Chess University is accepting applications for summer internships! If you would like to intern at the world's leading chess teaching organization and acquire useful, real world skills, apply now! Interns will get hands-on experience at creating ...
Chess University is accepting applications for summer internships! If you would like to intern at the world's leading chess teaching organization and acquire useful, real world skills, apply now! Interns will get hands-on experience at creating ...
Garry Kasparov has been actively promoting his latest book Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins in recent months, and this has included a TED talk which is now available to view online. The talk and the b...
An outline of a possible repertoire with some ideas in the main lines. Plus a free download of the discussed lines. http://www.alexcolovic.com/2017/06/caro-kann-black/
I've been coaching endings more frequently these days, due to a parent's request to work on her kid's endings. There was this particular pawn ending that I found intriguing as general principles of endings actually hinder the winning process and a...
Welcome once again to my blog, where I have decided to analyse all my OTB (Over The Board) chess games for my local club Pontypridd played during the season 2016/17. After abandoning competitive chess at the tender age of sixteen to focus on the s...
Last week I went to Norway, to see the strongest chess tournament since AVRO 1938. The legendary AVRO tournament, held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, has captured my imagination ever since my granddad, who taught me the rules of chess, told me a...
So, I finally wrote a post on my site to explain (sort of) my 8-month writing break. No chess content, but some insights into the weird world of economics academia: http://www.davidsmerdon.com/?p=1903
Let me present you my another quick lose, in which I demonstrated an absense of feel of danger. The game has been played in one of the most strange tournaments in my life. Ukrainian championship U-20 was extremely strong in 2006. We had 3 2500+ pl...
Your king is your most important piece. If it gets check mated, you lose - no matter how strong your position might be. Therefor, the general rule is to keep it safe, hide it, put it behind a wall of pawns, and watch over it as it was your own kid...
4th Round
No, it's not the Pro Chess League, nor the Speed Chess Championship, as awesome as those big events are. It's the Slow Chess League. OK, I'll admit that might not be true for everyone, so let me qualify the headline's st...
One of the strongest tournaments in history finished with a resounding victory for Aronian. He is clearly the best player in the world at the moment! Caruana spoiled Nakamura's tournament but improved his own. And Kramnik humiliated Giri i...
Chess is a brutal game. After hours of struggling, clever thought and great moves it all often comes down to one critical moment, where the decision you make will determine whether your previous hard work will pay off, or go to waste. One ...
Registration for the June 2017 month of the Prodigy Program is still open for our 900+, 1200+, 1500+, and 1750+ Elo sections. Renown coach and commentator IM Lawrence Trent will also teach in the Prodigy Program this month. Join the program that...
Russian chess statistician Vitaly Gnirenko has compiled a list of all players who defeated a reigning classical world champion in a game with classical control. Below is the chronological table of players joining the club. For the sake of convenie...
Carlsen showed a Champion's character today and won deservedly. It doesn't matter that he went close to losing. He refused to give up on a bad tournament and his courage was awarded! And Kramnik lost, another topsy-turvy tournament just li...
Little has gone right for Magnus Carlsen in this year's issue of Altibox Norway Chess 2017. The world champion has suffered two losses, and his play has been anything but what we are used to see. With weak openings, weird looking decisions, unco...
Small biographical articles written by Elizaveta Bykova in the early 1950s for her book Sovetskie Shakhmatistki, with relevant games and interviews if there were any included. Games annotated by Bykova unless noted otherwise. Players listed in th...
Hello Chess.com blogosphere and affiliated planets! After meeting Elshan Moradiabadi at a tournament in South Carolina, I convinced him to play a few blitz games with me. Now, I'm not a stranger to strong chess players, but I had just won a ...
Dear chess friends! Most of us used to recollect own combinations, that telling everyone about our unique tactical vision. But how often do you recollect own loses? I decided to break down this wall and to share with you a few of my loses. Here t...
Mafiosi time in Norway. Three Giuoco Pianos and one Sicilian. Carlsen crushed, Vachier forgets and Aronian stomps the Minister of Defence. Full report here.
Have you ever panicked as your opponent castles on the opposite side of you - fearing the upcoming attack and not knowing how to deal with it? Their pawns rush so fast, your king becomes so weak, and in the end - you become so easily mated. I woul...
"Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today." -Robert McKee Stories can entertain, inspire, and offer experiences to relate to. Through the many mediums of storytelling available today (books, videos, spok...
With the classical variation of the Nimzo-Indian defense, white avoids having their queenside structure damaged by Bxc3. The queen is now prepared to make this recapture from c2. A downside however is that the white queen is deployed very early, a...