GM Dzindzichashvili sifts through his mailbox to find a game where he totally disapproves of black's play for one simple reason - he forgot to develop half of his pieces. The grandmaster says the more brutal the game,...
GM Kaidanov has many useful maxims to help bridge the gap from amateur to master. One of them is to focus more on piece activity than pawn structure, especially in the middlegame. Here he presents a trio of unusual ca...
In his best game from one of his best tournaments ever, the witty GM Ben Finegold shows off a very pleasing attack on a 2700 player. "When your attack is so strong, your opponent's rating won't save him," Finegold say...
Who says romance is dead? GM Bojkov begins an exciting new series on his favorite player, the so-called "Positional Romantic of the 20th Century" - Danish GM Bent Larsen. Here the late GM denudes a world cha...
GM Melik Khachiyan continues his incisive series on prophylaxis and calculation by showing one of his own recent games, and his missed opportunities, against the veteran GM Gregory Kaidanov. Don't be fooled by the sim...
What happens when a former U.S. Women's Champion and a former U.S. Champion collide? The two engage in a feisty debate over the power of the famous isolated queen pawn. Black does a decent job blockading the d-pawn, b...
GM Bojkov heaps high praise on a Chess.com member who understood correctly how to attack on one side of the board while diffusing the pressure on the other. White makes a host of mistaken pawn moves, each time reducin...
The symphony comes to an end for FM Elliott Liu, as he simplifies into a two-bishops ending. Still not believing he could lose to a child, his opponent makes him prove that he knows the technique. Naturally Liu handle...
GM Melik Khachiyan unearths another fascinating position where the calculation won't be easy but will reward the player that focuses on his opponent's defenses. Here white clearly wants to promote his passed pawn, and...
GM Eugene Perelshteyn has already shown us how to make a chess study from a blank chess board, now he shows us how to create your own Picasso from a real game. In this fantastic endgame from his junior days, the forme...
In what might be one of the greatest positional sacrifice games ever, GM Bojkov walks us through the genius of how Gligoric handles the Saemisch Variation. In a game against Kotov, Gligoric throws pawns, exchanges and...
IM Mark Ginsburg continues his series on how to deal with the Smith-Morra Gambit by showing how Black should tackle some early sidelines in the Evans Defence. How to respond to Lenderman's early e5 lunge (the Nf6-g4-e...
"And the rest is a matter of technique..." - How many times have you heard that from a titled player? Here WGM Camilla Baginskaite shows you exactly what good technique looks like, as she uses her extra pawn and more...
FM Elliott Liu won a piece in Part 1, simplified in Part 2, and now it is time to bring home the point in Part 3. In the finale, despite still being up a piece, Liu's king is way offside, and his opponent's king is ch...
IM Danny Rensch is back, and so is his British accent and 80s music references! This Live Session is a longer game, where he shows his pet system against the Morra that the late GM Igor Ivanov taught him. He never let...
In her final video from the 2013 U.S. Women's Championship, third-place finisher WGM Tatev Abrahamyan ditches her normally-automatic King's Indian in favor of the Nimzo. She spent a month learning the new opening, and...
Today's King's Indian practitioners have GM Gligoric to thank. Here GM Bojkov shows the birth of the modern-day "Mar del Plata" variation, employed by Gligoric to win several games in the 1950s and later used by Kaspa...
Another masterpiece from the pedagogue GM Kaidanov! This time he cobbles together a handful of similar positions to produce a crucial theme that many club players need to assimilate. You should only trade when you are...
Before tackling the main lines of the Smith-Morra, IM Mark Ginsburg first shows a pair of "coffeehouse" variations for white that have been popularized in opening manuals. Learn how to make them "decaff...
Sure, you watch TMZ every night, but how often do you watch TMB? WGM Camilla Baginskaite uses her silky-smooth delivery to explain the nuances of the tongue-twisting Tartakower-Makagonov-Bondarevsky variation of the Q...
GM Melik Khachiyan continues to dispel the myth that top players are always calculating very far down the road. Using a trio of instructive positions from famous players, Khachiyan continues his series on "bushes...
WGM Tatev Abrahamyan looked to continue her fast start at the 2013 U.S. Women's Championship. Before facing tournament leader IM Irina Krush, she had to get passed Chess.com's own Iryna! Renewing their yearly debate o...
FM Elliott Liu continues his great explanation of his quest to convert a material advantage in the famed "First Saturday" tournament series in Budapest. Using sly maneuvers and careful planning, he shows how improving...
Every popular opening today needed an early adopter, and GM Bojkov continues his series on Gligoric by showing how he advanced theory on the sharp King's Indian Defense. Using the stem game against Korchnoi, we see so...
How often do you see white get hanging pawns, and have them both captured on their home squares? How often do you see a chess windmill outside of a tactics book? How often do you see one side cede the bishop pair and...
