Happy New Year! Last year I sent 50 weekly newsletters (You can join here) with one simple goal: help you understand chess better and make fewer mistakes. Thank you for reading and supporting it. This year, I continue. Short, practical ideas y...
Dear Chess Friends! I'm excited to share insights from my recent workshop "When Pieces Talk: Coordination Beats Material", where we explored one of the most fundamental principles of positional play. We examined how a well-coordinated army, work...
Hey everyone, Matt from ChessGoals here. One of the most common questions I see among adult improvers is: "What is my OTB rating level?" We all care about our ratings to some extent. And many of us stick to mostly online chess. You might ...
What is hearty, healthy, and packed with flavor that players search for after arriving at the Tata Steel Chess Tournament in Wijk aan Zee, a windy coastal town outside Amsterdam in the Netherlands? Dutch split pea soup (known locally as erwtensoep...
Last year, we shared Chess.com's 10 New Year’s Resolutions for the first time. It was a way for us to share some perspective on where we hoped to go with you, the chess community, and it challenged us to be accountable to the public resoluti...
Age mellows everybody — even, apparently, Aron Nimzowitsch — and it’s a great surprise to come across class and grace in Nimzowitsch’s comments to his losing effort in the 1934 Ståhlberg match. Actually, the match mus...
This technique is an absolute must-learn for all serious chess improvers. Trust you'll see great improvements in your accuracy and speed with this simple formula. Take your time to test it out in different positions and ask away if you h...
“Attachment is the root of suffering.” - Buddha Before knowing monks and former monks closely, I used to think they didn’t have goals.No ambition. No targets. I was wrong. The past year I spent a lot of time with my monk fr...
David Bronstein, One of the Greatest Attackers in Chess History – Part 5 Learning the Art of Attack through Bronstein’s Games – Part 5 The Two Most Important Games of Bronstein’s Career Before embarking on the fifth i...
Here’s a quick snapshot of the latest ChessKid features and guides to help you and your kids get even more out of the platform!Customizable Avatars Are HereChessKid now lets players create and personalize their own avatars, from outfits to h...
Dear Chess Friends! I'm excited to share highlights from my previous workshop "Combinations built on Crossing Lines", where we explored how to detect important lines in a position and prepare tactical strikes based on their intersections. Whethe...
Most chess games are not lost in the opening.And surprisingly often, they’re not lost by a single blunder either. They’re lost in the middlegame, when one player simply doesn’t know what to do next. You’ve probably felt...
#chessup2 #otb #demo Click to subscribe to my YouTube channel! 🔥 Coupon code: CHESSNOOB64 for 10% off ChessUp products I’m still play-testing the ChessUp 2 and today, I played an OTB game with Little Chess Noob...
One of my favourite positions to teach students is this tense one between Unzicker and Fischer (Varna Olympiad 1962) with Black to play. I like this example because it is a practical one where both sides have plusses and issues and there is no kil...
#viennagambit #brilliancy #fun Click to subscribe to my YouTube channel! I was very very pleased that the first three online games of chess that I played in 2026 were of the wonderful Vienna Gambit! (1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. f...
It's the oldest and greatest lament of the chess coach—CASTLE YOUR KING! Time and time again, young students fail to take advantage of the most valuable single move in chess! Castling is the only time you can move two pieces at once. In a si...
Welcome Back To The Chess Brewer, Let's Crack Open Another One! We continue our series on the first chess world championship match in 1886 between Wilhelm Steinitz and Johannes Zukertort. I hope you all enjoyed game one, before we get into it...
With very little fanfare, Duolingo has rolled out live chess. It is now available through its player-vs-player (PvP) mode. It previously launched its new chess course in mid-2025. An actual chess game being played in PvP mode on Duolingo (the ...
Dear Chess Friends! I'm thrilled to share insights from my recent workshop "Play Like Paul Morphy", where we delved into the revolutionary style of the 19th-century genius. Morphy’s emphasis on rapid piece coordination and development&mdas...
On December 21, 2025, the MVP Chess K-12 Quads brought together 27 players from Washington DC, Maryland, Virginia, and California. The event used a three round G/25 d5 quad format and included a small Swiss section to support a wide range of US Ch...
This is part 2 of my series on how to evaluate middlegame and ending positions. You see part 1 here. The premise is that, once you understand a few core principles and know a few "thematic wins", then you can evaluate all kinds of variants much mo...
A Telugu family from Andhra Pradesh, both husband and wife well settled in life. The father’s name is interesting: Rajinikanth. There is, of course, no way to ask his own father whether the name came from the legendary film star or not. Raji...
The Vienna Game with g3: A Simple and Powerful System for White Hey everyone! Today I’m bringing you a very interesting opening: the Vienna Game with g3! - But wait… g3? Why does this make sense? Because this setup lets us dev...
The first edition of a brand new CCC event, the Charlotte Winter Classic, took place last weekend at the SouthPark Hilton Garden Inn! A total of 246 players participated in the tournament, including three GMs, a WGM, four FMs, and numerous NMs and...
Happy New Year, everyone. Welcome to the first vote of 2026. We have one tiny problem: these two didn't meet in the 80s. When we encountered this problem before—in the Burn-Riemann match (see here)—we compared the players separa...
