The Final Round By R. Christopher This is the final round of a major chess tournament. A tournament Pyper should not have been in. The players, three of those in the world’s top ten, the rest all Grandmasters in the top fifty, and he...
Frank Marshall (1877-1944) won the U.S. championship in 1904, but refused the title because Harry Pillsbury was unable to play. In 1907, Marshall lost a world title match against the champion, Emanuel Lasker. Marshall became the U.S. champion in 1...
The King's Gambit is an agressive opening for white, where sharp tactics and sacrifices tend to dominate play. White weakens his own king's position with the idea of gaining a lead in development, a central pawn majority, and contr...
Note from dpruess: Saturday is the one day that chess.com does not have a weekly columnist. On this day we will endeavor to bring to you chess perspectives from a variety of excellent chess writers. This week we present an article from the 19 yea...
Below we see an instructive example about the strength of the passed pawns.The game was played in Madrid at 1934.White seems better as he has his rook at the 7th rank and black's Bishop is blocked from his own pawn.But black has to move...Don't fo...
There is so much material in chess where the queen is the super hero of the play. The queen checkmates, the queen puts itself on the altar to finish up a nice attack, the queen does obscure maneuvers to save the game with perpetual etc. We like to...
Improve your Chess via Active Learning ACTIVE LEARNING is any strategy that involves students in doing things and thinking about the things they are doing (*) You could study the following material either by skipping the test and going directly ...
First off, let me say that I am by no means an expert. I am just an improving beginner myself, who only recently waded ignorantly into the murky world of chess openings. So take what I have to say with that in mind. I am writing this article in an...
After our lesson in the calm and positional Ruy Lopez last week, we are ready to get back into some sharp variations again. This week we will take a look into the Sicilian Dragon. Our readers may wonder how one can explain the strategy and the bas...
Gharamian - Perrett European Cup 2008 White to play! Everthing hangs. It does not take a detective to see what Black played last move (Bishop on e5 took pawn on b2), however, it does take an entire police force to catch ...
The fame of invincibility that Capablanca had in his younger years is general knowledge. After his 8-1 victory in the match against Frank J. Marshall in 1909, there followed an almost uninterrupted series of successes until his crowning as World C...
This is an amazing game where Geller beats the World Champion Karpov in his only defeat at the 1976 USSR Championship. I think it´s a game where the French defence doesn´t work due to the great game that Geller made. Enjoy it, as i did :
The pawn is a very vaulable piece in the game of Chess. Pawns can make blockades which can control the game or the double pawn which can hurt you in the endgame. In this position, even though white has a blocked bishop, the pawns ...
One thing that I try pretty hard to do after playing a tournament these days is to go through all my games and annotate them. There are various things I'm looking for, but here's a quick list: (1) Did the opening go according to plan? If not, fig...
Here is a game from the 10th EICC, WIM Drljevic - IM Maksimovic with full annotations and commentary: This game was a very sound strategical effort by black. The first part of the plan was to force open lines on the kingside with h7-...
Robert Fischer was an excellant chess player no doubt, but do you think that he was recognized or appreaciated ever since he startied playing chess at the tender age of 6? For those of you who do, the answer is no. Bobby Fischer was but a 'promisi...
Hi! Today I am going to tell you about a opening called the Philidor Defense. The ECO of the opening is C41. This is one of my least favorite openings when my opponent plays it, but I quite like to play it when I am Black. The reason to play the P...
In this game, Viktor Bologan faced off against Philipp Schlosser in 2004. Here, White played 20. g5! and Black responded with 20...Qg6, not 20...Qxg5 because of (21. Rg3 Qh4 22. Rf4+-). White continues the attack with 21. Rh3+ Kg8 22. Qg4 gxf6 23....
Here's an interesting tactic: the Cross-Pin. It is a simple, yet deadly variation of the pin, in which a player simulateously pins one piece to two or more other pieces. It is usually utilized by the bishop and the queen, and can be used as a doub...
Here is a stategy that makes you have an edge on your oppoents. No matter if you are White or Black, you have three major goals to have an edge:Take control of the board. This is very crucial of controling space or territory. Chess is war and taki...
Here is a short darwed game by Capablanca.
Bishop - When two Bishops are invading the enemy territory, a good hand will ensure the enemy pieces go one by one. The Bishop is adept at cleaning lone pieces and are best at faraway attacks ( open spaces ), unlike the Knight. Bishops ...
International Master Andrew Martin from England presents a regular series of articles to answer any questions that Chess.com readers have about the game of chess. If you want to ask Andrew a question, then send an email to askandrew@chess.com and...
White to effect smothered mate in 10 moves From the New Zealand Chess Magazine December 2008
