Two top grandmasters, Artur Yusupow and Jan Gustafsson look at the reasons behind Magnus Carlsen's remarkable success.
How do you decide what moves to play? IM Kostya Kavutskiy demonstrates several key techniques in evaluating candidate moves.
GM Romain Edouard breaks down four positional masterpieces from chess history, ranging from Steinitz to Carlsen.
Do you ever find yourself confused in closed positions? GM Jon Ludvig Hammer knows just what to do. Check out how he doesn't let the closed nature of positions stop him from winning games.
Learn the best way to use your a, b, c and d-pawns to help you win the game! GM Simon Williams will help you make the most of your queenside!
How do Grandmasters avoid losing, even when they get into trouble? Join GM Dejan Bojkov, as he demonstrates his five key strategies for defending bad positions: Recognizing key priorities, fortresses, stalemates, perpetual checks and "the sticking defense."
Join Grandmaster Jon Ludvig Hammer as he demonstrates key strategies that can win games at all levels. Not only does Jon Ludvig demonstrate his own games against the strongest players in the world he also shows a variation that he helped Magnus Carlsen prepare to win a brilliant game against former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik!
Follow along with WGM Tatev Abrahamyan as she explains some of the best practices that top players follow. She covers why you need to anticipate your opponent's plans, why you should take your time, why you shouldn't underestimate your opponents and much more.
Join GM Dejan Bojkov as he analyzes two games by one of the somewhat forgotten masters of the past. Grandmaster Isaak Boleslavsky nearly qualified for a world title match in 1950, so he knew how to play and specialized in classic openings like the Ruy Lopez. See how Boleslavsky finds the right squares for his pieces and picks apart Black's weaknesses in these fun and instructive games.
Everyone makes mistakes, but one of the best methods of chess improvement is to learn from your errors. John GM Illingworth in his new video series on why we make mistakes, how to learn from them and how to avoid them going forward.
Learn how Grandmasters prevent their opponent from getting pieces to good squares before going in for the checkmate. GM Melik demonstrates multiple top level games in the Ruy Lopez, which provide a good understanding of how to play that opening, as well as two of his own games, which he needed to win to contend for top prizes in tournaments.
Want to see how a Grandmaster and famous chess coach like Melik Khachiyan approaches his own tournament games? Join Melik as he demonstrates his thought process on his way to winning an open tournament. Melik demonstrates the importance of in-between-moves and other surprising tactics that can make the difference between winning and losing key games.
This course is designed for more advanced players. The positions I've assembled in this course should help strong players learn to identify the critical moments in their own games, and develop a "healthy sense of danger" when facing those moments. It will be a mix of different types of problems, but whether each puzzle is strategic or dynamic in nature, most of the examples will highlight the missed opportunities, often by me.
In this course you will learn to think about the opponent's moves and ideas when considering how you should continue. As you are able to recognize your opponent's moves and plans you will be better able to plan ahead for success.
Much has been made of psychology in chess, but rarely have I seen anything about how one player can get inside his opponent's head and make him accept a false image of what's really happening on the chessboard. And, once you buy into your opponent's version of reality, defeat isn't far away. This course is all about making an opponent accept your "orders."
The Roots of Positional Understanding, by IM Jeremy Silman. Are you ever at a loss for what to do when there are no immediate tactics in sight? If so, then you need to learn the basics of positional play. The master seems to optimally place his pieces with effortless ease where they coordinate well and control key lines and squares. This is because he sees the board as a structural entity. (Initial release date of November 20, 1998)
This module contains rich and thoroughly analyzed lessons. The majority of these lessons focus on complex middlegame positions, the art of transition from the middlegame to the ending, and on endings themselves. This course is aimed at all players from the intermediate level to masters. The lessons feature an average length of 10 moves.
