As a beginner, I was taught not to care about opening theory. What was important was playing principled, organic chess. I had to find decent moves in the opening without knowing whether or not they were book moves. Chess is, of course, very ...
I have followed round 3 of the Candidates in the background as I was getting some work done. Wei Yi had lost in 19 moves due to some inaccuracies in the early stage of the game, which left his bishop trapped on h3. What really grabbed my attenti...
I have always admired skill in any skill-based sport or activity. No doubt I am not alone in my appreciation of aesthetics. There's something alluring about watching a highly skilled freestyle footballer, a proficient pianist, an illustration arti...
I have come to believe that there are different levels of chess thinking. At the very bottom level is your basic block before you punch level. This is your fundamental attack and defence. You attack and defend and anticipate your opponent's respon...
Why Over 16 Million Chess Players Are Stuck at a 400 Rating or Below In this blog, I’ll outline some of the most common mistakes that occur at the 400 level and below. According to chess.com's rankings, about 4.5 million players are in the...
I have opted to write this blog in a question-and-answer format. I noticed that when I answer student and beginner questions, I tend to repeat a few key points. To reach a wider audience without the monotony of repeating the same points to individ...
The problem with ELO Elo is popularly treated as a kind of absolute measure by most people. Even Magnus Carlsen believes that he may reach 2900, as if it is an absolute milestone. There is a kind of psychological tendency that is indicative of s...
There is a phenomenon that plagues me. That when victory strikes, I become complacent. My skills diminish; I no longer thirst for further progress. I lose my hunger. I am certain that this attitude is not unique to myself. Somehow when victory i...
"All humans are bad at chess." That is the conclusion I came to more than 8 years ago. How did I reach this conclusion? Well, I analyzed game collections of some of the greatest players of all time using the Fritz engine on ChessBase. The Fritz ...
United States champion and world chess champion Bobby Fischer once stated that "a theoretical advantage is as good as being a queen up." Now in my early years I did not understand what that statement meant. I remember getting the Modern Chess Op...
Life is filled with so many illusions and paradoxes. One of them is of hedonism. Somehow we equate hedonism with happiness. However, the course of my life journey has taught me that this is false. It is in fact the case that excessive hedonism, th...
I remember the days when I read Capablanca's book called "Chess Fundamentals." I estimate that my rating at the time might have been between 500 and 900. I spent many hours trying to understand the pawn endgames presented in that book. It was extr...
Is chess just a discovery, or has it always existed as a hidden aspect of our universe? Have the games that have been played in chess already been played the very moment the universe came to exist? If we could generatively play out every single ...
Chess is a lot more complex than it appears. It really challenges our intuition. It's very difficult to intuit just how many positions and variations are possible. How can a game with 32 pieces be so complex? When I first started playing chess, I ...
