Dear Chess Friends! I'm excited to share highlights from my recent workshop "Turning Defense Into Counterattack", where we explored one of the most thrilling and misunderstood skills in chess: surviving a dangerous attack and then turning the tab...
The regular season is over, and the moment has arrived. This Thursday evening, the top eight teams from the North American Corporate Chess League will face off in a team-vs-team knockout tournament with a chance to become the league's thirteenth c...
My name is Vasif Durarbayli. I'm a Chess Grandmaster and the founder of ChessEver. Today, we are releasing ChessEver Desktop beta. How we got here Earlier in 2025, I was walking with a fellow grandmaster in Baku. He pulled out his phone and ope...
If You're Going Through Hell, Keep Going - Winston Churchill Welcome everybody, to another rapid edition of the Osaka Papers... In the last few months, I have encountered that all too familiar infernal locale, where chess dreams go to die. Call...
If you see a good move, try to find a better one. - Damiano. Often attributed to Lasker and other chess masters. This is my take on the greatest chess authors of all time...and some who didn't quite check the box. Today I present the fifth in t...
There is so much I want to say, to share with you all! And it has to do with the humanism intrinsic in chess! Some players increase my love for the game of chess....their humanity vibrates forth in the words they write; it is their consciousness, ...
With his victory at the annual Hastings Christmas tournament, Reuben Fine now joins our merry band of top-level talent. Fine, born in 1914 in the Bronx, epitomized the American ‘straphanger’ style. Opening theory and endgame theory wer...
Good afternoon everyone. Yeah, an unusual header picture for me - don't worry, I haven't gone all clickbait - all will be revealed as I go along. So, would you believe that I have had my head in a chess book! I have finally managed to get my h...
Hey Impressive Chessers! A few weeks ago, on Saturday, May 2nd, I played a tournament at my favorite chess club: the San Diego Chess Club. It’s located in the beautiful and historic Balboa Park in Downtown San Diego. If you’r...
Dear Chess Friends! I'm excited to share the recording of my recent simultaneous exhibition on Chess.com, where I played 14 games at once against players from all over the world. Instead of a regular workshop, I wanted to give you a real‑time lo...
Today I will bring you a different kind of blog. Today I felt like Bobby Fischer… why? Very simple: I just discovered the secret to gaining 500 ELO points… getting a beautiful chess set that actually makes you want to train! hahaha...
Hey everyone, Albert here. I joined Chess.com in 2024 as the Chief Growth Officer, and unless you caught my brief appearance on last year’s State of Chess, you probably don’t know me. So here’s a quick intro, before sharing some ...
There is only one week left in the North American Corporate Chess League's regular season, and the playoff race is tight. The top eight teams in the final standings will qualify for a knockout championship tournament scheduled for May 28, but only...
Analyzing your own games with/without an engine is one of the best ways to improve. I would prioritize recent games. Old games may tell you what you misunderstood, but not always what is holding you back now. If you can find a partner and do thi...
There are many ways to win a chess game- you can have a positional advantage, or the game can be even until move 40, and then your opponent makes a small mistake in the endgame. Other ways are more exciting to us chess fans; an attack on the opp...
Sometimes Fine gets facts right: ‘Paul Morphy (1837-1884)’, page 3. Sometimes he gets them wrong: ‘Paul Morphy (1836-1883)’, page 89. His judgements are equally schizophrenic. Reuben Fine, Chess and Psychology by Edward Wi...
Hello everyone! After killing Magnus Carlsen, I was fortunate enough to be released from prison in under 15 days, thanks to my exemplary behavior and the support of this incredible chess community, which raised money to pay my bail. Thank you! ...
Quick role-swap this month. Varun usually writes the Chessalyz updates because he handles the technical side while I focus on chess, but May’s headline improvement is on the coaching quality of Matty (our AI coach), so I’m taking this ...
Hey everyone! We're here with the April update. This month, there were 146k accounts closed for fair play violations. Of those accounts, 23 were titled players. Understanding "Reports Created" Fluctuations If you follow this blog, you may...
Amateur chess has always had one problem: improving at a basic level is relatively easy. Solving tactics, playing lots of games, and knowing a few strategic principles is usually enough to make quick progress. But there comes a point — per...
Where to start? A few weeks ago the basic idea for this post came....perusing through one of the best chess books ever published, I came across the following game, in which Maroczy (a world-class player in his time), played ....g5 at the wron...
Patience in chess is not a decorative virtue. It is a technical condition. It does not matter whether we are in a tactical position, in a thicket of variations, with a clear advantage from the opening, or in an apparently dry endgame. In any ser...
Anthony Miles (1955-2001) was not only the first UK-born grandmaster but also one of the most interesting characters that ever appeared in the English chess scene. His win against Anatoly Karpov as Black in 1980 using the move 1...a6 is legendary,...
Before you make your first move against a higher-rated player, the rating gap is already doing work on you. You’ve seen the pairing sheet. You know their number is bigger than yours. And somewhere in the back of your head, a little voice sta...
Dear Chess Friends! I'm excited to share highlights from my recent workshop "Domination: When Your Opponent Has No Moves", where we explored one of the most satisfying yet subtle ways to win a chess game: not by a flashy sacrifice or a direct at...
