I have an audacious vision for a chess app. Two amazing programmers with strong chess knowledge are bringing it to life. They’re adding great ideas to make it even better -that's the best part of programmers who understand chess! We're now l...
“Why is the position getting worse with every move even though the opponent isn’t doing anything extraordinary?” Obviously, every position is unique; however, the most likely answer to this question, in general, is that your po...
In the good ol’ days of the Romantic Era of chess, winning with a beautiful ending was a common end goal. Players would try to create aesthetically-pleasing finales; sometimes, even their opponents in a lost position would assist in crafti...
Why is the role of the center so important in chess? The main reason is that having control of the center allows the side controlling it to conduct its plan with ease. For example, a player's attack on the opposing side’s king is more like...
“Centralization of the king in the endgame is hardly ever incorrect. It can only be inopportune.” - from Endgame Strategy by Shereshevsky Mating the king is the primary purpose of chess; therefore, each side usually tries to ...
A ruined pawn structure around the king is a recipe for getting mated in the middle game. However, closer to the endgame, the chance of the weaker side being able to defend the king increases, which is why they usually offer trades to make...
During Chess.com’s coverage of the FIDE World Championship, Caruana said that he likes to go against the engine’s will in his opening preparation. Today, it is almost impossible to find any significant advantage in serious openings. ...
How do blunders happen in strong players’ games? Usually, strong players blunder when they encounter a surprise in some part of the game (for example, opening moves that they have not analyzed, moves that change the evaluation, etc.) that ...
When there is no light piece in front of the king, such as a knight on the 3rd or 6th rank, I call it a “lone king concern”. As you would guess, in these situations, the king becomes vulnerable, especially when enemy pieces are nearb...
What happens when a player is “on fire”? This phenomenon is observed in chess tournaments from time to time when a player exhibits much higher performance than his rating would predict. In such cases, it seems that all of the element...
The following question frequently arises in practice: How can I create winning chances if I’m playing with Black? The question above is very difficult to answer because there are several possible variations depending on the opponent, and a...
All chess players encounter situations where it is necessary to effectively respond to their opponents' moves and ideas. Preventing them or preparing against them is known as prophylaxis (from Ancient Greek: πρό (pró = before) + &phi...
There are several types of advantages in chess. After the material advantage, the easiest one to recognize is probably the space advantage, where a player controls considerably more squares than their opponent. It is common knowledge that the si...
A wise man once said that a player in a lost position is like a drowning man who will try all possible ways to escape from his dire circumstances. However, just trying to save themselves may not help the player because an experienced opponent cl...
“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” - George Santayana This quote reminds us why we should learn from history in order to help us to avoid the mistakes made by prior generations. A common ...
This Game of the Week teaches us the following chess concepts: 1) It is always necessary to pay attention to the opponent’s ideas; 2) In most cases, trades are favorable for the side that has a space disadvantage. However, it...
While the strongest players had been trying to outperform each other in the FIDE Grand Prix, some of the most interesting games of this week were actually played in the “non-elite” tournaments. The following game might have been ch...
Game of the Week is back after a brief break! Weeks 5, 6, and 7 will be posted over the next few days. Thank you for your patience. This week was rich with complex chess games. In particular, both the 1st stage of the FIDE Grand Prix in Be...
Game of the Week is back after a brief break! Weeks 5, 6, and 7 will be posted over the next few days. Thank you for your patience. After two years of absence from classical chess, Hikaru Nakamura managed to make a perfect comeback, implementi...
“You should first sacrifice and then calculate,” responded Tal instantly. One of my favorite stories happened in the analyzing room of the USSR championship in 1978 as described in the book Garry Kasparov on Garry Kasparov: Part I: ...
The annual Tata Steel Chess Tournament always captivates the attention of the entire chess world. Every year, we witness great competition with dozens of brilliant games! Even though the tournament consists of two groups - the Masters and the Ch...
Suddenly, your opponent plays a line that he has never played before according to your preparation. What should you do? First, take a break for a moment before playing your mainline home prep. I would recommend spending at least 5 minutes trying...
Allegedly, Radjabov said in an interview during the 2010 World Blitz Championship that “Everyone is getting tired. You might as well start with 1.a4 and you can still beat them.” Carlsen decided to test this statement against Radjabo...
Man’s ego is always the biggest obstacle on his way to success.The ego leads us to be more interested in what we want rather than what the person in front of us is doing, which is detrimental to chess improvement. However, chess masters ha...
This week’s Game of the Week will clearly demonstrate the following principles:1) In the opening, fight for the center. Although hypermodernists described the possibility of doing this with pieces only, it is better to combine both pawns and...
