Hi all! Time to post a blog on the adventures that I'll have at TATA steel chess. I'll be playing the amateur ten camp - ten days and 9 rounds of intense chess right next to the pro players. This will be day one of my blog and I will stream the an...
As early as 1982 the USCF had already started making preparations for the upcoming events commemorating the centennial of the death of Paul Morphy (1837-1884). Paul Morphy, as most chess enthusiasts realize, was the most celebrated ch...
Over 9 years ago I delved into my thoughts about respect in chess specifically around the idea of when is the appropriate time to resign. It actually turned out to be one of my most viewed and commented on blogs. Likely because no matter what leve...
In 1966 the cultural revolution begun in China. It was a socio-political movement aiming primarily at purging China of all capitalist elements of society and promoting Maoism as the dominant ideology. Young people were actively encouraged to rebel...
Hi everyone! In this blog I will discuss an entertaining, frustrating, and relatable subject: blundering! Here's how I've organized today's blog: displaying a panoply of 5 horrible yet instructive blunders from the past and present, a catalog of w...
Hi all! Time to post a blog on the adventures that I'll have at TATA steel chess. I'll be playing the amateur ten camp - ten days and 9 rounds of intense chess right next to the pro players. This will be day one of my blog and I will stream the an...
I recently caught up with the newly-crowned 2019 South African Women’s Chess Champion, WIM Jesse February, to find out her future chess plans, her chess training and advice, and her thoughts on South African chess. As top finisher at the SA ...
In 1851, London held the "Great Exhibition" to showcase British technology and culture. Concurrent with the event, Howard Staunton organized the world's first international chess tournament. This 16-player knockout invited all of the greatest play...
Dear Chess Friends, I’ve already posted 2 articles: About mistakes that beginners make (and, of course, I shared my ideas of how to avoid these mistakes) in Chess. You can find the article here – “4 Typical Mistakes Beginne...
I was browsing through chess magazines online and tracked an article in Tidskrift för Schack [10/1980] on young then Kasparov. He had just won, at the age of 17, the 19th World Junior Chess Championship, held in Dortmund during Aug 1980. Seco...
by David Pruess, manager Last year, GM Daniel Naroditsky played all 10 regular season matches for the team. And in addition to scoring well, he was famous for some really exciting games, such as this, earning him game of the week nominations wee...
I could play chess for a century and never again get a game like this 3/2 blitz game where I finish with all my eight pawns still on the board on their original columns, checkmating a naked king. Enjoy this game and please share a crazy gam...
It is rare for two players that one has not heard of to play a masterpiece, but that is what happened in the game Schmidt vs. Kuligowski. This game, played in Poland in 1979, won the best game prize in the Informant issue of it's quarter. The vict...
Source in Russian: http://screenstage.ru/?p=1885 Dus Fyodor Ivanovich Dus-Chotimirsky with his wife and son lived in our kitchen. Not exactly in kitchen though - beside the kitchen, in the former servant room. The area of that room was 8 ...
This is the second part in my series on the games I played in the 2019 South African Closed Chess Championships. Part one can be found here. Part one ended with me on 2 points out of a possible 4, with (in my mind) no hope of winning the tournam...
Afternoon Everyone! As usual, I have been rather distracted! Someone has been on to one of my old posts, and sent me digging into things Lasker related. Having found one of the sources that was in my head, I decided to put some of the mate...
As I said when I wrote this tournament up last year, no one pays any particular attention to the Seattle Championship; it's just a fancy name for an ordinary weekend Swiss. For reasons that will become apparent, I'm a bit sorry I said that. ...
by Dana Mackenzie, staff writer Welcome to the first blog post written on my new laptop! I don’t have a chess program on my laptop yet, so I will have to do with some makeshift diagrams and no computer analysis. Maybe that will be a refres...
The ending in the game V.Kovalev-J.Van Foreest from Round 9 of the Wiik aan Zee Tata Steel tournament is similar to Golubev-Minasian, USSR U-18 Championship 1985, with the important (I think!) difference that my opponent didn't manage to place his...
Hi all! Time to post a blog on the adventures that I'll have at TATA steel chess. I'll be playing the amateur ten camp - ten days and 9 rounds of intense chess right next to the pro players. This will be day one of my blog and I will stream the an...
Attacking opponent's weaknesses is one of the most fundamental plans we can come up with during a game. If the opponent has something weak in their position then it is always a good idea to pinpoint this, work on pressuring it and trying to get an...
"A sacrifice is the natural product of the initiative." - GM Ivan Sokolov "Only the player with the initiative has the right to attack." - Wilhelm Steinitz (Former World Champion, 1886-1894) Our BOOK OF THE WEEK is The Art of Sacrifice in Ch...
Several players have reached out to me in the past few weeks to get access to my EXCLUSIVE training on building a Master-Level Opening Repertoire. (If you haven't, it's still not too late! Click HERE and let me know, and I'll send you the video....
Sometimes it pays to listen to your father, or even your grandfather! Vasily Vasiliyevich Smyslov (1921-2010) was a gigantic figure in chess in the 20th Century. He played three matches for the World Championship against Mikhail Botvinn...
As mentioned previously, a weak square's importance is dependent upon one's ability to utilize it. However, a weak square's utility is very much dependent upon its accessibility. Bobby Fischer demonstrates some tactical ingenuity to achieve a stra...