This is the eternal question of chess players who like sharp positions: "How do I reasonably achieve sharp play with Black vs 1.d4?" Sure you can play the King's Indian Defense or the Gruenfeld Defense, but then you will have to know an ocean of ...
Some openings have unsolved mysteries and questions that will probably never be answered. The Von Hennig-Schara Gambit is one of them. It starts after 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 c5 4. cxd5 cxd4!? It is named after Heinrich Von Hennig, yet in the ga...
The Queen's Gambit has a reputation of being a very solid opening. It is one that you choose when you want to demonstrate your strategical superiority over your opponent. Once, during a big Swiss tournament (I think it was the World Open), I over...
Say you are just a club player and going to play a GM in the next round of a Swiss tournament, or maybe just in a simul. What would be your strategy? Yes, you can try to play defensive chess, trade pieces and hope to make a draw. This is a very...
It is difficult to find an opening which is misunderstood by more chess players than the Caro-Kann Defence! Former World Champion Anatoly Karpov once remarked, "I always had a very sad impression of this opening due to its desperate passivity." ...
The French Defense has a reputation of being a very solid, but not a very exciting opening from Black's point of view. Says Wikipedia: "The French has a reputation for solidity and resilience, though it can result in a somewhat cramped game for B...
Capablanca possessed terrific tactical powers. In this game, he gives a brilliant display of them. After sacrificing a queenside pawn, he proceeds to hunt down the enemy queen and capture it.After that, he has a material and positional advantage. ...
The Pirc Defense is a really strange opening. It looks almost like the Sicilian Dragon, except White has a strong center and Black has no open 'c' file for counterplay! Yet, it is a sound opening played by many great chess players. Still, seeing s...
The Alekhine Defense has always been the opening that has puzzled me the most. Since I was a child, I was taught that the goals of the opening were to occupy and control the center while bringing my pieces out as quickly as possible, and while fa...
The Scandinavian Defense (also known as the Center Counter in the USA) has one unique advantage compared to any other sharp line we've analyzed so far. Let's say you want to play the Latvian gambit (1.e4 e5 2. Nf3 f5). If your opponent plays th...
Long gone are the days when the words "Marshall Attack" would make the chess fans' hearts beat faster. These days it is a weapon of choice for many 2700+ GMs looking to make a quick draw. Using their computers, they have analyzed the Marshall At...
The Ruy Lopez is one of the most popular positional openings. In fact, Capablanca recommended to play the Ruy Lopez in order to improve your positional play. So, what should a tactical player do in order to avoid the notorious " Spanish Torture"?...
Last week we discussed the old main line of the Four Knights Game, the one where Black simply plays symmetrical moves hoping just to equalize. Modern treatments are getting more aggressive and sharp,which is why the Rubinstein Variation is t...
Vasily Panov (Nov. 1, 1906-Jan. 3, 1973) is known today for the Panov Attack in the Caro-Kann Defense. He won the Moscow Championship in 1929 and played in the USSR Championship five times. Unfortunately, not all of his games are found in database...
The Evans gambit is a true chess link between the romantic past and the computerized present. This sharp opening was played by the biggest stars chess ever produced: Morphy, Fischer, and Kasparov. This fact alone should tell you that the Evans G...
I know, your first reaction to the title of today's column could be : "What?? Four Knights Game for a tactical player??" And I can understand your scepticism. Even Wikipedia says : "The Four Knights usually leads to quiet positional play", but th...
OK, I have to admit that I totally made up the name of this opening. If after the moves 1.e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Black doesn't want to play the Italian Game (3...Bc5), the Two Knights Defense (3...Nf6) or the Hungarian (3...Be7) and instead pla...
The Italian Game is one of the oldest opening in chess. And it's sharpest line known as 'Greco Attack" is almost 400 years old. You might think that 400 years is enough for everyone to learn the main traps of this sharp opening and yet this dange...
Despite its very respectable age, the Scotch Game is very popular these days. Super GMs like it as a convenient way to avoid the Marshall Counter-Attack in the Ruy Lopez and amateurs like it for its relatively simple strategic pattern. Unfortunate...
The subject of today's discussion is the Göring Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3 d4 exd4 4. c3!?). Just like practically any gambit, this opening is a very dangerous weapon and since it is not particularly popular these days, most of your opponents wi...
The Petroff defense is loved by super GMs and hated by the average chess players! Why so? Here is what the Wikipedia says about this opening: "The Petrov has a reputation of being dull and uninspired." Indeed, this is a weapon of choice for many ...
The Ponziani Opening is one of the oldest openings in chess (it was mentioned for the first time in 1497!). Yet it was never really popular. Top chess players avoid it because Black has many reliable ways to equalize. For the club players the open...
Before we start the discussion about the Latvian Gambit (1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 f5), I have a confession to make. I never really trusted in this opening. It is one thing to play a risky King's Gambit and it is a totally different thing to p...
It is difficult to imagine a chess player who never fell into a well-known trap in the so-called Fried Liver Attack in the Two Knights Defense. It happened to me in my very first tournament. I played all the logical moves (1.e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc...
