In this game, the players castle on opposite sides, which usually signals attacks on both sides. Both players pursue their chances on each side, but Black misses something that costs him the exchange. But he stays calm and uses the time White sp...
I usually set aside time on Wednesday evening to write my weekly column. It has already become a routine, though for such tasks I typically rely on my mood to determine when and what to write and not a schedule. Tonight, I am in no mood to talk t...
Petroff's Defense is one hard nut to crack when Black plays with a proper understanding. It guarantees solid play for Black without any longterm weaknesses and that is precisely the reason why we see so many Petroff games played at the top level. ...
Aaron Nimzowitsch (7 November 1886 – 16 March 1935), one of the most influential players and writers in chess history, was born in Riga, (the birthplace of two chess geniuses: Mihail Tal and Alexei Shirov!) Latvia, one of the Baltic states, along ...
This article is the first in a series that will illustrate what a player needs to do and how he needs to think when facing a losing position or one that appears to be going from bad to worse. The first step is to realise that we all throw in a fe...
The most difficult thing in chess it is to win a winning position--Emmanuel Lasker, 2nd World Chess Champion All of us have faced a situation when we had a totally winning position and didn't win it for one reason or the other. This can be quite ...
Now that Hikaru Nakamura is our leading player let's take a look at his first victory over a GM, played back in 1998 when Hikaru was just 10 years old.
More on the Study of Master Games Ali Khoshechin asked: I followed your advice about studying master games and I already can see that my planning and transition from opening to middle game is much better now, and I can actually understand the re...
Sometimes games with interesting ideas are overlooked because they were played in a casual online game. In this article I present a fascinating Evans gambit game played against one of America's most serious opening analysts. Black uses the move .....
The French Defense has a reputation of being a very solid, but not a very exciting opening from Black's point of view. Says Wikipedia: "The French has a reputation for solidity and resilience, though it can result in a somewhat cramped game for B...
Capablanca possessed terrific tactical powers. In this game, he gives a brilliant display of them. After sacrificing a queenside pawn, he proceeds to hunt down the enemy queen and capture it.After that, he has a material and positional advantage. ...
Henrique Mecking was born January 23, 1952 in Brazil and became an International Grandmaster in 1971. He won the Petropolis Interzonal in 1973 an the Manila Interzonal in 1976. After each interzonal win, he lost a quarterfinals Candidates Match, ...
How does one plan a sacrifice? Sometimes the position requires for one side to sacrifice a piece or the exchange. It is often apparent when the position is bad and some active measures need to be taken. What about the positions that are better, bu...
The Catalan is one of the most difficult openings to play against in our opinion. With reasonable play, White can almost guarantee that he will not lose and in addition get a good chance of securing a small advantage that will allow him to push B...
Continuing last week's story about the '09 Russian Superfinal, I would like to share with you my game from round 3 against the experienced 2-time vice-World Champion IM Alisa Galliamova, who also happens to be the ex-wife of GM Vassilii Ivanchuk....
Explanatory Opening Books and a Reader’s Pet Line James asked: I hope I’m not writing this to you in error, but I seem to recall a recent article of yours on choosing an opening, when someone asked if there was a text that explained the plans in...
The weak dark square complex is a group of squares that are undefended by nearby pawns on white squares. For examples in this article, Black has pawns on f7, g6, and h7, and the squares f6, g7,and h6 are undefended by Black pawns. They form a we...
Chess Exam: Matches against Chess Legends, You vs. Bobby Fischer IM Igor Khmelnitsky 2009 IamCoach Press 190 pages http://www.chessexam.com Hello chess enthusiasts and readers! I have just finished working through my copy of C...
Las Palmas 1996 was the first ever category 21 tournament. The players had an average rating of 2756. Garry Kasparov, the world champion at the time, and Anatoly Karpov, his immediate predecessor, were playing. Viswanathan Anand, Vladimir Kramnik,...
The Pirc Defense is a really strange opening. It looks almost like the Sicilian Dragon, except White has a strong center and Black has no open 'c' file for counterplay! Yet, it is a sound opening played by many great chess players. Still, seeing s...
In my younger years I was a big fan of Dvoretsky’s books. I read them all, even though I did not fully understand them. I still like to go back to the chess shelf to flip through pages from his books to see the many marks and under...
Richard Réti (28 May 1889, Pezinok – 6 June 1929, Prague) was an ethnic Jewish, Austrian-Hungarian, later Czechoslovakian chess player, chess author, and composer of endgame studies. His older brother Rudolph Réti was a noted (musical) composer an...
Men tend to look down on women’s chess, joke about their level and style of play, and also discuss the female players’ looks whenever they have a chance. Continuing my story about the Russian Superfinal-2009 (Part 1 can be found here...
Here is another interesting game played by Capablanca. He sacrifices a queen in the middlegame, but it is not meant for mate or material. The queen is sacrificed as the most effective way to reach a favorable endgame. Quite a novel idea, is is not...
