Some time ago I showed a game where I got the initiative in the early middle game: http://www.chess.com/forum/view/game-showcase/better-piece-play-and-a-pawn-storm-worked-well-together Very nice! you may think, but why mentioning it again? Well,...
The pawn fork: fun, often game changing, sadistic. In fact the David vs. Goliath feel of a lowly pawn simultaneously hitting two far more valuable enemy pieces is one of the game’s great pleasures. But, is the pawn fork really some rare nuclear ...
Today we will look at few examples from world champions' practice where one side sacrificed a pawn for positional reasons. In some cases this sacrifice was absolutely necessary, while in the other cases it was optional, even questionable. We will ...
No time to study opening theory? Shock your opponent with an SOS! With an SOS you deviate early (usually before move 6!) from regular lines in mainstream openings. So you will reach positions you have actually studied without having memorized tons...
This week I will be reviewing a book that was pretty influential for me when I was growing up. This is Garry Kasparov's game collection The Test of Time. The book includes his annotations of games starting from his first steps in international che...
One might think that going after material (Part One) or using the fork as an attacking device (Part Two) would be the main themes regarding Knight forks. And that’s true. But there are other uses for this tactical weapon that you might not b...
The subject of today's discussion might sound bizarre for most of you. Indeed, all the chess coaches as well as books, magazines and Web sites teach you how to win your games and here we talk about when to resign? And yet, I think any e...
In my column "Pros and Cons" I discuss the subjects that have no clear answer. Are doubled pawns good or bad, is an isolated pawn an asset or a liability, what's better a Bishop or a Knight? The answer is the same to all these questions: "It...
Woman Grandmaster Camilla Baginskaite from Sioux Falls in the United States has won the World Girls Under 20 championship, the US Women's championship, made top 16 in World Women's Championship and played in seven Chess Olympiads. She is also a ...
When I get asked generic questions on the show about improvement, there's about an 80% chance that I already have at least one Novice Nook containing a much more comprehensive answer than I could easily cover on the air. This, of course, makes me ...
Generally speaking there are two types of chess players: optimists and pessimists. The first tend to stay positive and evaluate positions in their favor, while those in the latter category often give the opponent too much credit and underestimate ...
This week I will be reviewing an interesting and unusual book about the development of chess in China. The author, Liu Wenzhe, is considered to be one of the first promoters of western chess in China. Originally a XiangQi (Chinese chess) player, W...
Today I am going to continue with examples on what to do when you have a time advantage. Continúo hoy con más ejemplos sobre qué hacer cuando tienes una ventaja de tiempo. Here’s the video of the middlegame stage from Gulko-Radjabov. I made this ...
In Part One of the Misunderstood Knight Fork, I compared the Knight fork’s raison d’être as “leaping into an unapologetic orgy of material gain.” In Part Two we take the chains off those well fed horses (after all, ...
Probably all chess players ask themselves at some point of their chess career: "Am I a positional chess player or a tactician?" Based on the answer to this question they choose openings and the general strategy of their games. But if you say...
This article will build on the topic of seeing and correctly assessing key positions which we started studying in the previous article. In last week's article we looked at this concept by analyzing a recent endgame. Today we will see several openi...
Regardless of strength, some players make serious blunders more often than others. While obviously most mistakes in chess are due to either a miscalculation or misevaluation of the position, when a 2500-rated player simply puts a piece en prise, y...
You'll have to excuse me for not putting this article up sooner. My friend, Gomi, invited me to go on vacation with him and his family. And you just don't reject Islands and Fun. Back to Chess  I am going to use English and Spanish in this article...
Forks are one of the most useful tactical tools in chess (not to be confused with cutlery). Most people view forks as a way to attack more than one enemy piece at a time and, by doing so, winning a decisive amount of material. While that’s t...
One of the major strategic rules of chess is "Keep your King safe!". It is precisely due to this rule that a very common pin from many openings which start with 1. e4 e5 is especially dangerous. For example this one: We've all had a similar ex...
Tonight's show was a lively one and I think one of the best. It's always fun when I get to do a little story-telling to enhance an answer. Moreover, the good questions from the audience led to an interesting show - when it was over I was quite sat...
A strong chess player calculates variations well but also knows when to stop and evaluate the resulting position, resorting to experience and knowledge of typical positions. An experienced player will know that certain positions are better for him...
Last week we were discussing the question of when to strike when you have an advantage, using some of my games from a recent tournament as examples. The question of when to attack and when to make small improvements/ prevent counterplay is a very ...
