boundering puzzle
white to move..mate in 3 moves there's also a different way to mate it..
Trust in Trauma
(Editor's note: Due to a lengthy tour of European tournaments, GM Bhat will miss a couple weeks in his column. For those interested in his results and some of his games, you may wish to check out his blog, http://vbhat.wordpress.com/ . You should ...
Greek Gift and ways of attacking a castled king
Kingside castling is performed to activate the H-rook and to shelter the king behind a wall of pawns, away from the dangers of the centre of the board. The king is still vulnerable to attack. One of the most elegant and well-known ways of ...
Are you smarter than a Grandmaster ? Part Two.
Originally a second part to last week's article wasn’t even planned and yet, as you can see, it is here. What made me change my mind? It is that ‘Rush Hour 3’ movie. Well, actually not even the whole movie, but this particular part of the movi...
A Bad Blunder
A few weeks ago, I played this game. Demonstrating the danger of underestimating an opening - and also your opponent. My rating, from quite a few years ago now, since I've stopped competing regularly, was quite a lot lower than my opponent's. Ho...
Are you smarter than a Grandmaster ?
These days you can find a TV game show about anything. Well, almost about anything. There is no game show about chess. Call me a hopeless nerd, but I would love to see the face of the contestant who gets a question “ What chess player having a ...
Attacking the g7 (g2) pawn
After king has castled,attacking the g2 pawn (usually with rook) to destroy enemy's defenses is a method that we are going to analyze with some examples. At the first diagram black is threatening Qa1 mate but white takes adv...
Queen+Rook tactics
Some combinations and tactics with queen and rook and how these pieces can give winning possibilities. For some other variants check "MOVE LIST" At the first example white threatens Qxc7+ and Qb7 mate.Also white's b...
Attacks at the kingside castle
Below i have two interesting examples about how someone can penetrate king's defenses.Enjoy! Don't forget to check "MOVE LIST"
Hard Candy, Part Two
In the first part of the article last week we discussed the hidden danger of innocent-looking openings. The idea is to take off guard an opponent who mistakenly thinks that a very modest (sometimes even primitive) opening is equivalent to a lack ...
Rooks at the 8th:A powerful weapon
We will see with some examples of how useful is the invasion of one (or two) rook at the 8th (or 1st) rank.
An amazing example about the power of passed pawns
Below we see an instructive example about the strength of the passed pawns.The game was played in Madrid at 1934.White seems better as he has his rook at the 7th rank and black's Bishop is blocked from his own pawn.But black has to move...Don't fo...
Find the Winning Moves!
Gharamian - Perrett European Cup 2008 White to play! Everthing hangs. It does not take a detective to see what Black played last move (Bishop on e5 took pawn on b2), however, it does take an entire police force to catch ...
The Learning Process
One thing that I try pretty hard to do after playing a tournament these days is to go through all my games and annotate them. There are various things I'm looking for, but here's a quick list: (1) Did the opening go according to plan? If not, fig...
The Cross-Pin
Here's an interesting tactic: the Cross-Pin. It is a simple, yet deadly variation of the pin, in which a player simulateously pins one piece to two or more other pieces. It is usually utilized by the bishop and the queen, and can be used as a doub...
The Vicious Bishop
Bishop - When two Bishops are invading the enemy territory, a good hand will ensure the enemy pieces go one by one. The Bishop is adept at cleaning lone pieces and are best at faraway attacks ( open spaces ), unlike the Knight. Bishops ...
The Good the Bad and the Ugly
Hello everyone! First, let me thank all readers of my column for their feedback. It gives me a lot of food for thought and also allows me to address your questions and concerns. Here I would like to answer a very simple and yet a very important ...
An insight on : the flexible Knight
Knight...... Believe it or not, the Knight is as hard to capture as the Queen. Normally, a Knight leaves the board due to either carelessness or an exchange. If the opponent is good, he or she can capture the Knight by trapping it. This requir...
An insight on : the humble pawn
Pawn: The weakest of pieces. However, there are eight of them, so if used efficiently and wisely, a pawn structure can block even the best of strategies. Also, the pawn can work with another piece to take down the enemy. As there are eight pawns,...
Good Cop, Bad Cop...
Last week we discussed how to avoid falling into an opening trap. But wouldn’t be it cool to set a trap on our own? At first it looks like not a difficult task since we learn all kinds of opening traps from the moment we start playi...
A Way To Finish
Here is a very entertaining game by Morphy. In the opening, his opponent offers a rook, but he declines to achieve the superior position. Next, he creates a passed pawn, which sets it up for a fantastic ending.
