Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is one of the finest chess players on the planet today, but everyone starts somewhere; he too was once a young prodigy, hungering for his first elite victories. In his first (but possibly not last?) game on this list, a 17...
Morning Guys. Three days into lockdown and I am bored already!! So, looking at the 'Articles' folder on my computer came up with a game I had started on for this series. Knowing that there are a couple of endgame lovers out there who read my stu...
Is it really true that White can force mate in 12 moves from the initial position? There was a secret method that Alekhine learned from a Russian peasant in 1914. He was in St Petersburg for the 1914 tournament and while he was at his studies ...
There isn't much to celebrate in these troubled times as most of us are more or less jammed at home. Well, there is Kevin Goh's confirmation as a Grandmaster, the first for Singapore in 2 decades (on April's Fools day, no less) so at least we have...
Greetings everyone! Welcome to busting 3 dubious black sidelines (obviously there will also be a post on 3 white sidelines) which we'll in depth cover strengths, weaknesses, and concrete refutations against. Also the lines I'm including aren't t...
Hi all, It's been a while since I last blogged but I recently I wanted to challenge myself to make a video that explained a full game in detail in a very short amount of time. My reasoning is that most humans do not learn from their first experi...
Inspired by Peter Doggers' news post, I found the old Match Of The Century book, edited by Mikhail Yudovich. Along with the forty games, there were short interviews by all 24 players, including non-playing reserves Bronstein and Darga. All pl...
For today's post, I will share a simple antidote to the Modern Defence (1.e4 g6). The Modern is especially popular in online chess, perhaps because of its systematic nature, along with the general understanding among top GMs that fianchetto-based ...
I want to show a quite wide training materials prepared by me, over which I spent several hours. It is free for You to show and learn. I use it to teach my chess students. It concerns my games mostly from Polish, Czech and Slovak leagues. There ar...
Hi guys! Today my club (https://www.chess.com/club/expert-blitz-tournaments) had an 8 round swiss tournament, honoring Samuel Reshevsky. The purpose of the club in general is for people to have something to do while staying in quarantine. To...
Many newer chess fans go to know GM Emil Sutovsky for the first time this week due to his off-the-board moves as Director General of FIDE. His on-the-board moves are some of my favorites as he won many brilliant games in the 2000s. His game agai...
Hi chess enthusiasts! I think you already know that I enjoy a lot working with endgames. At the same time I consider they are very important for players who want to continue progressing. Today we are going to keep on improving with this thematic, ...
In this post, I will share some beautiful endgame studies and composed problems on the theme of checkmating with a lone Knight! Of course, the motif of the opponent's king being trapped in a corner by their own pawn, allowing a smothered mate...
Next topic is a strong king. This piece could be very active mostly in endgames. Then the king is one of the strongest pieces. From this rule there are some exceptions. One of them is famous game Short - Timman Tilburg 1991, where the king run to ...
Dear Chess Friends! You know every chess player wants to play better, but it’s very often when he repeats the same mistake many times, because he doesn’t even suspect that he is making this mistake. Would you like to know what typica...
As I wrote in my Preview, the Candidates unfortunately did not finish. Or is it perhaps fortunately? In this post I will give my thoughts on the whole mess that started before the tournament and is still ongoing after its postponement. ...
A few weeks ago there was an innocent beginner post on r/chess asking for guidance on the Alekhine Defense. The question was about Alekhine opening theory: Why does black play 2...Nd5 and not 2...Ne4 against e5 Why is this main-line? ...
Chess.com launched in May of 2007. Since then, we have had a pretty steady growth pattern each year where traffic increases, then flattens out during summer for USA/Europe, before growing again. We've grown from 20-50% every year since starting ou...
Good Afternoon my friends. I hope, from the bottom of my heart, that you are all well in these turbulent times. Sorry - quite a bit of reading to do again! A couple of articles ago I showed one side of the great dichotomy that was Karl Ernst A...
The Digital archive of Russian Chess Federation has, among other things, a handwritten notebook featuring Alexander Alekhine's earliest correspondence games. Even at 10 years old, the young Alexander seemed to be ambitious: on the title page, he w...
My Dear Chess Friends! Please, join the webinar with this link: https://tricksofchess.clickmeeting.com/webinar-26-knight-vs-bishop Or watch in online below: Subscribe on YouTube The link to support: https://www.patreon.com/TricksO...
I want to show you a chess masterpiece. White is winning. Try to use engine if there is no way to calculate in mind. Please post a comment with the solution
A queen is very valuable piece. Such strong that not in all cases has to stay in the center of the board. There are two examples above, which shows where the queen has to stay. This is the game from Slovak Extraleague. I want to win this game, bec...
How do you set problems against the Grunfeld Indian Defence?This is one of the main questions that 1.d4 players face when constructing their White repertoire. Fortunately, the 2020 FIDE Candidates tournament gave us some clues as to what migh...
Chciałem Wam zaprezentować moją partię sprzed 8 lat, którą rozegrałem podczas festiwalu Cracovia. Grałem ze znacznie lepszym przeciwnikiem, a ze względu na to, że była to ostatnia runda turnieju postanowiłem zagrać bardzo odważnie i kreat...