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...
American GM Sam Shankland has been welcomed in Serbia as a new world chess star on a horizon, following his exceptional result from recent Tromso Olympiad - 7.0/7 at the beginning and best percentage on the event overall 9.0/10. Shankland came...
American women had been playing chess long before establishment of the USCF in the late 1930s. In fact, as early as the mid 1890s, an officially conducted match was played between two highly considered lady chess players to determine the be...
When Fabiano Caruano was about 12, he and his father Lou, whom I knew casually, approached the TD booth to ask for a bye in one of the Continental Chess Association's big Philadelphia-based open events. I was the fill-in TD and, although I knew h...
1. Paragraphs Do make paragraphs clear, focused, readable, and short. Every paragraph should have its own identifiable point. If you can’t explain (to yourself) the point of a paragraph, it needs to be rewritten. Do start a ne...
The Chess Olympiad is one of my favorite events. In the words of the Romanian GM Mihail Marin, "the champions themselves do not mind rubbing shoulders with mere mortals, even though this may look risky for their ratings." Most lopsided matchups,...
Professor: Welcome, everyone. In its typical blasé manner, the class offered a communal smile back. Professor: How unusual for this class, Thomas. You have your hand up. What is it? Thomas: I saw a position in Washington Square ...
It was a live chat over Facebook at the Chess Informant's community page. These days, GM Sam Shankland, Tromso Olympiad star, is in Belgrade, Serbia, and tomorrow he would play promotional rapid tournament with all the members of the Serbian Olymp...
After Alekhine's death and the subsequent 1948 world championship tournament (covered in my article last week), the chess world began the three-year world championship cycle, which would continue in relatively orderly fashion until Kasparov and Sh...
Right now - live chat with Sam Shankland on Facebook!!! www.facebook.com/ChessInformant The USA Golden Boy from the Tromso Olympiad, GM Sam Shankland, has come to Belgrade as a guest of Chess Informant. Playing as a reserve player for the US te...
In our second installment of Monster Opening Preparation (part 1 here), we’ll take a look at two of the most famous “prep” games ever. Both are highlighted by legends concerning the length of time they prepared/analyzed/pondered ...
I can speak easier than I can explain, so I made a short video. In essence, the common opening mistake being made in amateur chess is pushing rook pawns (a and h files) up one square to keep Bishops and Knights from giving pins or threatening fork...
You might know that Bobby Fischer was responsible for creating unprecedented excitement in the United States chess community when he defeated Boris Spassky to win the 1972 world championship over the Soviet Union. Fischer’s victory inspired mill...
One of the first chess books I bought myself was a red little volume in German called Garrik Kasparow - Idol der Jugend by T.Lais. Published in 1983 - when Kasparov was just 20 years old - it contained 60 lightly annotated games played by the late...
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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...
Despite his irritable personality and somewhat dogmatic assertions, Aron Nimzowitsch (1886-1935) is the undisputed patriarch of modern positional thought. In his magnum opus My System (1925), Nimzowitsch formulated and verbalized a litany o...
Professor: Good day, class. The class smiled back, some of the students even said “hi.” Professor: Are there any questions before we begin today’s session? Hale: I was wondering if I could show the final moves from a blitz game I had the other...
Shortly after the end of World War II, Alexander Alekhine died, allegedly by choking, in a mostly empty hotel on the windswept coast of Portugal. He left the world championship crown vacant, for the first time since Steinitz became the first wor...
GOOD OR BAD? Mordecai10 asked: I have just completed part 1 of your Test Your Chess Understanding articles, and I wasn’t completely satisfied by one aspect of your solutions. In your solution to puzzle 2, you say the following: &lsquo...
The game of chess has a storied history dating back to about 600 AD, with many momentous events in those 1500 years. About half a billion people today play chess worldwide, and the game has been adopted by cultures in every continent ...
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...
"If you had to pick only one legacy to leave to the chess world, what would it be?" Well, I have long given up on any hopes of my campaign to de-emphasize the wonderfully accurate but humanly over-dependent rating system (see Encouraging Tourname...
Professor: Howdy, class. Here the class responded with a collective “hi.” Professor: We have a new class member being added to our roster today. I’d like you to meet Idris. Everyone smiled coyly, but warmly. Zephyr: Wha...
