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OK, Boomer: The Best Chess Players Of A Generation
The generational meme wars are heating up as "OK, boomer" (often with the necessary comma omitted) is now a catch-all reply to trump any disagreement between the young and old. This unstoppable meme has made its way across the Internet, all over...
First You Smile, Then You Resign
Chess is a very complicated game that requires utmost concentration. Therefore most of the time chess players have a very serious facial expression. I doubt that a fianchettoed bishop or a semi-open file would make many people laugh. Yet th...
Samuel Reshevsky's Prime Years
How strong was Samuel Reshevsky in his prime? Well, he won the U.S. championship eight times, the same number as Bobby Fischer. Reshevsky also played eight times in the Chess Olympiads (six times on first board). Was he good enough to b...
Capturing Pieces
The reigning Computer Chess Champion is Leela Chess Zero, the neural network heir to AlphaZero. Check out a selection of Lc0's greatest games! Try The Challenges! Not what you're looking for? Go back to the video guide. The Value Of The ...
Judit Polgar Interview: 'I Had To Prove Myself More Than A Boy'
Judit Polgar, the strongest female chess player of all time, speaks to David Cox about growing up as part of her father Laszlo's groundbreaking educational experiment, the famous touch-move controversy when she played Garry Kasparov in 1994 and wh...
How To Learn From Chess Masters' Mistakes
When I was a student of famous Botvinnik-Kasparov school, the two living legends didn't just teach us how to play chess; they also taught us how to work on chess. The homework that each student would get by the end of a session was invaluable! O...
GM Larry Kaufman Interview: 'New Repertoire For Black And White'
GM Larry Kaufman's book Kaufman's New Repertoire for Black and White is now available in Europe in all formats, and in the United States as an e-book. It will soon be sold worldwide in all formats, including as an e-book from Forward Che...
My Best Game
Check out the best chess games of strong players! How can you beat a World Champion? How can you beat Hikaru Nakamura with a quiet opening? How should you sacrifice two exchanges and win? Check out these brilliant games and more! Try The Challen...
Here is what we have lined up for Halloween 2023!
halloween Chess Piece Costumes The perfect way to infuse fun and excitement into your next costume event Bots Spooky Martin has arrived and he brought some friends! Can you beat them all? Halloween Mystery Banter...
How To Win With The Halloween Gambit
The Halloween Gambit is surely the spookiest way to start a chess game. If you're a conservative chess player who doesn't like to give away pieces, it may indeed be "2 spooky 👻4 u." Could this early knight sacrifice be a legitimate opening? No, ...
Do Chess Arbiters Intervene Too Much?
As we discussed in the previous article, people love chess for a variety of reasons. Our favorite game is a sport, art, science, fight and more, all at the same time! One of my favorite features of chess was well described by the great Ema...
Ian Nepomniachtchi Interview: 'I Dislike Players Who Buy And Sell Games'
The super-grandmaster Ian Nepomniatchi sat down with Chess.com ahead of his appearance in the 2019 FIDE World Fischer Random Chess Championship, where he will go head-to-head with Fabiano Caruana, Wesley So and the world champion Ma...
The Brilliant, Young Samuel Reshevsky
Samuel Reshevsky was born in Poland on November 26, 1911 and started to play chess at the age of four. He came to the U.S. permanently at age nine (1920). From 1924 to 1931 he quit chess completely to get an education in the U.S., and graduated...
What If Fischer Had Played Karpov in 1975?
IM Cyrus Lakdawala contributed to this article. In 1975, Bobby Fischer and Anatoly Karpov were set to play for the world chess championship. Fischer, the reigning world champion, argued with the world chess federation (FIDE) over the format fo...
Are Bad Openings Good For Your Chess?
In past articles we've discussed why people play bad openings and how to deal with such dubious lines. Are these openings really that bad for your chess? While the answer might seem quite obvious, the reality is not that simple. Let me giv...
5 Sports Plays That Are Like Chess
Sports commentators love to mention chess during their broadcasts of football, basketball and baseball games, but often these shallow metaphors don't show a true understanding of chess. IM Daniel Rensch recently observed, while watching a sports...
Something Old, Something New
Something Old Deep into the 19th century chess was still characterized by match play. The idea of tournaments was slow to catch on. Prior to the London International Tournament of 1851 (the...
Is Chess A Sport, Science Or Art?
When we learn the rules of chess and start playing, we never ask ourselves the question in the title of the article. We just enjoy the process of playing, that's all! But almost any person who has played chess for a long time is going to ask: "W...
Why You Should Move Your Queen As Early As Possible!
One of the first things everyone learns playing chess is that the queen is the strongest piece on the board. Her power is amazing! She's worth nine pawns; she's majestic, extremely agile and has seemingly unlimited powers. Then, however, comes t...
Pal Benko: At Last, Freedom!
For Jeremy Silman's article on the early life of Pal Benko, click here. Pal Benko: My ticket to freedom was, naturally, chess. First on my agenda was to qualify for an out-of-country zonal. Of course, I didn’t want to play in a Soviet-co...
Participate In The Global Chess Festival This Saturday!
The Global Chess Festival invites chess players around the world to celebrate chess. Now in its fifth year, the Global Chess Festival is an initiative by Judit Polgar that aims to unite the chess community and celebrate chess as a sport, science, ...
Coach Of The Month: Colin Stapczynski
Chess.com's newest Coach of the Month is Colin Stapczynski! Colin is a familiar face on Chess.com and Twitch with twitch.tv/thechesscouch, his channel that he runs with his brother. Colin has recently been contributing to the chess.com/player...
The Hail Mary Play In Chess
According to Wikipedia, a Hail Mary is a very long forward pass in American football, typically made in desperation, with only a small chance of success. So, what's a Hail Mary pass in chess? Let me explain. Say your position is completel...
