Often in the random pool, I'm playing as a 2400 with three 1800 players, and I have noticed a few recurring patterns; opportunities that are often missed. There is no real structure to the things that 1800s tend to miss, so I just give these as th...
I don't know if my title could be counted as accurate. But consider that even the head photo chess position, that is a white to play and win, is based on a stalemate idea and threat. Anyway... I will come back to this in a following paragraph. L...
In his first Soviet Chess Championship, Mikhail Tal scored 10.5/17 and tied for fifth place - an excellent showing for a 19-year-old; however, the next year he would radically improve his score and win his first of a record six Soviet Championship...
“I did not want to write simply another repertoire book. There are entirely too many of those. Aside from the material on openings I’ve written in various media that people have valued, I felt there had to be something in addition that...
Last week I played two blitz games on the same day that demonstrated the limits of the queen against a rook and a piece. The first game I won in good style and didn't realize until post-game analysis that I should have forced a draw after winning ...
Hi chess fans. Lately I have been writing about some particular games, or endgames, or some specific situation on the board (taking advantage of my YouTube channel where I explain those positions or games). But I love to write posts about general ...
Welcome to the third part of our planned 4-part series on the infamous Blackmar-Diemer Gambit. Our aim is to find a Black response that gives us the most "bang for our buck". In the second part we covered two "accepted" options, 5...e6 (the E...
I have a Chess Song Contest... and its seems it's a damn hard contest, cause there is no winner yet ! Are you a Mikhail Tal fan, or expert ? Or are you a Chess detective, who knows the exact game sequences, quotes and personal facts about ...
At the age of 17, Malcolm Barker had been the British 'Boys' - i.e. under 18 - champion, three times running, and the runner up in what is now recognized as the first World Junior - Under 20 - Championship. Then, apart from one event a cou...
"Some consider that when I play chess I'm excessively cautious. But it seems to me that the question may be a different one. I try to avoid chance. Those who rely on chance should play cards or roulette. Chess is something quite different. -T...
Dear readers, I have a few books by Efim Geller, and they are all excellent. Starting with his books on the King's Indian Defense, and followed by his classic, "The Application of Chess Theory", his games emanate great power! In the following ga...
Hey there, Stacia here and I wanted to share another recent training game I played on our favorite chess site. In this 15/10 standard game I was taken out of book early when my opponent declined my gambit in an interesting, but...
Such was the dominance of Mikhail Tal in the 1960's that if he sacrificed a piece for the initiative, the player sitting opposite to him would mentally collapse already. After all, if his play confounds engines till date, what can you expect from ...
Before reading that article I strongly recommend reading part 1. and part 2. https://www.chess.com/blog/MatBobula/how-to-create-a-plan-in-the-middlegame-part-1 https://www.chess.com/blog/MatBobula/how-to-create-a-plan-in-the-middlegame-part-2 ...
Mark your calendars, grab your popcorn and prepare your heart! This historical EPIC chess battle will begin on November 9 4PM US/Central on twitch.tv/golddustori and twitch.tv/naycir. Will Tori's legendary chess play be enough to tackle Naycir's...
Taking as basis my daily games, I was most of times feeling sure when the game was coming in an endgame. One way or another, I would find a solution, even if it wasn't the best. But an exception was pawn endgames. Not sure why! I wasn't aware of t...
The Melbourne Chess Club's Greg Hjorth Open Weekender saw 86 entrants with IMs James Morris and Stephen Solomon as well as WGM Julia Ryjanova being the favourites to clinch the $2000 top prize (out of a prize fund of $6000). A couple of Singapor...
Today we are going to learn about the best player in my honest opinion. He is none other than Rashid Nezhmetdinov. Make sure to SUBSCRIBE(it's free):https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-Cmno1Bf_fAf8vd8y9DPZA?sub_confirmation=1 Follow me here for...
What's up, everyone! I'm back!!! And hopefully, I will be for a while. I know some of you missed me (at least I assume so!), so here I am with some more content from your typical chess amateur! This series will be on unusual moves --...
Hi chess people. I have seen many games where former World Champion Antoly Karpov got a small long term advantage and won a slow (although interesting) battle. But this one we are going to see today is different. At the end of the opening, he prep...
"Notions of chess have been shattered by a teen-age Hungarian girl - some call her modest and soft-spoken, but many opponents know her as a ferocious tiger over the board - who after years of steady progress began breathing down the necks of the t...
Over the past few months, I've had several player ask me for advice on getting better at blitz chess. It's a good time to answer that question - we just kicked off the ChessPathways Blitz Streak Challenge, where the ChessPathways members (free t...
It’s been a month since I last posted and this is the longest period I’ve gone without a post since I started this blog back in 2014. As usual, I followed everything that was happening in the chess world, the Grand Swiss, the Europea...
Surely every chess player has a favorite Mikhail Tal game. Mine is Tal's 1981 victory over Janos Flesch! Although Tal's victory over Flesch occurs exactly 20 years after he lost the World Championship title back to Botvinnik, the energy and imag...
Anand's 2006 victory over Sergey Karjakin was deemed by many an "Immortal Game" when it was played, but in 2013, Anand topped himself. His win over Levon Aronian in Tata Steel was universally deemed an instant classic, and many consider it his bes...