Hey Impressive Chessers! Before we get to our current blog, I wanted to point out something that most of you snuffed out... My last blog, 4 Proven Chess Improvement Tips to Gain 100 Rating Points Fast, was an April's Fool's hoax. We will be...
Hey Impressive Chessers! I’m back with some great advice for y’all. If you consistently apply these four ideas, you’ll be well on your way to reaching the sweet waters of chess improvement. Why four? Because we are entering t...
Hey Impressive Chessers! As we are over half a month into 2026, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on 2025. I didn't want to dwell just on games and ratings, but on the people and lessons that made this year such a meaningful one in my chess l...
Hey Impressive Chessers! In a strange change of tact, today’s blog is going to be all about me! Okay… I’m kidding... Kind of. What this blog is really about is one of my biggest weaknesses (especially in the past) and one th...
Hey Impressive Chessers! If you’ve ever wanted advice on improving your blitz rating from a slumping, elder-millennial National Master (yes, that would be me), then this is the blog for you! In all seriousness, I really do think I can help...
Hey Impressive Chessers!! I hate to inform you that I've been in a bit of a blitz slump as of late*. But the good news that comes with that is that I get to play chess players that play "hope chess". I thought that you all had stopped playing "h...
Hey Impressive Chessers! Happy All Hallow's Eve, Eve (the day before Halloween)! Today we're going to be "de-spookifying" gambits just like we did last year: If you haven't already, or you want to brush up on my strategy to deal with t...
Today’s blog only receives a somber–hey impressive chessers, That’s because on October 19th, 2025, the chess world lost one of our brightest stars: Daniel Naroditsky. I wanted to share how I became acquainted with “D...
Hey Impressive Chessers! Unfortunately, it’s not good enough to be just good at solving chess puzzles to be a great chess player. You also have time constraints! So not only do you have to find the best moves but you have to find them rela...
Hey Impressive Chessers! As a chess coach I get asked lots of questions and get to hear my student comment about chess improvement. Some memorable ones that apply to this blog are: "I heard chess is 99% tactics, should I just do tactic puzzl...
Hey Impressive Chessers! It’s been awhile* but for very good reasons! Last week, my wife Traci and I welcomed our first baby into the world! I think she’s very cute, so be warned, I’ll be sprinkling photos throughout this blog ...
Hey Impressive Chessers! Chess teaching and chess playing are actually surprisingly different skills. Some of the most influential chess teachers like NM Dan Heisman*, NM Bruce Pandolfini*, GM Jacob Aagaard* and arguably the most famous chess co...
Hey Impressive Chessers! One of my favorite pastimes is to think. I know, this probably isn't that surprising because I'm a chess player. But I’m not just talking about thinking in the “I’m calculating 5 moves ahead” kind...
Hey Impressive Chessers! This blog is going to go over the phrase that I’m sure you’ve heard from chess teachers/coaches/content creators/etc. say: “Just Don’t Blunder.”(JDB, as I’ll call it from here on ou...
Hey Impressive Chessers! And to my fellow Americans, Happy 4th of July! My high school friend, Jon and I at a Fourth of July parade this morning So let’s start out by not sugar (or red*) coating anything: chess is a really hard gam...
Hey Impressive Chessers! I hate to be that guy…but please, for the sake of your chess future, stop playing "hope chess". If you are a returning reader, first of all thanks! Secondly, you know that I always try to give advice that’...
Hey Impressive Chessers! I get asked all the time, "How do you become a National Master?" My answer is usually something like: “Develop good habits. Be ready for a mountain of painful losses. Learn to assess your games honestly; even your ...
Hey Impressive Chessers! As some of you may know, I've taught chess in the Southern California area since 2002! The current company that I work for, part time, is Strategic Kids. Strategic Kids is really good about making learning to play chess ...
Hey Impressive Chessers! In this blog, we’re diving into a classic “do as I say, not as I do” moment. You’ll see exactly what I mean when I break down my tragic (but instructive!) game against GM Enrico Sevillano. Along t...
Happy Cinco de Mayo, Impressive Chessers! In honor of Cinco de Mayo, I thought it would be appropriate to celebrate an impressive figure in chess history. The first Mexican Grandmaster (GM): Carlos Torre Repetto. While Torre wasn’t officia...
Hey Impressive Chessers! In this blog we are going to time travel back to the prehistoric ages of the early 2000s. So as some of you know I’ve been teaching/coaching chess for almost a quarter century! I started teaching chess in 2001, a f...
Hey Impressive Chessers! You may have seen my last post: www.chess.com/blog/NMChesstoImpress/want-to-play-impressive-chess-do-these-5-things and thought this NM has no idea what he’s talking about… and you’d be right! That...
Hey Impressive Chessers! So, you want to be an impressive chess player? Well, you’ve come to the right place! Follow these five foolproof strategies, and I guarantee you’ll stay on the path to greatness. These are battle-tested techni...
Hey Impressive Chessers! How many of you have played a great game, maybe it ended with a beautiful Queen sac for mate, but somewhere in the game, you played an inaccurate move in the opening or had a non-ideal strategy? What does our brain usual...
Hey Impressive Chessers! You’ve probably heard the idiom: “A jack of all trades is a master of none.” In modern times, this phrase often carries a negative connotation. While I may disagree that this should be seen as ...
