Here are several “nuggets” that might be gold or might be rabbit pellets. You decide. member AnlamK asked: In your books THE AMATEUR’S MIND and HOW TO REASSESS YOUR CHESS 4th edition, you write about the importance of ignoring the opponents’ (ph...
Today is my birthday, but there is nothing to celebrate. It was my worst year ever, spent mostly in hospital dealing with leg and arm amputations and other medical problems. I'm stuck in a dump of a nursing facility with nothing to do but try to w...
To wrap up this miniseries, a few more nice wins, including one by Julian Hodgson (pictured).
The sixth World Champion Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik was born on August 17, 1911, so this year the World Community will celebrate the 100th anniversary of his birth and FIDE has announced that 2011 will be the "Year of Botvinnik." He was the fo...
The Bayonet Attack was born the same year I was. It is a logical response to Black's kingside ambitions. White plans an all-out attack on the queenside.but will also try to disrupt Black's plans by sinking a knight at e6 once Black weakens that sq...
A sideline of the Queen’s Gambit Declined is arrived at by 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 c5. This is not the Tarrasch Defense in which Black plays 3...c5. It is sometimes called the Pseudo-Tarrasch. White has options, but no need, to avoid 5.cx...
World Champion Anatoly Karpov didn't lose many games but he did fall to the Torre Attack at the hands of Viktor Korchnoi and Artur Yusupov (pictured). Both games are instructive and entertaining.
Last week, I wrote about the players and results at this tournament. This week, as a follow-up, I'm sharing some of the best games played at this event, with my notes and comments. Enjoy! &...
We have seen how Carlos Torre used his attack, now lets look at how World Champions followed his example.
If you will remember, last week we were looking at this endgame: And concluded that white should seriously consider trading knights. Today we will discuss two plans associated with Nc4: 3. The first plan is to double white rooks on the e-...
The Torre Attack is one of the simplest chess openings. Yet it is highly effctive and can lead to spectacular games. Its inventor, the Mexican star Carlos Torre, used it to defeat no less than Emmanuel Lasker at a major international foreign us...
by GM Magesh & GM Arun This week we shall see an interesting idea by the former world champion and one of the greatest players in the history of Chess, Anatoly Karpov, in the Caro-Kann Defence. Karpov has introduced many interesting ideas in ...
Ratmir Kholmov was born in the small town of Shenkursk on the 13th of May, 1925. Due to his father’s work he travelled a lot from a young age. At the age of 12 he was left alone with his mother, and this was the time when he started playing chess....
Pawns are very important fighting units. While having limited mobility and being the least valuable piece, a pawn has a large potential and, together with other pawns, defines the course of the game. Pawns form the landscape of the battleground, a...
A word to the readers of my column: Some chess fans get upset at certain articles and demand more instruction. They fail to understand that I’m not writing an instructive column, I’m writing a column that answers people’s specific questions. This ...
We all know popular myths that can easily be refuted just by checking the facts. Ones like "A penny dropped from the Empire State Building will kill a person" or "Thomas Edison invented the light bulb." I am sure you know many popular but false st...
The tournament at Nottingham in 1936 included fifteen players in a round robin requiring fourteen games. The competitors represented three generations. The standings are: 1-2 Capablanca and Botvinnik 10, 3-4-5 Fine, Reshevsky, Euwe 9.5, 6 Alekhine...
Two strong International Events have become part of India’s Chess Calendar in January. One of them is the Parsvnath International Chess tournament. This year’s edition attracted 24 GMs and 19 IMs, several of them being foreigners. As far as I can ...
The following position resulted from the Benko Gambit, a rather typical pawn structure. It happened recently in one of my games played in the Pittsburgh Chess League. During the game I felt there wer...
by GM Magesh and GM Arun This week we shall see a sacrificial idea in the Sicilian Najdorf. 6.Bg5 has always been one of the finest systems to counter the Najdorf. The arising positions are full of complications when White tries to pressurize Bl...
Aivars Gipslis is not a well known name among chess fans around the world, but was a remarkable person dedicated to our beautiful game. Born on February 8, 1937 in Latvia, he started playing chess at the age of twelve, which was normal by that tim...
Chess authors often use the term “two-bishop advantage” in their annotations. Today I would like to elaborate on this evergreen concept in more detail. The two-bishop advantage occurs when one side has two bishops, and the other &nda...
member Jemptymethod said: Here’s the thing Silman. This is the second week in a row where you’ve denigrated masters. But OMG when I dispute an IM’s opinion about an opening variation, I’ve committed the unforgivable sin, I need to learn to be hum...
Vitali Golod is one of those strong GMs who is not very well known outside of the professional circuit. And yet, he managed to win national championships in such traditionally strong chess countries as Ukraine and Israel (1991 and 2010 respectivel...
