where white had to ex...
Pawnoffer in middlegame - to get and use an open file
Pawn offers are in middle game a strategic weapon, for example to open a file and use it for a rook. Let us look first at an easy example: 1. Black offers a pawn white should better not accept In tha...
ChessRules - 1248 beats a 2220!
I have always been told "you are under-rated", it is true, I lack consitency. On this day I arrived at the a local chess tournament with a CFC-rating of 1248, after defeating a 1600, drawing a 1700 and beating an 1800 I was faced with Mr. Maste...
Quiet Moves in Attack
Have you ever been carried along in the flow of an attack, relentlessly striking at your opponent, but finding that you are missing just one little thing? Maybe you should stop and think about it, and you may find a quiet move in the position. Let...
Blocking the invaders (in or out)?
Another of my 'error-prone' games (both of us made errors), but is still a good example of how to lock-out/put-in-prison/block-out invaders. It is also a good example of why we should not play too many pawn-moves at the cost of development - in ...
Aljechin and the "bad bishop"- concept
In my last article, we saw how young Aljechin let his opponent Euwe suffer with his "bad bishop".Today we see, how older Aljechin used the same "bad bishop"-concept again. But this time he took opponent`s knight also in "prison". As it happened ...
Locking the invader in
I sometimes see my opponents charging in to attack with just one piece. That usually happens when I make a mistake (yeah, I tend to do those a lot) and leave a door open. It is good for them if they cash in on my mistake and withdraw. They usual...