member BCG1 asked: In Andrew Soltis’ book BOBBY FISCHER REDISCOVERED, page 278, he states (regarding the rematch in 1992 with Spassky), “In fact the match games were of a fairly high quality particularly when compared with Kasparov’s championship...
Here is another brilliant game by Morphy; you might not have seen this one before. He gives his opponent knight odds, but manages to win the piece back in the opening. Eventually, an endgame arises where Morphy has two rooks on the seventh rank. H...
There are all sorts of ways to merge chess with art or music. Music critic and chess writer and aficionado, Harold Schonberg considered chess itself an art "in that it deals with the materials and processes of creation and evokes an aesthetic re...
In last week's article (hocus-pocus) we discussed the connection between the King's Indian Defense (KID) and the King's Indian Attack (KIA). Today we'll analyze some typical attacking ideas of the KIA. The Nf3-g5 maneuver. This is the most aggre...
Alexander Beliavsky was born December 17, 1953 in Lviv, Ukraine. He won the World Junior Championship in 1973 and the USSR Championship in 1974, 1980, 1987, and 1990. In 1983, Beliavsky lost to Garry Kasparov in a quarterfinal Candidates match. He...
The Doeberl Cup took place between April 21 and 25 in Australia’s capital. It was the 49-th edition of the event, which features the who's who of Australian chess. The tournament is named after the architect Erich Doeberl who strongly...
In the last game of the US Women’s championship I could have transposed into an endgame were I had a queen and my opponent had a rook and two pieces. The material advantage would have been on her side but my queen was very active and I also would ...
by GM Magesh and GM Arun This week we will study the Stonewall Defense. An interesting idea from black to use his pawn chain to build a wall-like formation that stops white from encroaching into black's territory. But, just as any idea has its o...
Mikhail Nejemevich Tal was born in Riga, Latvia on November 9, 1936. He was a genuine child prodigy: at three years old he read perfectly, at five he multiplied three digit numbers in his head. His father was a physician and Tal became interested ...
Right now I am playing in the Russian Club Cup. This tournament has a relatively long history, and accumulates top players not only from Russia, but from all over the world. The event is a round robin. Six main boards + two reserves for men, 4+2 f...
member Matt Chapman asked: I’m looking not so much for an answer to this question (unless you happen to have the knowledge, which would be fantastic) but a reference to someone who might know (and indeed, how to contact them). You see, I’m having...
Exactly 20 years ago, in 1991, I was playing the Soviet Championship Under-26 years old. This was an invitational tournament for the top Soviet players and not surprisingly all participants of that tournament later became Grandmasters. One of the ...
Paul Keres (1916-1975) was a great player from Estonia. He was one of the world’s leading players from the 1930s to the 1960s. Keres won the AVRO tournament in 1938 and became the leading challenger to World Champion Alexander Alekhine, but a matc...
January 6, 2011 was a day I will remember well for a long time. I was currently playing in the Berkeley International, and I needed half a point from my next 2 games for my final GM norm. Although that day I lost to GM Erenburg and it wasn’t until...
Last week we looked at an endgame and came up with two plans for white. They were not sufficient to gain advantage. Black’s position is solid and it is not easy to break through. Black has one weakness – the white passed pawn on b3. It is useful t...
by GM Magesh and GM Arun Last week we saw how Morozevich used his sharp tactical skills and his creative play to use this opening successfully against strong opposition. This week we shall see how one would normally counter a counter-gambit! T...
Early Years Vasily Vasiliyevich Smyslov was born on March 24, 1921. He learnt chess at the age of six, and after studying books in his father's library, became really serious about the game at the age of 13, when two world champions, Capablanca a...
Part 3 This is the third part of my series of articles about my move to Europe to play chess. In the first two parts I described the reasons why I decided to move, the first tournament I played in this year (the Prague open) and the sec...
The Marshall Attack has long been popular with top players, but can Frank Marshall's Gambit hold up against the Houdini monster? A team of mere masters proves that it can in a theoretically important game complete with fireworks!
member Yigor asked: Please tell me what you think about 1.d4 Nc6 2.d5 Ne5 3.Nc3? Dear Yigor: A logical question. I probably should have given it a quick nod in my article. However, my article on this line wasn’t meant to be thorough (that would...
David Bronstein (1924-2006) earned his international grandmaster title in 1950, the same year that Ljubomir Ljubojevic was born. In 1951, Bronstein lost his challenge for the World Championship by scoring 12-12 against Mikhail Botvinnik. In 1970 L...
Here is another of my pet openings you've probably never heard of but I have used it consistently against titled players with good results.
Most chess players prefer to play White and the statistics clearly favors the side who opens the game first. One of the amazing features of Korchnoi's chess is the number of games he won with Black (unfortunately I know it from my own experience, ...
Before looking at a training game that I had while playing this endgame let us review general ideas of why playing out endgames is important. Generally, we have more experience with openings and middlegames because these stages of the game happen ...
