Chessmanian Devil
© 2013, José Diaz Links Interview with José Diaz José Diaz Official Website
Positional Methods From Carlsen's Play, Part 2
Carlsen's ability to improve pieces is exceptional. In last week's article we explored some of the diagonal piece maneuvers from the new world champion's practice. Either a queen or a bishop moved to a more active position, so that another piece c...
First Saturday Budapest chess tournaments 7th-17th December 2013
A HUN FM Korpa, Bence reached his 1st GM-norm, the CHN player Li Bo reached his 2nd IM-norm and the INA player (16) FM Sean Winshand Cuhendi reached his 2nd IM.norm in the December event. The FIDE.com published our press release: http://www.fid...
Pandolfini's Puzzler #21 - The 3-4-5 Problem
“It’s good to see the both of you,” the Professor began. “And because you’ve become my two favorite students, I’ve got an intriguing problem for you to consider today. Working as a team, I’m hoping you can apply your wonderful analytic skills to s...
From Opening to Endgame: The Nimzo-Indian
For this week's edition of "From Opening to Endgame", we will be examining the endgame which results from the 4.Qc2 Nimzo-Indian, after Oleg Romanishin's unusual (but brilliant) innovation 6...Qf5: 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Qc2 d5 5.cxd5 Qxd5...
Insane, Surprising, or Beautiful Finishes, Part 3
My last article didn’t have any chess puzzles, which I know Chess.com readers enjoy. To make up for that, we’ll have a simple article this week composed entirely of puzzles. And, as I did in Part 2 of this series, all examples will be ...
The 'Impossible' Checkmate
What is an impossible checkmate? If you open any book for beginners it will inform you that a king and a lonely knight cannot checkmate an opponent's king. Moreover, if you only have a king and a knight and your opponent lost on time in an Interne...
Nice Combinations from World Champions Part I
Dear readers! I think all member like tactics. Now I follow tactics, from Spassky: After this nice tactic, let see a pawn sacrifice in opening! The sacrifice not win the game, but black have a clear positional advantage. Now see Spassky, after...
Q&A with Coach Heisman Dec 13, 2013
"I know doing basic tactics puzzles is good for me but I don't have much fun doing them. How can I make them more fun?" A great question. But of course the answer depends on a large part of what is preventing that study from being fun. It might b...
Positional Methods From Carlsen's Play, Part 1
This article introduces new series of articles dedicated to the magnificent play of our current world champion - Magnus Carlsen. A series of five or more articles will span different positional and tactical ideas that Carlsen effectively uses in h...
Pandolfini's Puzzler #20 - Touch a Piece and You Can't Be Wrong
“I came upon a problem the other day I thought might be entertaining for our class,” Professor Pando began. “I can see on your faces you’re wondering what I mean by that.” --- Zephyr and Lucian looked enthusiastic but also a tiny bit puzzled. ---...
From Opening to Endgame: The Modern
The ability to play without queens is crucial for all aspects of your chess. First of all, it gives you the confidence you need to go straight from the opening into the endgame, knowing that you can outplay your opponent. Many players avoid going ...
Hannibal Lecter Presents: Readers' Questions
Due to the crash of my website email address (which has finally been fixed), I didn’t look at my business letters for a month and a half. There were about 60 waiting for me. One was from a guy that wanted me to give him a study program that featur...
Make a Connection!
I decided to write on this subject after I saw the discussion in the comments section of last week's article where we talked about the tricky B+N checkmate. Somebody asked the question "why not Kd1 ??? what must we do after 58.Kd1 ??" Let's look a...
Chess.com Player Profiles: GM gmfinegold
"GM Ben Finegold is really a comedian at heart; the problem is that most of the funny stuff he says can't be ON the record for obvious reasons... So I would say Ben is even funnier than most people know", says IM Daniel Rensch. Ben Finegold w...
Berlin Schach-Cafés
In the last quarter of the 19th century several Berlin cafés stood out as places where chess and other games could be played. It was at theses places where the great German players who would lead the chess world into the 20th century learned...
What Now
© 2013, José Diaz Links Interview with José Diaz José Diaz Official Website
Heritage in Modern Play, End
We will wrap-up this series about heritage in modern play by looking at one more position with a typical pawn structure. This position can arise from many different Queen's Gambit openings after massive pawn exchanges in the center where both side...
Pandolfini's Puzzler #19 - Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
“I’m glad to see you’re both here in class together,” ProfessorPando said to Zephyr and Lucian. --- “Also, I want to tell you what I saw the other night at the chess club,” the Professor went on. “Although I don’t want to admit it, getting up at ...
The Lethargic Bishop
Good players don't see the chess pieces as just bits of wood or plastic. They see them as bundles of energy. A piece gathers more energy from its surroundings, from the structure of the position. In the past few weeks I have shown some examples ...
Insane, Surprising, or Beautiful Finishes, Part 2
In last week’s article about insane, surprising, or beautiful finishes, I showed a horror story of a game by Irina Krush where she overlooked a mate in one (while three pawns ahead in an endgame), which cost her the World Championship for girls un...
The Famous Warsaw Café of Kiev
(This article was written/translated from the original Russian by WilhelmThe2nd ) In its day, in its particular place, in its brief moment in time, the Warsaw Café was a well-known establishment in Kiev. Even the building itself couldn'...
The Embarrassing Endgame
I call the endgame king+bishop+knight vs. a lonely king an 'embarrassing' endgame because I know too many cases where chess players left a chess board embarrassed. Indeed, just imagine how would you feel if you had a theoretically winning endgame,...
Review: Lisa, Pump Up Your Rating, and other recent books
It’s not easy to find time to read chess books when there’s a World Championship match going on at the same time. Still, chess publishers around the globe managed to reach me over the last few months, and I felt compelled to read some ...
