Chess does not roll ever outward towards infinity. It encroaches slightly upon the infinite multitudes, but could never seek to encompass all. The roles of the pieces and the restrictions of the board, as well as opening positions and the moveme...
Before you execute a tactic, you should check it. If it goes against you, you probably shouldn't use it. Here's an example. This puzzle is from the "The Usborne Internet-Linked Complete Book of Chess." After solving this puzzle, check out the ne...
The weakness of black's back rank is a major theme in this game. White leaves his queen en prise and then blows the black position open with a lethal rook+bishop combo. In the end he only needs two pieces to mate.
The Match of the Century Fischer vs Spassky 1972 The name Bobby Fischer, at least to Americans, is synonymous with chess. A prodigy in the 50s, a world class player in the 60s, the 70s saw Fischer at his pinnacle. He earned the right to challen...
Here is an excellent game played by Michael Adams but lost.
“All I want to do, ever,” Fischer once said, “is play chess.” One might think that there was no room in Fischer’s life for anything else. Yet few know that religion sometimes took precedence over chess for Fischer. In a match with Tigran Pet...
Frederick Yates (1884-1932) was the British Chess Champion six times. Sandor Takacs (1893-1932) was a Hungarian master. These two players met twice in Kecskemet 1927. That tournament began with two sections, A and B, each with ten players. They we...
An excellent win for Michael Adams!
Here's how I managed to draw one of my online chess games out of a pretty hard position. Took some pretty hard thinking but I got it in the end.
Here is a game from Corustoernooi 2007, Ruslan Ponomariov - Veselin Topalov Topalov was at his best this day, beating Ponomariov in a wild and very imbalanced game. Actually Pono was better after the opening, but hesitant play (21.Nb1?!) got him ...
It is stalemate in 10 moves. Can you find it? Here is the game:
Here's the position I found myself in when playing on live chess. The initiative has been mainly black's for the last lot of moves and I was having a rather hard time of it defending my King. Here's how I got the initiative back again and checkmat...
black to move
Have you ever played chess? Did you know that chess is the oldest skill game in the world? But chess is more than just a game of skill. It can tell you much about the way people lived in medieval times. If you look at the way a chess board is set...
The Center Counter Defense is one of the oldest recorded openings, first recorded as being played between Francesco di Castellvi and Narciso Vinyoles in Valencia in 1475, and being mentioned by Lucena in 1497. It is one of the oldest asymmetric de...
In some games that I have observed, I have seen "torture", or the continuous stupid moves that make a game that is obvious as to who the win will go to. Some will argue that the losing player can just resign, but many players (such as myself) beli...
In this game, Duras ignores the threat to his own king and plunges into a head on attack on his opponent's king. He sticks his pieces into active positions, and rounds off the game with a queen sac.
The Polish Immortal was a famous game between Glinksberg and Miguel Najdorf played in Warsaw. Some sources give its date as 1930 or 1935, and give the name of the player of the white pieces as "Glucksberg". Garry Kasparov gives the date of the gam...
The Peruvian Immortal is the name given to a spectacular game played by the Peruvian master (later grandmaster) Esteban Canal against an unknown amateur in a simultaneous exhibition he gave at Budapest in 1934. In just 14 moves, Canal sacrificed b...
Légal Trap, Blackburne Trap, or also known as the Légal Mate is a chess opening trap, characterized by a queen sacrifice followed by checkmate with minor pieces if Black accepts the sacrifice. The trap is named after Sire de Légal (1702-1792) who ...
Johann Lowenthal was a professional English chess master in the 19th century. Lowenthal was originally born in Budapest, the son of a Jewish merchant. He was educated at the gymnasium of his native city. In 1846, he won a match against Carl Hamppe...
This is about triangulation. Triangulation is a method in the endgame. You use it when it is a king vs. king and pawn endgame or similar endgame, when you have the advantage. You use your king to make a triangle (hence the name triangulation) and ...
Here is a game from the 12th Bavarian Open, GM Yemelin - IM Kaplan with full annotations and commentary: This game was a nice display of the benefits of forcing weaknesses near the opponent's King and the results it can bri...
