It's playoff time, in the US Chess League!! The most exciting chess event in the US is sponsored by Pokerstars and involves four board matches between 16 teams representing a variety of American cities. For more info check here or here. My goal t...
It's playoff time, in the US Chess League!! The most exciting chess event in the US is sponsored by Pokerstars and involves four board matches between 16 teams representing a variety of American cities. For more info check here or here. My goal t...
A few weeks ago, Joanne Addison, widow of International Master Bill Addison, saw an article I wrote at chess.com about players that quit chess. I used a statement that Pal Benko wrote in his autobiography that wasn't quite true, and Joanne correc...
I cannot believe how quickly time passes! We are already up to opposite colored bishops endgames. Certainly, during my games, I am now more willing to go into endgames, how about you? There are disadvantages to too often going into endgames- the g...
This week we shall see an update in the Caro-Kann Advance Variation. http://www.chess.com/article/view/caro-kann-advance-variation-by-gm-magesh-and-gm-arun. As we concluded in our last article the idea of grabbing the b2-pawn was playable for Bla...
Alexander Kotov was born on the 12th of August 1913 in Tula, Russia. His trilogy of books “Think Like a Grandmaster”, “Play Like a Grandmaster”, and “Train Like a Grandmaster”, are his best coverletter! The first one is one of the best-selling ...
The cover of my new book, How to Reassess Your Chess 4th Edition, contains a secret that might take the skills of a Sherlock Holmes to unearth. The first that notices this anomaly and sends the correct answer to David Pruess (at dpruessatchess.com...
This is a brilliant miniature that I saw recently. Planinc unleashes a bold combination on his nineteenth move by leaving a rook en prise to start an attack on Vaganian's king. A neat quiet move follows two moves later, and white is forced to resi...
Henry asked: You often talk about studying master games, but is one master game as good as another, or are certain games better than others? Silman: In Part One of this three part answer to Henry’s question, I pointed out that one of the main r...
There are many ways to go wrong in the opening and lose quickly. Today we'll talk about one of the Opening's Cardinal Sins : pawn grabbing. Everyone knows that in the opening we are supposed to develop our pieces as quickly as possible and castl...
In the recent Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, Judit Polgar played in the Men’s Olympiad. The Women’s Olympiad is for women only. The Men’s Olympiad is not limited to men and is now called the Open Olympiad when you can find that term used. J...
This series of articles is designed to improve your endgame technique. Every week there is a position at the end of the article for you to play out with someone or a computer. The detailed explanation of how to get the maximum out of these e...
It is not news anymore that the World number 1 is having a bit of a slump in the last month or so. Carlsen ended up losing a bunch of points in the Olympiad and now he is struggling in the Bilbao Masters tournament. While Carlsen is trying to find...
Alexander Tolush was born on the 1st of May 1910 in St. Petersburg, Russia. He was a Soviet Russian chess grandmaster and also one of Boris Spassky's mentors! He got the title of International Master in 1950 and Grandmaster in 1953. He also earned...
One of the key ingredients in a team’s successful performance is choosing the strategy and tactics of team play: the correct team composition, chess preparation for the round, and team tactics during the round. Let’s take a look at these component...
Henry asked: You often talk about studying master games, but is one master game as good as another, or are certain games better than others? Silman: In Part One of this three part answer to Henry’s question, I pointed out that one of the main r...
Today, one of the most talented chess players of his generation, Gyula Breyer is mostly remembered for the variation of the Ruy Lopez named after him: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 0-0 8.c3 d6 9.h3 Nb8! The last pa...
Janis Klovans was born April 9, 1935 and died October 5, 2010. He was Latvia’s champion nine times from 1954 to 1986. He competed in the Soviet Championship a number of times. In 1997, 1999, and 2001 he won the World Senior Championship. In 1976,...
This series of articles is designed to improve your endgame technique. Every week there is a position at the end of the article for you to play out with someone or a computer. The detailed explanation of how to get the maximum out of these exer...
Today we will study the Sicilian Scheveningen variation. One of the best things about this variation is the amazing potential of all the transpositions into this variation from other branches of the Sicilian. Our first game today is the 9th game...
Rashid Nezhmetdinov was born on December 15, 1912 to a peasant family then living in the Kazakh town of Aktyubinsk. Both his parents died when Rashid was very young and it was left to his elder brother to care for him. He learned chess by watch...
The World Chess Olympiad. Intrigue, unpredictability, a holiday for all the participants. The strongest team tournament, held every two years, identifies the number one team in the world. It is a must-follow for any chess fan. This year's host of...
Henry asked: You often talk about studying master games, but is one master game as good as another, or are certain games better than others? Dear Henry: I’ve gotten many, many letters about studying master games. It seems people are confused by...
Those of you my dear readers who were patient enough to read through Parts 1-3 of this series might be asking : 'Well Mr. Serper, what's your point? You showed us that the kids are generally good in chess, so what? I knew it anyway!" Please bear ...
