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...
How To Castle In Fischer Random Chess (Chess960)
The 2019 World Fischer Random Chess Championship quarterfinals are here, with star players like Fabiano Caruana (@FabianoCaruana), Hikaru Nakamura (@Hikaru) and Alireza Firouzja (@Firouzja2003) set to take on five other elite grandmaster...
Today: FIDE World Fischer Random Chess Championship Quarterfinals
On Thursday, the opening ceremony of the 2019 FIDE World Fischer Random Chess Championship took place live on Twitch.tv/Chess. In what resulted in four intriguing matchups, the following pairings were drawn at random to determine pairing...
Pawn Structures That Win
Life is easier when you have a good pawn structure. GM Aman Hambleton demonstrates five pawn structures that give you a great chance to win the game. Try The Challenges! Not what you're looking for? Go back to the video guide. The Marocz...
How To Swindle Your Opponent
What should you do when you're losing a chess game? If it's not time to resign, it's time to swindle your opponent! WGM Qiyu Zhou demonstrates the tricks you need to survive lost positions! Try The Challenges! Not what you're looking for? ...
Round-Robin Chess Tournaments Are Dead!
At the end of the last century when I played one of the big American open tournaments (I think it was North American Open in Las Vegas), I stumbled upon a very interesting book at the concession stand. Well, since the book was written by GM John...
Hou Yifan Interview: 'Competing With Top Males Is Talent And Opportunity'
Hou Yifan, the youngest women’s world champion in history, tells David Cox about her journey to become one of the strongest female players of all time. Find out her thoughts on a "battle of the sexes" match against Magnus Carlsen, and why sh...
Arena Kings Season 5 Leaderboard
The updated standings and leaderboard information for Arena Kings season five are below. You can read the season five announcement here for complete details. Season Recap: Beginning on September 16, Arena Kings was back for ...
How Your Opponent Will Help You
Siegbert Tarrasch was one of the best players of his time and definitely deserves to be included in the list of strongest chess players who never became world champion. Tarrasch. Photo via Wikipedia. Just like Reuben Fine, Tarrasch wa...
The Chess Streamer Awards
Television fans enjoyed the Emmys on Sunday night, and the shows Game of Thrones and Fleabag dominated the awards for primetime TV. Today, another audiovisual medium takes the stage. The world of chess streaming has been growing q...
The Early Life Of Pal Benko
Pal Benko was born July 15, 1928 and died August 25, 2019 at the age of 91. Instead of throwing endless games at you (okay, okay…I will throw you a lot of games), I first want you to understand Benko’s personality and who Benko r...
Which Football Quarterback Would Win At Chess?
Football is sometimes called "chess on the gridiron." And by sometimes, I mean I just called it that. But the game is actually often compared to war, which is the most common metaphor for chess. And if football is war, the quarterback is the fie...
How To Calculate In Chess
I bet you've heard the cliche that "chess is 99 percent tactics" thousands of times. While it is greatly overused and exaggerated to some degree, overall it is correct. The enormous strength of modern computers is based on their unmatched abilit...
The Top 10 Chess Books Every Chess Player Should Read
Get your reading glasses out for this article! The number of books written about chess is tremendous. While that can be great for the chess world, it poses practical issues for many fans. Most chess players have their own favorites, but how do y...
The Underrated World Number-1
Ask any chess player to name a grandmaster who deserved to be the world champion but never became one, and you will get a list of the usual suspects. Bronstein, Korchnoi and Keres will be on the top of the list, and then it becomes ver...
What's In A Chess.com Premium Membership
Do you remember the day you joined Chess.com? At first, it could all seem a little overwhelming (so many features and options!), but you gradually got the hang of it. Suddenly, you realized that Chess.com had become like your second home, where yo...
What Happened To Elite Chess?
In the end of 1984, the leading Soviet magazine Chess In The USSR published a big article about the first game of the world championship match Capablanca-Alekhine, Buenos Aires 1927. The author, master V. Goldin (no relation the U.S. grandmaster...
More Things You Need To Know About Pawn Stucture
What is a pawn structure? From my online glossary, I define it as “the positioning of the whole pawn mass. Also referred to as the pawn skeleton. This positioning of the pawns is what usually dictates the types of plans available...
