How to win a won game? This is probably one of the most difficult skills that a chess player has to master in order to be able to collect points confidently. The answer to the question asked in the title lays in the player's ability to convert an...
Imagine this is YOU It’s 1918, and you’re one of the strongest chess players on earth. You live in Odessa, during one of Russia’s most chaotic periods. Trying to stay on top of the political upheaval, you take whatever side offers the best chance...
Alert: If you are interested in how rules get changed and/or tournament pairings get made, this article should prove fairly entertaining. If not, then just skip it, as the story may not be your cup of tea . Our Main Line Chess Club runs ongoing U...
Most people even remotely interested in 19th century chess know about Mrs. John W. Gilbert and her extremely long announced mates. What seems to be less appreciated today is the sheer strength of this lady chess pl...
It is difficult to find a chess player who could be compared with Aron Nimzowitsch by his contribution to modern opening theory. When we talk about Nimzowitsch's opening heritage many chess players would instantly think about the defense...
"Show the first 14-15 moves of a Sicilian Dragon and explain the main ideas of some of the moves" (!) Hmm. They write entire books about sub-variations of the Yugoslav Attack (like Mayer's book on the Soltis variation) and I am supposed to show th...
Today we will wrap up the series on how to convert an advantage according to Kramnik. This article is the seventh installment on this topic. Last week I showed you several of my games from the recent World Open, where I had a chance to practice wh...
National Master Bruce Pandolfini is an acclaimed Chess Book Author, Teacher and Coach. Lessons in his "Pandolfini's Puzzler" column for ChessKid.com are fictional stories based on true events from his own lessons. "In chess, you look for the best...
A slight advantage doesn't mean you're necessarily going to win the game. It just means that your opponent has the more difficult problems to solve, and his mistakes will probably hurt his position more than yours will. In a queenless middlegame, ...
SPACE: CLOSED CENTER, DUELING WINGS When the center is closed, both sides need to gain space on the wings. One gains space by advancing pawns, which acts as a sort of fence that lays claim to any territory within the fenced borders. Pushing pawns...
During the past several weeks we had a big discussion about stalemate. I hope from now on you won't allow your opponent to miraculously escape when you are winning and also won't miss your last chance to save the game when you are losing. Tod...
This article is the one before the last on how to convert an advantage according to Vladimir Kramnik. In the last five articles we explored the methods which Kramnik uses that lead to effective advantage conversion in better positions. Most of the...
In this week's edition of my "Without the Lady" column, I will be showing an interesting game I played last year against the young Filipino GM Wesley So. Despite the early exchange of queens, the game was razor-sharp - imbalanced in terms of struc...
In this series, and especially in this particular article, I’m trying to instill a love of chess history with Chess.com members. For those who simply don’t like to read, or those who hate chess history, just go right to the puzzles. Ho...
Last week we discussed a very important role of a stalemate in many endgames. Believe me or not, but a stalemate can be very useful in openings too. Say, you want a draw and your opponent doesn't mind too, but the pesky Sofia rule doesn't allow yo...
Isaac Leopold Rice     I had, of course, heard about Prof. Isaac L. Rice and his gambit as well as his famous Rice Gambit Tournaments. But my superficial impression over the years was that the gambit wasn't particularly good and that ...
Two of the questions on today's show were: 1) Give us an example of how you evalute a position, and 2) What do you think about the line 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 b6 (a fairly rare variation of the French Defense, Tarrasch Variation)? I did not have...
Today we start wrapping up our series on converting an advantage according to Vladimir Kramnik. Over the last four articles we explored methods and techniques that Kramnik uses to efficiently convert the advantage in slightly better or winning pos...
In the first part of this short series we saw some examples of the advantage that extra space confers on its owner. Now we will see the dark side of the space advantage - the weaknesses left behind as your forces advance further across the board. ...
Ernest Morphy was Paul Morphy's uncle. Ernest Morphy was probably also young Paul's greatest admirer. Besides sending Paul's games (and his only chess problem) to various publications, in Eu...
Louis Paulsen was a conte...
In Part 2 of this series I pointed out that Lasker’s tactics are a bit different than tactics by Tal or Kasparov or Alekhine. In fact, when you take a long look at Lasker’s games, you realize that tactics is the fuel that drives all hi...
Today, especially on the Internet, fast games are probably more the rule than the exception. Most of the fast games played fall under the "Blitz" and "Bullet" or "Lightning" heading. Time clocks, particularly...
Stalemate is a vital part of many theoretical endgames. For example the whole defensive mechanism in such a basic position as king and pawn vs. king is based on a stalemate: Image: Thoughts from the Line Here is a bunch of imp...
