No, no, I don't mean my good friend and mentor: @fpawn . I mean the Dutch defense. Is the Dutch defense guilty of being a weak, overrated opening? "Just how bad is the Dutch defense?" A player asked when he saw the paucity of elite level games i...
I like listening to cover songs. Some are terrible, some a pretty good and some are phenomenal. Below are a handful of very talented artists from various levels of renown who've really caught my ear with their covers of these oldies, I...
Have you ever wondered who the top YouTube chess channels are and how they got to be at the top? Check out this bar chart race and watch the battle for YouTube supremacy from 2010 to the present day, a battle featuring all of your favorite YouTu...
We are organizing a one day chess camp with two schedules for children rated above 800 in three different groups. Check out the flyer with the instructors and schedules and message me if interested!
Introduction Novice players are categorized as players who have chess.com blitz ratings under 800. They can be any age and range from brand new players to experienced pawn pushers looking to reach the beginner level. In this post we will take a l...
My Dear Chess Friend! This article is written by @jay_1944, a member of Online tournament that I organized recently. And It reflects his impression about the tournament! Hi all! Just finished playing my first game of FM Viktor Neustroev's On...
How did I win my last round game in the 2018 Australian Championship, and thereby become the Champion? It's a long story, but the short answer is that a key piece of knowledge I had - that my opponent didn't - allowed me to get a winning position...
I want to introduce you to my new series of articles: "How to win with Grandmaster?" It combines my games from not only chess.com, but also blitz and rapid tournaments like European Chess Championship or classical events like round-robin GM toruna...
Knights are one of the trickiest pieces on the chessboard. The way they move and where they can end up in 2 to 3 moves is not intuitive to the human mind at all. In this article, I hope to provide some clarity as to how knight endings should be ap...
A few weeks back, I released the sixth episode of The Chessophile show featuring GM Priyadharshan Kannappan and GM Ashwin JayaramI posed them some questions during the show. Now, I pose the same questions to all of you!I am curious to know how man...
Dear Chess Friends! I believe every chess player prefers to attack rather than to defend his position! However, usually one player attack, the other one defends the position. If the player, who attacks, succeeds with his active play, he might be...
Hikaru Nakamura has won multiple brilliant victories in the King's Indian Defense against the very best chess players in the world. By Hikaru's own reckoning, his victory in the King's Indian Defense over Boris Gelfand is his personal best game. ...
Welcome back! I'm continuing my reviews of chess books on the Forward Chess platform. In order to get an understanding of just how effective studying on Forward Chess itself has been, please read up on some of my earlier blogs. I give i...
I will DESTROY your chess mindset. It's not because I want to. It's because you NEED to evolve your chess mindset, if you want to become a chess master or chess champion one day.If it's not an absolute necessity for you to improv...
Maestro Ennio Morricone (1928 - 2020), a genius, composer, musician and conductor passed away in Rome this Monday at the age of 91. A Pact Made with Mephisto: Over a Game of Chess This is the title of Chapter 1 of Morricone's In His Own Words&...
Hi chess people. Today I’m solving puzzles in Chess.com. I selected the tactical theme Underpromotion for this post. When I see the position, I try to say everything I’m thinking about, just to let you know the thought process I go thr...
Hi All,It is already July - time flies indeed! While this is a cliche thing to say, over the last few weeks that is exactly how I have been feeling. Monotonous every day with work, sleep, eat, chess, shower, repeat.. - that's how days, weeks, mont...
My somewhat eclectic musical tastes stem from my teens. My mother collected albums she picked up at yard sales, not particularly interested in the genres or artists. These are the songs that I listen to and learned to play on guitar.&n...
Openings nomenclature is a strange thing. Often the inventors of opening ideas don't get the credit for them. ( Something that earned the displeasure of Alekhine!) Friedrich Saemisch has two major opening systems named after him. One of them was...
When most chess players hear that stalemate has occurred on the board, they will most likely think that one side played the ending carelessly. However, as we will see in this article, stalemate is a key defensive resource that can be deployed even...
The Washington State Championship is a two-weekend, nine-round tournament in four sections, of which the top section gives the title--the other three are mainly an excuse to have a bigger event, though winners do get automatic entry to the next-hi...
Look closely at this anthological chess photo. An all-time. Wijk aan Zee, Jan 13, 1971. The second round of the Hoogovens. The World's #3 and later winner of the event is facing the 19-yo Ulf Andersson of Sweden. Viktor the Terrible plays 1.d4...
My student from the US has won a nice game recently applying the principles learned in our online lessons about dynamic play, which is the area that I wanted him to improve at, because his natural talent and inclination is first of all for posit...
Can you crack this monster of an endgame study by Y. Bazlov, released in 2015?It's a path that many a brave Knight has travelled...but very few have lived to tell the tale of their encounter with the mysterious monster...known as this endgame stud...
Hi all, Today I present to you two videos, one is a video about pawn dynamics and the other is about the Colle-Zukertort System. Both will make you good. It's up to you to take the initiative and make your chess better! Help me reach my goal of ...