How to Get Out of Elo Hell?
Have you ever found yourself thinking something like this? “I can beat 1700-rated bots, so why am I 600?”, “It’s much easier to play against opponents above 1200.”, “I’ve played 800s who play better ...
How Many Chess Players Can You Identify?
Today we're going to play a game. Some people can recognize a chess game from a single move. Others can tell who played it just from the style. You think you know chess history. You've seen hundreds—maybe thousands—of games, read biog...
I Tested ChatGPT as a Chess Coach. Does It Actually Work?
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...
What Stops You from Seeing the Best Move When It’s Right in Front of You?
This has surely happened to you: you’re playing an attacking game, you see a sacrifice, you get excited, and you get lost in endless calculations trying to prove that it works. Because you know it has to work. But... in reality, the sacrific...
A Duel of Generations: The Chess World Championship Between Ding Liren and Gukesh.
The upcoming World Chess Championship between Ding Liren and Gukesh will be much more than just a title match. It will be a clash between two players who represent opposite extremes: experience and youth, fulfilled achievement and dreams yet to be...
How to Win at Chess with Opening Principles
This year, I am participating for the second time in the "2024 Chess.com Daily Chess Championship" following my previous involvement in 2018. The first round has been "easy", and in almost all the games I found myself in a favorable position ear...
Discovering Salo Flohr: A King Without a Crown in Chess
This post is dedicated to Salo Flohr, one of the great chess masters of the 20th century, who unfortunately remains relatively unknown. We will delve into his life, his chess career, and analyze some of his most memorable games, admiring the quali...
Chess Strategy Explained for Beginners: A Complete Guide ✔ ✔
In this post I will explain chess strategy for beginners. It is aimed at players who already know how to play, are making fewer tactical mistakes, but still do not know what to do in the middlegame or when facing something unusual in the opening. ...
The Sack of Rome. Magistrale di Roma, 1989.
The Sack of Rome is the name that was given to Zsofia Polgar's (Zsófia Polgár) achievement in the 1989 Rome tournament, in which she made a performance of 2900 points of elo rating, with 8.5 points out of 9, With only 14 ye...
Please, Do Not Bother the Hippo
In this post we are going to talk about hippopotamus. You know them, right? They may seem like friendly animals but in reality they are aggressive, and cause the death of hundreds of people every year (more than wolves, lions, sharks ...), being o...
How To Improve Your Chess Visualization?
A chess player needs to train seven fundamental skills. There are: Visualization, Calculation, Tactics, Evaluation, Strategy, Openings and Endgames. One of the most important skills for a chess player is visualization. What is visualization in c...
Typical Sacrifice Bxe6!
In this blog we will study the typical sacrifice on e6 in the opening. It's very common when opponent's king hasn't castled and e6 pawn is not defended by pieces (usually because a knight is on d7.) The point of sacrificing a piece on e6 i...
My Memorable Games I. Aronian-Popov. Aeroflot Open (2005)
Aronian is one of the great players of our time, well known and with many fans who love their dynamic games. This is one of his best games, and in it he sacrifices a piece in the opening to achieve a position of absolute dominance in which he pl...
How to Play with the Bishop Pair?
The Bishop pair is a powerful weapon in the hands of those who know how to use it. A few months ago I ran across a game that is perfect for explaining how to use that weapon. I analyzed the game, and I want to share it with you...
To Sack or Not? the Question is Now!
In today's post I'd like to share with you a chess rule the Spanish IM Michael Rahal is using on his YouTube channel to help determine whether a sacrifice will work or not. The rule says: "Sacrifice is feasible if the number of pieces attackin...
