According to some Russian chess books, the famous writer Leo Tolstoy played around 600 recorded games. I was able to locate only a half dozen of them. Based on them I can conclude that the famous Russian writer had a very sharp attacking style. ...
First of all, let me take this opportunity and wish to all my readers a Happy and Prosperous New Year! The goal of my highly unscientific research is to establish who was the best chess player amongst celebrities. And I am talking about celebriti...
All chess players regardless of their strength have their own chess gems. NapoleonBonaparte was not an exception and also had his own Mona Lisa. He played it not long before his death in his exile on Saint Helena. Here is the game: (Just like i...
GM Macieja is one of those strong chess players who is not well known outside of the professional chess players' circle (even though he was European Champion in 2002!) Meanwhile, he has an achievement that would be very interesting for the general...
Russian GM Evgeny Bareev is widely known as a strong technical player. Probably for that reason Vladimir Kramnik invited him to be his second during the World Championship match vs. Garry Kasparov. Indeed, Kasparov was never able to break the Be...
Last week we analyzed the game Nunn-Nataf (the best game of GM Nataf). I think it is only fair to talk about the best game of GM John Nunn. These days GM John Nunn is mostly known as an author of very high quality chess books, chess compositions ...
Grandmaster Igor-Alexandre Nataf is not exactly a household name in the Chess World. There is no article about him in Wikipedia and according to the FIDE web site his rating never crossed the 2600 mark. Yet, the game he calls his most beautiful ...
Just like any chess player, I have my own personal Mona Lisa. Since you my dear readers asked about this game in your comments to the previous article, it is probably a good opportunity to show it now. I knew that I was going to play a special ga...
In my opinion it is impossible to say for sure which game of Alexei Shirov is the best one he ever played. He is one of the most imaginative contemporary players and therefore he has dozens of true masterpieces. So it would be impossible for me to...
This is a really interesting game. It was the fourth game of the World Chess Championship that took place earlier this year. Up until this point, the scores were even and the tension was at its highest. Anand needed a win, and he got it in style. ...
Preparing last week's column I replayed the "Immortal Game" one more time and couldn't help but think: yes, the Anderssen - Kieseritzky game is wonderful, but is it really the most beautiful game ever played? Of course it is impossible to answer a...
This is one of the most beautiful patterns. It happens when one of the players uses his Queen to capture one Rook with check and then immediately wins another Rook. Usually it goes like Qb7xRa8 check and then QxRh8 for White or Qb2xRa1 ...
There are many ways to go wrong in the opening and lose quickly. Today we'll talk about one of the Opening's Cardinal Sins : pawn grabbing. Everyone knows that in the opening we are supposed to develop our pieces as quickly as possible and castl...
Today, one of the most talented chess players of his generation, Gyula Breyer is mostly remembered for the variation of the Ruy Lopez named after him: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 0-0 8.c3 d6 9.h3 Nb8! The last pa...
Those of you my dear readers who were patient enough to read through Parts 1-3 of this series might be asking : 'Well Mr. Serper, what's your point? You showed us that the kids are generally good in chess, so what? I knew it anyway!" Please bear ...
Today we'll take a look at the games of a very young Tal. Despite the fact that there are so many books and articles written about "The Magician from Riga", his life is still the stuff of legends. Many sources contradict each other. For example, ...
Today we are going to analyze the games of a very young Bobby Fischer. He was one of the most enigmatic players in the history of chess and looking at his early games I am really puzzled. Let's start with the well known fact: In May 1949, the si...
I am sure that most chess players at some point faced this awkward situation. You are supposed to play a cute little kid only to find out that the appearance is very deceiving and at the chessboard the little tyke is a real beast. You curse your ...
Sorry guys, I haven't really been able to get on chess.com lately due to the large amount of homework I have to do every night for school. School also prevented me from playing in the Carlsen vs. the World match. However, I always thought the ide...
If you ask any chess player (even just a beginner) what is the quickest way to get checkmated, then no doubt you'll hear the correct answer: 1. f3 (or f4) e6 (or e5) 2. g4 Qh4 checkmate. And the fact that this quick checkmate is so well-known...
When I was a kid, one of my favorite opening set ups was to play 1.e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 (or Nf6) 4. d3 and then jump Bg5 pinning the Nf6. In many cases I was even able to play Nd5 and then using the pin to play Nxf6 or Bxf6 completely dest...
This is an interesting game. Pogonina, playing White, decides to start an early pawn storm on the 8th move instead of trying to castle. Although Dzagnidze builds up an attack by placing all of her major pieces on the c-file, Pogonina utilizes Bobb...
The pattern we are going to discuss today is unique in many ways. First of all, every single tactical pattern we've talked about so far can happen both in an opening or in a middle game, but today's pattern usually happens only in an early opening...
This is a neat little game. Vladimirov, playing White, gives up a knight midway through the opening to start an attack on his opponent's uncastled king. He seems to stumble when he allows Epishin to trade queens, but his killer 26th move settles m...
