There are many different ways to improve your chess, but few of them can compete with the time-proven method of studying games played by great chess players. Indeed, this way you learn all the elements of chess from opening to endgam...
Amateur chess is often a back-and-forth, muddy, and even stormy adventure where a position’s assessment changes from move to move. However, it doesn’t have to be that way. The “trick” is to learn as many basic patterns (...
Earlier this year, Chess.com included a brief mention of the death of renowned logician Raymond Smullyan, who often used chess as the medium for his puzzle creations. He was quite the chessic sorcerer -- even his picture above makes him look like ...
Chess and poker are frequently compared as both games are based on strategic thinking and decision making. I know many professional and semi-professional chess players who've completely abandoned chess in favor of poker. At some point ...
My mother used to tell me that being embarrassed is just realizing that other people like you more in that moment than you like yourself. Yep. She was nuts Her crazy ideas aside we can all admit it's nice to be loved and appreciated ...
While wanting to write an introduction, putting my thoughts on the topic into words has proven to be a most difficult undertaking. Although I predominantly scour books, newspapers and periodicals for the bulk...
When chess players say "match of the century," usually they refer to the famous match between the USSR and the "rest of the world" that took place in Belgrade in 1970. In reality, many famous chess competitions (mostly world championship matc...
Every chess player knows about the classic bishop sacrifice. And everyone wants to smash that light-squared bishop into h7, drag the screaming-in-terror enemy king from its pawn cover, and execute it as its army helplessly watches.In general, t...
I bet that some of you, my dear readers, think that I am going to talk about "Fool's Mate" or "Scholar's Mate." Indeed, there is no way to get checkmated faster than Fool's Mate: And there is no more popular beginner's opening than Schola...
Here we try to keep track of some of the best performances of the 2017 season of the PRO Chess League. Points Scored # Name Team Pts 1 Meier, Georg Stockholm Snowballs 29.5 2 So, Wesley Saint Louis Archbishops 26...
My last two articles were about the best game prizes for Mikhail Tal (who won the most prizes — 15) and Rashid Nezhmetdinov, who came in tied for 3rd and 4th with Anatoly Karpov (10 prizes; Garry Kasparov came in second with 12). ...
Anthony Edward Santasiere - This name evokes images of the New York chess scene during the 1920, 30s and 40s: Frank Marshall, Edward Lasker, Albert Pinkus, Fred Reinfeld, Sammy Reshevsky, Abe Kupchik, Isaac Kashdan, I.A. Horowit...
![How Chess is Like... [FILL IN THE BLANK]](https://images.chesscomfiles.com/uploads/v1/article/17541.449e2da2.300x169o.810797651e4a.png)
Chess is many things. A game. An art. A hobby. A science. A sport? But it is also a metaphor that is used in the media to tap into the symbol of intellectual struggle. If you want to show how intricately strategic and thoughtful and craf...
There is one thing chess players at all levels have in common: we want to play better. From the player who just learnt how to move the pieces all the way to Magnus Carlsen. And the good news is that there is always room for improvement. Bu...
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As I explained in this article, modern life forces me to recollect the episodes from my childhood years. One such memory is something that every Soviet schoolboy was supposed to know if he wanted to get into a good college, something I t...
Chess.com has always offered a great platform to recruit new students and provide online (live) lessons, but are you - as a titled player or professional chess coach - fully aware of all the tools and opportunities available to you?...
After showing all of Tal’s 15 best game prizes in my previous article, it struck me that many Chess.com members might not have heard of Rashid Nezhmetdinov (born 1912, died 1974), who tied with Karpov for the third and fourth place...
In a recent interview, the man who's a perfect five-for-five in writing New York Times bestsellers explained that he now has to chase his audience. And that means podcasting. Fittingly, renowned author Malcolm Gladwell explained t...
© 2017, José Diaz Links Interview with José Diaz
In the beginning of the 1990s, I established a certain routine. Whenever I set foot in Moscow (and I did it pretty frequently), I would visit the Central Chess Club and climb a narrow staircase to the third floor to meet Botvinnik in his labo...
Setting up a chess game is easy. It’s playing that can be hard. Here is how to set up a game. Step 1: Decide where to play. Do you want to play on a real board with a friend near you? Or do you want to play with one of mil...
If you have a chess set and want to start a game, the first thing you need to do is get the board set up correctly. Step 1: Lay out the board with the light square in the bottom-right corner. It’s important to orient the board in the righ...
Millions of people around the world play chess regularly—but how do you become good at chess? 1. Define what “good at chess" means. To some people, being “good” means they can beat the average chess player. If that i...