Former world champion Jose Capablanca played some of the most perfect games of chess ever played by a human. In this game, a Ruy Lopez, he shows his gift for combination as he finds all the right moves to force the win.
In 1921, Alekhine played in an international tournament in Budapest in which he took first place and won a brilliancy prize. Alekhine annotated the game in his book My Best Chess Games 1908-1923, except he left a move out (27...Rac8 28.Rd4)....
Here is a game that was played in the first chess olympiad in London. The game won a brilliancy prize for its triple sacrifice that led to mate in 16 moves.
In 1972, Robert Fischer and Boris Spassky played for the world chess championship. The 13th game featured a complicated endgame. On move 69, Spassky missed the drawing line and went on to lose the game, the match, and the world title.&...
The opening 1.e4 c5 2.f4 is known as the Grand Prix Attack, or Larsen-Santasiere Attack, or McDonnell Attack. It is a less analyzed line, sort of like a King's Gambit against the Sicilian. Here is a clever, short game using this op...
Hou Yifan started playing chess at the age of 6. She was admitted to the National Chess Center in Beijing and has leading Chinese grandmaster Ye Jiangchuan as her trainer. She plays e4 as White and as Black, a variety of Sicilians (Dragon, N...
Bent Larsen has been one of the top players in the world for many years. Here is one of his early games that in played in one of the chess olympiads. His opponent played the Lisitsin Gambit (1.Nf3 f5 2.e4) and Larsen got a quick attack...
Viacheslav Ragozin was a Soviet Over-the-Board (OTB) Grandmaster as well as Correspondence Grandmaster. He won the second World Correspondence Championship in 1958. Ilya Kan was an International Master, perhaps of Grandmaster strength....
Former world chess champion Mikhail Botvinnik was a master at the endgame. Here is an endgame where he had a king-side majority of pawns (4 pawns to 3 pawns) where he immobilized his opponent, then penetrated his King and Rook to...
Henry Atkins was a British International Master who liked playing the Danish Gambit. He won the British Championship 9 times between 1905 and 1925 (7 in a row starting in 1905). Here is a game in which he won by playing a Danish Gambit...
In the last article I gave an example of what blockading is. Now, I will write about the sister of blockading named restraining. The first step is to restrain a pawn from advancing. If you think about it, this makes sense. It's a lot easi...
Joseph Henry Blackburne was known as the 'Black Death.' For over 20 years he was one of the top 10 players in the world. Here is a game in which he swindled the great Adolf Anderssen. Blackburne was losing playing the Whi...
When you blockade a passed or isolated pawn you put one of your pieces in front of the pawn to accomplish two things: Stopping the pawn from advancing and,launching a plan to eliminate the pawn. &nb...
Efim Geller was one of the 10 ten chess players in the world for about 20 years. He played in 23 USSR chess championships, winning it in 1955 and 1979. He was known for his swift attacks with a tendency to risk everything in order to w...
There is some forum discussion on who are the top 50 chess players in the world or who the best player in the world is (or was). Well, if we look at current Elo (FIDE) ratings, they publish a list of the top players in the world. If we look at i...
In 1929, Vera Menchik, the strongest woman chess player in the world at the time, was invited to the Carlsbad International tourament. Albert Becker, a Viennese master, did not want her to play in the event, saying she was too weak of a play...
In this game, Kasparov, aged 15,takes out one of the strongest Grandmasters of all time, Mark Taimanov. The ending has the Kasparov mark: you see what's coming but you cannot do anything to prevent it. Enjoy! (The annotation is ...
I found this little gem, a King's Gambit that Nigel Short used to bring down the great Kasparov in 15 moves. Don't try this at home! I have tried to annotate the game as best as I could. I am sorry that I did not do so earlier when I ma...
Vlastimil Hort, born in 1944, was the strongest Czech player in the 1970s and was one of the top players in the world. Here is one of his early games where he beat grandmaster Leonid Shamkovich with a rook sac that led to mate.
John Cochrane (1798-1878) was a Scottish lawyer who loved to sacrifice his pieces for an attack. Here is a tactical game in which he beat the great Howard Staunton. He sacrifices a pawn on move 3, and eventually sacks his Queen for the...
Former world chess champion Boris Spassky will always be remembered as the man who played and lost a match to Bobby Fischer, twice. Boris started out as one of the world's youngest grandmasters, Here is a game from his early days where he was ab...
The Latvian Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5) may be too risky at the highest levels of chess. The top players know most of the opening wrinkles of gambits. Here is a game where a master tries to play the Latvian Gambit against Vasily Smyslov ...
The Tennison Gambit (1.Nf3 d5 2.e4), also known as the Lemberg or the Abonyi Gambit, can be a weapon for White as he gets quick development. In this game, the great Paul Keres played it as White in one of his early correspondence games. ...
When Playing White against the Great Garry Kasparov, even the strongest GMs have to think twice whether or not to use an "e4" opening because chances are that he will use his favorite Sicilian Defense Variation - The Dragon. In the follo...
