One of the most exciting tournaments to watch, the World Cup in Khanty Mansysk, is well under way. With every passing round the tension rises and as the usually say for knock-outs, the players with best nerves win. As I write this Round 3 finish...
This is an experiment and I would like to see how far it goes. Welcome to this adventure! 1. The Pandas of Lagavi are finding it hard to live under the rule of Zingados - a two-headed creature community. It is that time of the year where re...
Hello chess friends! Here are a few puzzles from Round 3, Game 1 of the FIDE World Cup. Good luck! Vitiugov vs. Karjakin So vs. Vidit Now for my favourite, from Duda vs. Andreikin: ...
For the second video in my new series on the history of computers in chess, I covered one of the most famous examples of human dominance over the early versions of Chess AI. Bobby Fischer's legendary victory over the machine known as "Gree...
As promised, I'm continuing to offer my notes and analysis as I prepare videos for our YouTube and Twitch channels during the 2019 FIDE World Cup. In Round 2 we, once again, saw fighting chess (the kind only a knockout event with stakes like the W...
We're continuing on with the ChessPathways.com "Openings" series today with a video on the Evans Gambit. This Romantic-era chess opening originated hundreds of years ago, but retains its popularity today. Kasparov even famously used it to take d...
Hello & Namaste! I'm sharing some of the tips extracted from my experience in chess life. What if you had seven days to prepare for a tournament? I think you could make the most of the time you have before a tournament by following s...
Which move was the highlight of the 2019 FIDE World Cup thus far? There are quite a few candidates, but many are already saying that Firouzja's 37th move, in his Round 2 World Cup game against 2018 World Rapid Champion Dubov, is the...
I wish I could say I found the right move in my 3/2 blitz game. It's an elegant line.
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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...
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 ...
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...
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...