Bobby Fischer played 1st board for the US in four chess Olympiads, the final one being Siegen in 1970. In 1972, after beating Spassky, the first major event he skipped (and never played again!) was that summer's Olympiad in Skopje. Fischer also p...
Professor: Hello, class. I see we’ve doubled in size. Allow me to introduce two new classmates. Zephyr and Lucian: Two new classmates? Professor: Zephyr and Lucian, please meet Hale and Ryan. Zephyr and Lucian: Hello. Hale and Ryan: H...
I will begin a series of article on various endgames arising from the Open Sicilian. The endgames share certain characteristic features - especially the trade of White's d-pawn for Black's c-pawn, giving Black two center pawns against one. Black h...
Paul Morphy 1870 Morphy in his time was known for, among other things, his blindfold play, a skill he developed purposefully and gradually. Almost all chess players know of his famous blindf...
I find the position above in yesterday's Mamedyarov-Nakamura game very interesting. I have started writing Everyman's Move by Move books for intermediate players (and above...hopefully) and one major component of the job is to ex...
Last week, I discussed a three-step method which you can (and should) apply to every move you are planning to make in a complex position to diminish the risk of blundering. As promised, today, we will actually test this method out and determine if...
There are not many duels between elite chess players that generate as much interest as the games between the World Champion Magnus Carlsen and the U.S. number one Hikaru Nakamura. Indeed, everyone can find something of interest. What will prevail:...
My first wife, Susan Hollis (Holly) Bloom Heisman, passed away of breast cancer in Oct 1994. Among her social work jobs had been working with battered wives and runaway teens. She also did extensive volunteering for the American Cancer Society (I ...
The 3 IGM-s who will play: SERES, Lajos /HUN/, KOSIC, Dragan /MNE/ and BLOMQVIST, Erik (SWE). In the IM section the IM-s: SZALANCZY, Emil (HUN), SZEBERENYI, Adam /HUN/, MATHE, Gaspar /HUN/, AL-ALI, Hussein Ali Hussein /IRQ/. Who does wish more i...
© 2014, José Diaz Links Interview with José Diaz José Diaz Official Website
People get excited by many different things. Some swoon over a good beer, others are into cars, and many live for sports. As a chess nerd, I and most experienced players go crazy over advanced holes (central holes are the most prized. From White’s...
A few weeks ago, I was surfing through some of my earliest games, played in 2003 and 2004 and recorded in a tattered blue scorebook that has been gathering dust in my closet forever. As I expected, positional blunders appeared in alarming quantiti...
The current World Blitz Champion, GM Le Quang Liem, and the former World Junior Champion, GM Dmitry Andreikin, will face off in Death Match 24 on Saturday, May 3, 2014. Their average FIDE rating of 2716 makes this the highest-rated Death Matc...
Professor: Good day, class. It’s wonderful to see you. Zephyr and Lucian: It’s wonderful to see you, too, Professor. Professor: As different as the two of you are, you always seem so connected. Lucian: You mean like emotionally aware, h...
The commentaries on chess.com and the Chessbase website reported on Carlsen's second loss in a row but did not explain why Radjabov played 10...Qe8! which avoids a potential bishop sacrifice on h5. My good friend, CM Olimpiu Urcan made this poin...
For the 4th year in a row, Metropolitan Chess has attracted yet another huge star to Southern California. This year's star will be World #2 GM Levon Aronian! Aronian has been named the official lead instructor of the 2014 Metropolitan & ACA ...
The Philadelphia Open recently concluded in my home city with the victory of the top seed, former world championship challenger, Gata Kamsky. Kamsky has a very unusual style, a style which I think many people neither understand or appreciate. I ...
Kasparov's My Great Predecessors series of books is a trove of invaluable information. Garry is a real King Midas of chess since whatever chess subject he touches, he turns into gold. Whether you want to improve your tactical skills, le...
There are certain rare actions in chess that elicit an almost emotional response - windmills, smothered mates, advantageous underpromotions and what I want to include here: Checkmate by Castling. &nb...
(I want to thank chess.com’s finest chess historian, batgirl, for articles shared, the photos you see in this article, and her very useful feedback when I asked her about Kolisch. If you don’t follow her blogs and articles you are foolishly depriv...
Metropolitan Chess, Inc., a Los Angeles based-company, has just published its first book under the imprint Metropolitan Chess Publishing: Modernized: The King's Indian Defense by GM Dejan Bojkov GM Bojkov is probably ve...
In life, improvement is usually achieved by proceeding along the triangle "->Learn->Practice->Test->". In chess, this is "->Study->Play->Get Feedback->". Leave something out of the loop and you get diminishing returns. Thi...
Professor: Good afternoon, class. I hope this past week has been spectacular. Zephyr: It was for me. I got to go to a concert. I heard Beethoven’s "Symphony No. 9". It was glorious. Professor: The Ninth Symphony! I wish I could have been th...
Two players reached the IM-norm, FM Sean from INA and FM Petrov (RUS) the next First Saturday GM IM FM events schedules: 3rd-13th May, 7th-17th June, 5th-15th July, 2nd-12th August, 6th-16th Sept, etc. IO Nagy Laszlo - www.firstsaturday.hu
