IM DAVID PRUESS asked: I do know a few things about planning-- I even teach “how to plan” to my own students sometimes. But I still come across positions fairly often, maybe one in ten games, where I feel I should have a plan, but can't come up w...
When we analysed the King's Gambit a couple of weeks ago, you could notice that even though this opening is a dream for a chess player looking for tactical complications starting right from the beginning of the game, there is still a major drawbac...
Vyacheslav Osnos has recently passed away at the age of 74. He was born July 24, 1935 and died August 27, 2009. He played in the Soviet Championships 1963-1968. He won the Leningrad Championship twice. He coached world championship contender Vikto...
[Ed: This is the last article of our switch-around week. Each of this week's daily columns (beginning last Sunday) was actually written by one of our other columnists. If you have a guess as to who wrote what, send it to me (dpruess). From entries...
[Ed: This article was actually written by GM Serper] Pretty frequently my students complain about how difficult it is to learn new openings. Indeed, modern opening theory is more complicated than ever. You can spend weeks, even months of your...
The Art of Stealing by IM Jeremy Silman A chess professional has to do many forms of chess preparation: If he’s having trouble in endgames and technical positions, he has to do a detailed study of that phase of the game. If he finds that he ofte...
For the most part, the rules of chess are simple and easy to explain. The object of the game, to trap the enemy king, is understandable to a five year old. The movement of the pieces is straightforward and clearly defined. The players take...
The games of the old masters were characterized by a more free-wheeling attitude with respect to material. A development advantage was the holy grail for chess players, and they would strive for that lead by sacrificing whatever it took. Pawns wer...
[Ed: this week, our daily columnists [may] have secretly traded columns. From this Sunday through Friday, read all the columns, and guess who wrote which. Mail your guesses to dpruess at chess.com. A couple prizes will be awarded at random to thos...
[Ed: this week, our daily columnists [may] have secretly traded columns. From this Sunday through Friday, read all the columns, and guess who wrote which. Mail your guesses to dpruess at chess.com. A couple prizes will be awarded at random to thos...
The Pterodactyl is a very varied opening, with dozens of variations. One of the most important is the unpin variation 1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nf3 c5 4.Nc3 Qa5 5.Bd2!?, setting up a discovered attack on the queen. Here is how I think Black should handle...
San Francisco is known as a hub of strange activity so it is not surprising that at their Labor Day tournament many unusual openings appeared. I have selected a few of the more interesting games that explore these rarely visited territories. ...
Mikhail Tal was on his way to the world championship when he faced Milko Bobotsov on his way to beconing the first Bulgarian grandmaster. Tal played the King's Indian Defense which Bobotsov challenged with the Saemisch Variation characterized by f...
I would like to talk about a case when two knights are stronger than two bishops. The obvious case is when the position is closed – there are no open diagonals for the bishops and many outposts for the knights. This article addresses the other cas...
Last week we discussed "Material for Initiative" in the French Tarrasch Variation with a pawn sacrifice on the 9th move. This week we shall see about the other various alternatives for Black. Our first game is between the 13th World Champion Garr...
The London 1883 chess tournament was one of the most important competitions of the nineteenth century where most of the leading player competed. It was won convincingly by Johannes Zukertort (22/26) ahead of Wilhelm Steinitz (19/26) by three point...
The Hindustantimes has been one of the numerous newspapers that has published an article on Vladislav Tkachiev's forfeit after being heavily drunk and falling asleep at a chess board. A truly grandmaster-level PR move! It's too bad that Toiletga...
This game was from the last round of the Continental Championship in Brazil. After my loss to Vescovi (analyzed in my last article), I had 4/6. I then proceeded to struggle horribly, scoring only 1/3 against lower-rated opposition. I won my 10th r...
VK asked: I am a beginner in chess with no formal training but I have a little bit of knowledge of opening theory from reading books. My question is about the Maroczy Bind for White in the Sicilian. In this opening, because of the pawn on c4, is ...
Today we are going to talk about the Danish Gambit. The main concept of the opening is very simple. After the initial moves 1. e4 e5 2. d4 exd4 3. c3 dxc3 4 Bc4 cxb2 5. Bb2 White is down two pawns but he is ahead in development and his Bishops are...
In this article, we are going to look at positions where you are down to your last pawn, while your opponent still has a piece left. Facing a knight, bishop, rook, or even a queen, what are some of the positions where the lowly pawn can still lead...
Mark Taimanov was born February 7, 1926 in Kharkiv. He became a top Russian chess player and a concert pianist. In 1952, he became a grandmaster. He came in tied for 8th and 9th out of 15 players in the Zurich Candidates Tournament, from which I h...
Many players are afraid to play the Two Knights Defense as black because they fear the dreaded Fried Liver Attack and 4.Ng5 lines in general. Of course this can be avoided byselecting the Italian game but then one has to cope with the ferocious E...
What is a chess genius? I cannot answer this question but I can give examples of the play of a chess genius. I came from the country where no one questioned whether this person is a genius or not; it was accepted he is. The games that I will pre...
