Hi chess mates. I know you are probably thinking “Hey, what are you doing here?” since I said in my last post I would be traveling this week to an important tournament. Well, something happened and I was not able to travel because of a...
The main story of the Sinquefield rapid and blitz was Carlsen's apparent inability to keep his composure. Carlsen's problem were his blunders. It has happened before that he starts with a loss or bad form, but this time he simply couldn't manage...
In this post I would like to show you an old game of mine, which I played in 2013 in Dublin in the Irish National Club Championship. I was playing for Galway, and my opponent was another Hungarian, IM Tibor Károlyi, who happened to ...
1960... Edith Piaf is singing Je ne regrette rien from Paris. Hitchcock's Psycho is released in cinema halls. The world is in some tension... Wrong start! As this blog isn't a review of what happened in chess in 1960. I couldn't just find a more a...
A New Taste by David Pruess, Manager What is this new taste? So delectable, so different from any I have tasted before? A playoff victory?? The San Francisco Mechanics have won a playoff match?? Yes, it is a franchise first PCL postseason wi...
Hello, Stacia here! How many times have you entered into endings in time pressure and realize you have no idea what you are doing? Well, unfortunately, that's way too many times for me so I'm seeking to remedy that situation. ...
Nothing gives more joy to Samarth J. Rao, a 16-year-old boy with Cerebral Palsy, than playing chess. It is simply a passion for him. A Class 10 student of Government High School Honnavar in Uttara Kannada district, he acquired the passion to pla...
Continuing on with our series on "Opening overviews," it's now time to discuss the Queen's Pawn Opening. Black can either play the solid and stable 1...d5, often leading to the Queen's Gambit - or black can try any of numerous other systems, oft...
A few weeks ago my article on Vera Menchik appeared in British journal "CHESS". Unfortunately, it is not (yet?) available online but you can buy this issue of the journal at the publisher's website. "CHESS" is one of the best journals in the histo...
Every bughouse player has different reasons for being drawn to the game. Some like the collaborative aspects, some like the increased depth, and some like the fancy checkmates. I'm sure if you try bughouse, you will be hooked like I was. This is a...
Update 8-18-19: Annotated game included. How do you keep up with the wide range of great chess content available online? Back when I was a professional chess player, I would be very eager to stay 'up to date' with the latest games, i...
I'm not a very serious, competitive chess player, but I love playing the game. It has been quite a while since I played a big tournament. Recently, I decided that I'd play in the National Amateur Chess Championship (India), not in a very competiti...
A lot of people begin their study of chess openings by diving right into complex variations, seeking to emulate the Grandmasters they admire. Inevitably, this leads to confusion. You'll hear disgruntled beginners complaining about how t...
While his friends in school would play cricket, Samarth J Rao, who was born with Cerebral Palsy, would sit in a corner and watch them quietly. He would feel left out but there was nothing he could do. He then decided to take on chess and is toda...
How do you turn the opponent’s weak pawns into won pawns? What is the key to converting a better pawn structure into a win on the board? I recently recorded the following video, to help you with this important technical aspect of che...
Ukrainian chess trainer and enthusiast Valery Voinarevich was born in 1943, Kakhovka town in Kherson region. He died exactly 20 years ago on August 10th, 1999. Mr Voinarevich has established chess club in his native town and has been l...
There are a lot of chess principles we hear all the time, but don’t necessarily understand, or never really investigate. The purpose of these posts is to take a closer look of those principles, and examine the logic behind them. One ...
Hello again! First of all, here are the links to the first 3 in this series. I would recommend reading them too, but you can still access the content in this post without having read the previous issues: Classical Dutch Strategy 1 - e4, f5 C...
I've recently watched a beautiful documentary, the Closing Gambit by Alan Byron (2018). I've found it in vimeo for rent or buy, and it's describing the unusual circumstances in which the 1978 Karpov-Korchnoi chess championship [Baguio City, Philip...
The art of Positional Chess is passed on from generation to generation. In this blog post we will see the invisible thread that unites Rubinstein, Smyslov and Anand, in their treatment of the Meran Variation, but also in some general patterns. C...
Hi everyone. This week we are going to study an endgame from a game between Gelfand and Shirov in 2009. Gelfand could win, but he didn’t see the amazing line. I find this ending very instructive. I’m just going to say that to win White...
My previous blog post was all about how to reach a good knight vs. bad bishop position. Now, we will see the other side to the story, and learn how to use the bishop pair advantage in the endgame! I was inspired by a very recent game Nepomniac...
If you are looking for an active answer against 1.d4 (and almost everything except 1. e4) - you should watch the course that explains most important ideas of the Tarrasch Defense. 1) Introductionhttps://www.chess.com/video/player/learn-to-play-t...
Preliminary Remarks on Chess and Bughouse Theory Much of chess opening theory goes out of the window in bughouse. Some of the most common chess openings are just not feasible, or barely feasible, in bughouse. The Sicilian defense is at best expe...
Winning a brilliancy prize is a rare and special thing. At one time, brilliancy prizes were standard at top chess tournaments. These days, they are quite rare, probably because some top players (*cough* Kasparov *cough*) took it a little too perso...