This game features one of the greatest Chess tacticians of all time, Mikhail Tal. He plays the Rubinstein Variation of the French Defense. Black takes over the initiative right from the start. White pays for his passive and inaccurate play in 18 m...
I have mentioned the benefits studying Chess miniatures before. This game features the Danish Gambit where White sacrifices several pawns for rapid development, and then tries to sacrifice a piece which Black declines, and at the end, I could not ...
Studying miniatures has many benefits. First, almost always, the winner wins quickly because the loser did something (really bad) that s/he should not have done in the opening. Second, related to the first reason, one learns what not to do. Third,...
After winning 3 games in a row, I knew that maintaining the wins would be very hard as the opponents would get stronger. I also knew it would be fun playing higher rated players. So, the self-talk began. I suspected that the rest of players I woul...
I went into my 4th game wanting to maintain the momentum I had (gained) after winning both my games the day before. I am looking at the scoresheet to see what I remember about this game, and it appears it was a pretty quick game. We had 6 hours to...
The first two games featured "Indian Defenses" and I thought they were King's Indian Defenses. GotGoose correctly pointed out that those were Benoni Defenses. The third game was a Benoni. (Which one? Old? Classical? or...?) I am not ...
After losing the first game with White, I decided to study/review the King's Indian Defense and use it as Black against 1.d4. In the previous couple of tournaments, I had played the Gruenfeld Defense. Going to this tournament, I had not settle...
Here is my first game in the 17th Annual Chicago Open that I played in over the weekend. I was White, and I lost to a King's Indian Defense that I mishandled at various points. At first, I lost a bunch of tempos - (poor/inconsistent decisions)...
Over the Memorial Day weekend, I participated in the 17th Annual Chicago Open, that took place at Westin Hotel (Chicago North Shore), Wheeling, IL. It was amazing seeing all the people that play the game. It was bigger than the previous big tourna...
Here is my 5th and last game of the 2008 Mid-America Open tournament that was played last weekend. At the time, it appeared I was already assured of being in the top two or three. I needed a draw to be an outright winner. I do not know how to play...
Here is another Grunfeld Defense which almost went wrong! After winning three games in a row the day before, a friend told me that I was the only one with 3 points after 3 rounds in our section, U2000. It was exciting. Could I make it 4-0? This wa...
After winning the first two games, I was under some pressure to win the third game so that I could finish my day with 3 wins. I knew it was going be tough as the people I was playing were getting stronger. I told myself to not worry about it, as a...
Here is my second game of the 2008 Mid-America Open tournament. It was the Slav Defense of QGD. I was happy with how I had relentless pressure against the Black King. I later sacrificed a pawn for a winning attack... I have annotated the game and ...
Over the weekend, I participated in a tournament in St Louis, MO. It was the 2008 Mid-America Open Tournament. I played quite okay and I won all my five games. Here is the first of those games. I have included my annotations. Your comments, ...
In this second round game of the 34th Annual Easter Open, I gave up a Bishop for 3 pawns... and then, I think I misplayed the middlegame and ending. Well, how else would I lose?
This is one of my favorite games for several reasons: First, I had an objective right from the start - third move - that Black's light-squared Bishop would not get involved in the game and that sort of happened. Second, I created my first Alek...
Sometimes I wonder how much I know about the things I like. One of those things is chess.com - so I decided to look into things like, when it was launched (birthday?!), how about the first article, when was it published? etc. So, I looked in...
I believe that one sure way to attain excellence in any field is to master the fundamentals - the basics. Once you have a strong foundation, you are able to build onto that and before long, what you once thought as lofty ideas and goals, become yo...
Here at Chess.com when you are playing "Online Chess" you have the ability to make notes of your thoughts, ideas, calculations, etc. The next time you bring your game up, look to your right, there is a pane where you can chat/message, - ...
I have recently lost a couple of games... my last one was mate in 1 which I should have seen and prevented. I calculated so many variations.... I saw everything, but the nice tactic (Queen sac)! After congratulating my opponent, it was time to mul...
How do you defend against three possible checkmates coming from an opponent who offers you a Queen and leaves her "unprotected" for 4 moves? The problem is... you can't touch her (the Queen)! According to Alekhine, Black makes an ina...
When I go through games of the GrandMasters or the Greats, I usually focus on the winner. What did he do right, how did he exploit the weaknesses in the opponent's position? This helps me to see what kind of positions and "things" to...
Sometimes when I go through games of Masters of old, or Grandmasters, I wonder why they make certain (awful) moves. I even think that I could have done better in that position! I wish Capablanca or Fischer had not lost any games. For the longest t...
After I wrote the title, I wondered if recovering chessaholic means that I was a chessaholic and I am no longer one, or that I let go of chess and I am now getting back to it? Well, regardless of what the proper meaning is, WHAT I MEAN is - I woul...
Below is a conversation I had with my friend, Vernon while we were playing a game. He had played something I didn't expect and soon gave away a piece... (I must thank him for allowing me to reproduce our chat here.) chessiq: i thought yo...
