The chess world gasped when in game six of this year's world championship match, both Carlsen and Anand missed a simple tactical shot 26...Nxe5! (see #10 in the second part of this series). Some reporters even rushed to call it "the bi...
The double attack is a devastating tactical weapon. A double attack can come out of nowhere, instantly winning the game in a complex position. Combinations and tactical shots are usually made possible by a certain aspect of the position -- a vul...
Before we continue our "hit parade" of blunders, I'd like to thank our readers (and especially FritsFritschy) for their active participation in our discussion about the historic "blunder" in the first game of the Spassky-Fischer match that we...
How to Mate Your Opponent "Winning Chess" by Irving Chernev and Fred Reinfeld gave the following three quotes that inspired this presentation: As soon as a true thought has entered our mind, it gives a light which makes us see a crowd of ot...
The world championship match Carlsen-Anand is over now and it brings some relief to me because I was afraid that I might have to expand this collection of blunders. Thankfully, despite being tired, both contenders didn't commit any huge b...
At one time or another, all of us have experienced the agonizing pain of drawing or losing a completely winning position. One move — one millisecond of imprecise thinking — can nullify hours of hard work and inspired play. ...
Magnus Carlsen won the 2014 world championship match in game 11 today to defend his title. But the sixth game of the Carlsen-Anand match made waves around the world. Some chess journalists rushed to christen the astonishing m...
In the first part of this article, we discussed how Alexey Shirov discovered a beautiful idea during a postmortem analysis of his game vs. GM Azmaiparashvili. Unexpectedly, he got a chance to use a similar idea in the last round of the sam...
In online blitz chess (and especially in bullet), resignation is largely frowned upon. Indeed, with so little time remaining, there is always a possibility that your opponent will make a disastrous blunder, an unfortunate mouse slip, or &mdas...
The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer once said: "Every truth passes through three stages before it is recognized. In the first it is ridiculed; in the second it is opposed; in the third it is regarded as self-evident." There are ...
Today, I want to show some great tactics. Tactics was always nice, because normally, who have more material, wins. But sometimes, the player with more material lose. Firstly, I want to show a well-known Lilienthal-Capablanca, where white sacrifice...
Many folks see the endgame as the most boring part of the game, where it is all about the technique. Even though some endgames require a decent amount of technique and sometimes can look boring for inexperienced chess players, they can still ...
Today, we will continue our exploration of brilliant combinations that have been wrongly cast into oblivion. First, I would like to share one of my own games from many years back, in which I missed a gorgeous mating sequence. It was a very pain...
In this day and age, nary a chess player is unfamiliar with the most famous tactical games of all time: Morphy-Count Isouard, Anderssen-Kieseritzky (The Immortal Game), Anderssen-Dufresne (The Evergreen Game), Glucksberg-Najdorf (The Polish Immort...
Imagination is a vital component of every attacking player's arsenal. When attacking, it is easy to assume that a certain move or sequence is forced, thereby allowing your opponent to build up a sudden defensive bastion or attain counterplay. In ...
Pins are very popular and powerful chess weapons, and I am sure you've used them in dozens of your own games. If you just started playing chess and never heard about pins, I strongly recommend you check the Tactics Trainer. But even if you are...
In the beginning of 1980s, a young and promising British international master (let's call him Nigel) played a chess tournament in the Soviet Union. At that point, a tournament in the USSR was the best possible chess school for any chess player, an...
All chess players, whether they're GMs or novices, have bad days. However, chess is not a cumulative game — one blunder, one moment of premature relaxation — can instantly nullify hours of hard work. A few months...
Today we’ll enjoy a lighthearted (with a tad of “morbid” tossed in) look at the time-honored queen sacrifice. I’m calling it “Parting With the Lady” in honor of the late Jerry Hanken, who wrote a number of excel...
In the first part of this article, we left our Chess Terminator playing countless blitz and bullet games during the last free day of the championship. In the following seventh round, Nakamura had a very tough opponent. By the way, this is a good...
In one of my previous articles, I compared Mikhail Tal to a chess version of the Terminator. To be fair, except for his ultra aggressive playing style, the always-friendly Mikhail Tal looked like anything but this terrifying creature played b...
There are many different traps in chess. Some of them are so well known that you can hardly use these tricks even against relatively weak players. However, some traps are good enough to catch even grandmasters. Sometimes, the world's leadi...
There is no need to explain the importance of tactics for a tournament player. I bet you've all heard the cliche "chess is 99% tactics," or an anecdote about a grandmaster who was a famous endgame specialist. (Was it Smyslov? I don't remember.) ...
Even devout Petrosian fans cannot deny that combinations are aesthetically pleasing by definition. However, keen tactical vision is no longer a unique commodity. Sharp combinatorial awareness has become a required skill of all serious chess play...
