The Italian Game is one of the oldest opening in chess. And it's sharpest line known as 'Greco Attack" is almost 400 years old. You might think that 400 years is enough for everyone to learn the main traps of this sharp opening and yet this dange...
Vasily Panov was born November 1, 1906 and died January 3, 1973. In 1929, he won the Moscow Championship. He played in the USSR Championship five times from 1935 to 1948. FIDE awarded him the title of International Master in 1950. He was better kn...
Every day I get a lot of fan mail (thanks, guys!), and many of the messages are dedicated to the evergreen subject “how do I get better in chess?” I am trying to do my best to offer individual advice to everyone. However, there is a ve...
Once again, I will deviate from the topic of my chess column – exchanges. In this column I will present some thoughts on practical tournament strategies based on my own experience. There is much advice of what to do when one does not do well in th...
While I'm all in favor of playing aggressively, I try to do by playing an aggressive opening as White. And when I'm playing Black, I try to play aggressively after I have equalized and gotten a few pieces developed. However, choosing an opening ...
This week we have decided to dwell a little more on the Spanish opening, also famously called the Ruy Lopez. We studied one of the main lines, the Chigorin defense last week, this time around we can discuss the Anti-Marshall variation. As the name...
“Chess, like love, like music, has the power to make men happy."Siegbert Tarrasch (March 5, 1862 – February 17, 1934) was born in Breslau the hometown of Andersen and Zukertort. The young Tarrasch learned to play chess when he was 15 years old. He...
In my last tournament, the SPICE Cup in Texas, I had 4 blacks out of 9 games. The first 3 blacks I had all saw my opponents open with 1.e4 (I wrote about the first game last week, at http://www.chess.com/article/view/pawn-power). While I've normal...
Creating a Study Program Mr. Svorcan asked: I am self-taught chess player. I have read a few books and have some chess software (Fritz, Chessmaster, etc). I play chess regularly on the net but my “real” rating is unknown, however on some website...
Arthur Bisguier faced the new kid, Bobby Fischer, in the third Rosenwald in 1956. In the same event Fischer's win against Donald Byrne was called the game of the century. Fischer was already a player. The kid played the King's Indian Defense, also...
A constructive plan for white in Ruy Lopez Exchanged Ruy Lopez Exchanged has always been an interesting alternative to the bishop’s retreat to a4 for White. With Bxc6, White damages Black’s pawn structure and either trades pieces to get into a fa...
This article will address the question of queen exchanges. Particularly, we will look into positions where one side forced the queen exchange to get some advantage in return. The opponent’s doubled pawns can be considered an advantage for us, for ...
Gioachino Greco (1600-1634), known as Il Calabrese, was born in Celico, in the province of Calabria, Italy. Greco was a notable chess player and writer. His hand-written booklets, originally presented to his wealthy patrons, about opening traps an...
In part 1 of this article (http://www.chess.com/article/view/opposite-side-castling-the-basics), I showed a game where the kingside attack was conducted using pieces to open up the pawn cover on Black's kingside. In part 2, I show a game with the...
In July at the World Open, Ray Robson beat me in a very complicated Poison Pawn Winawer. I got my second crack at the new US hope at the SPICE Cup in the 3rd round. As at the World Open, I had the black pieces, and while the opening was a very dif...
GM Hikaru Nakamura (FIDE 2715) aka Smallville needs no introduction - we have already published an article on his epic battle against Alexander Grischuk. IM Vlad Akselrod (FIDE 2446) aka Raix, a second of WGM Natalia Pogonina and Peter Zhdanov, ha...
Despite its very respectable age, the Scotch Game is very popular these days. Super GMs like it as a convenient way to avoid the Marshall Counter-Attack in the Ruy Lopez and amateurs like it for its relatively simple strategic pattern. Unfortunate...
The subject of today's discussion is the Göring Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3 d4 exd4 4. c3!?). Just like practically any gambit, this opening is a very dangerous weapon and since it is not particularly popular these days, most of your opponents wi...
Paul Keres was among the world's eight top players who met at the AVRO tournament in the Netherlands in 1938. He and Reuben Fine scored 8.5 out of 14 to tie for first place. Keres had scored 1.5 out of 2 against Fine in the event and this was used...
More than a half of a century has passed since David Bronstein wrote probably one of the best chess books that have ever been written: “ Zurich International Chess Tournament, 1953.” The book is about the tournament that gathered fifteen of the...
When you have to drive somewhere you have never been before, there are two types of people. One type gets a map and plots a route to the destination, prints out driving directions from the computer, or uses a GPS navigator. The other type relies...
Philipp Stamma (c. 1705-1755), was born in Aleppo, Syria, but moved to Europe (France and Italy) and established himself in England after 1737.Stamma was a chess master and pioneer of modern chess, but his reputation rests principally on his autho...
In games where the players castle on opposite sides, an attack against the opposing king is almost always in order. The rational for this is "If you don't do it to him, he's going to do it to you" or, if you like, the more pithy "Kill or be kille...
After playing in Montreal, which I wrapped up with a loss to Naiditsch in the 11th round (covered at: http://www.chess.com/article/view/developing-an-opening-repertoire), I had a week off before playing another strong round-robin. This one was in ...
