What's White's best move?
I wish I could say I found the right move in my 3/2 blitz game. It's an elegant line.
Try to solve this Pawns Endgame (+ Video)
Hello people who love a game invented in India. As you already know, one of my favorite topics is chess endgames. Today we are analyzing an interesting position I found in a book written by one of the bests: Mark Dvoretsky. The name of the book is...
Scottish Championship 2019 (Part 2)
Hi All, Hope you have had a fantastic weekend and so here comes the continuation of my blog series on Scottish Championships 2019. (You can find Part 1 here) So after the first 3 rounds I was standing at 2.5 points out of 3, which is not...
World Cup 2019 Rd 2: Giri beats Najer in Armageddon, Nisipeanu knocks out Hikaru
Round 2 of the World Cup 2019 saw an Armageddon, an endgame with five knights, and Hikaru Nakamura going down in flames against Nisipeanu. This round featured very few upsets, but a couple of thrilling matches which went down to the wire. The to...
Whose Doubled Pawns are Better?
Hello chess friends! How do you determine whether doubled pawns are a strength or a weakness? It is not so often that you see a position where both sides have doubled pawns, but that's what happened in the game I've annotated for tod...
Tactical Tests from the World Cup Rd 2
Chess is 99% Tactics - Richard TeichmannIn the last segment, I shared 18 exercises from the World Cup Rd1. Today, I'm back with ten exercises from tiebreaks + Round 2. A few readers asked me if I could get the interactive diagrams so that they cou...
Your Fish Just Isn't That Good: What is StockfishDev?
Hello everyone! This is less a post and more a collection of fun links. The Stockfish project usually releases a new version (Stockfish 8, 9, 10) after about 50 Elo of improvement. But in the meantime, there is constant updating and patchi...
Standard #43: Burning in the Bertin Gambit
Hello, Stacia here! I wanted to share an interesting 15/10 game I played on chess.com. This game features a wild line of the King's Gambit Accepted affectionately referred to as "The Wild Cunningham", but also know as the Bertin Gambit...
Mieses. The Brilliancy Prize Games, and Some Pictures.
Afternoon everyone. To finish off the Mieses stuff, I have decided to put together the Brilliancy Prize winning games of his that I know of, plus some nice pictures. A bit like it says in the title!! ( I don't do clickbait!! ) Thes...
Bobby Fischer Crushes White In The King's Indian - Letelier vs. Fischer, 1970
Surely every chess player has a favorite game from Bobby Fischer. For most, it's probably Fischer's "Game of the Century" against Byrne (Donald) or his "Game of the Century: Part II" against Byrne (Robert). For me, it's Fischer's win as Black agai...
Why Do Different People Have Different Results?
If you aren't getting the same results as someone else, it only means that they know some things you don't - and are doing things you aren't. Therefore, in addition to working hard toward our dreams, we should also reflect on our efforts, and ...
Winter not-so Classic 2018
Yes, this blog is nine months late. Work has been making me crazy, and also I found these games particularly difficult to annotate--or indeed to look at. I've decided to present it with incomplete annotations, as otherwise it might be ...
Take My Rooks!
Hello & Welcome! In this post, I'm going to share one of my most memorable games. The title is inspired from the book 'Take my rooks' written by Nikolay Minev and Yasser Seirwan. The book deals with rook sacrifices and I did remember the ...
Learn the Philidor Defense...and how to play against it!
We're continuing on with our ChessPathways.com "Openings" series with the Philidor Defense! Almost every chess player has encountered the Philidor Defense at some point. This opening isn't popular at Super-GM level these days, but it's better th...
Scottish Championship 2019 (Part 1)
Hi All, It's been a couple of months of peace and quite on my blog, but this is not because I have given up on chess just yet - I have been busy playing tournaments, working with Riga Magicians PRO chess League team towards qualifiers, and life ...
Thus Spake My Pieces - Chess Fiction
Namaste & Hello to all the chess lovers here :-)I'm sharing something special and different. A short story that I wrote a few years back. Feedback and thoughts welcome! The match has begun. It is an important one, today! I have played a good...
Sense of Danger
What is the main challenge that young children face in their chess games? There are many possible answers, but at least for me, in the early years of my chess 'career' (up to around the 1400 level), my main weakness was that I lacked a se...
A Futuristic Find in the Albin Counter-Gambit
I have always been a Fianchetto player through and through. To give you an idea, my first ever chess opening was the Hippo, which I literally played every game for both white and black up to 2100 USCF. It goes without saying that I needed to...
My Compositions #3: The warriors who refuse to give up
Visualization, Awareness, Imagination. Solving chess compositions enhance these three crucial aspects of your tactical ability. Studies train your eyes to unexpected moves, crazy ideas, and significantly improve your creativity. Welcome to ...
Tactics at the World Cup : Rd 1
If you want to stay in shape, exercising is a prerequisite! In this first blog post I share 18 exercises for you. You can solve these exercises from the World Cup and tick that off from your today's checklist. There are three sets each contai...
5 Indians Through To Round 2, While 5 Exit At 2019 FIDE World Cup
The 2019 FIDE World Cup kicked off in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. A total of 128 players from different parts of the world flocked to this Siberian city for this knockout event. The two finalists of this prestigious event will win the two coveted ber...
World Cup 2019 Rd 1: Christiansen stuns Wojtaszek, Nihal beats Cori
The Chess World Cup is one of its kind. The 128 player knockout event started on 10th September, and in the first round already, there were a number of higher rated players tumbling down against their supposedly inferior opponents. The best play...
Сalm before the Storm: Week 6 in Division 1 Review
In a couple of days Russia and Ukraine will play another supermatch to define a winner of regular season. For both rivals it could be a victory in battle but not in war as they will face each other again in Champions Pool in the end of Octobe...
Bughouse for Beginners: Coordination
Chess is a game of complete information. You can look at the board and know what's going on. Sometimes you might need to know if one side has moved their King or not, to know if it is legal to castle. But in that case, you could just look at the s...
Learning from Our Questions
One of the principles of my teaching is that of active learning - where one actively participates and interacts with the material, as opposed to passively receiving it. Quite a few readers have taken that on board, and asked me questions, either h...