Two of the questions on today's show were: 1) Give us an example of how you evalute a position, and 2) What do you think about the line 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 b6 (a fairly rare variation of the French Defense, Tarrasch Variation)? I did not have...
My Top Tips for Chess Improvement included hanging out with strong players and reviewing your games with them, ala The Improvement Feedback Loop, consistently trying your best on every move (since it only takes one bad move to lose a game), and us...
Which modern super-GM would have the most interesting match vs Paul Morphy in his prime? Probably won't happen but, if it did, someone who would try to fight with the Morph. Kramnik, with his positional style and transpositonal modern openings, wo...
A few years ago at the US Amateur Team Championship East (USATE) I saw a gentleman who was age 93 playing for one of the teams. Apparently the story was that at age 90 he was advised to take up something mentally pro-active, the idea that those wh...
Right after the show tonight my wife and I ran out for the 3-D showing of Star Trek: Into Darkness. It was a good movie - we've come a long way in portraying science fiction on the big screen. Ironically I started watching Star Trek about the same...
A viewer asked if, in the Ruy Lopez, White should play 5.d3 or 5.O-O after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6: I responded that while 5.d3 is currently fashionable among some higher level players, that does not make it better. Top GMs are only...
Thanks to the Hatboro-Horsham High School Hall of Fame luncheon, I performed this show in suit and tie . There was a question or two about my involvement with the Kasparov-Deep Blue matches. Although I worked at both matches, I was only involved ...
Chess is a game of knowledge and skill. Yet many players - as evidenced from the majority of questions I get on the show - seem to think improvement initiatives lean toward the knowledge side, typical questions being "Where can I learn more about ...
Just as my "Novice Nook" column at Chess Cafe quickly became a misnomer because the 6-time "Best Instruction" winner is aimed at improving players of all levels, so has the Dan Heisman Learning Center (DHLC) here at Chess.com quickly become more t...
I opened the show by randomly selecting a position from one of my Chess.com friend's slow games: I spent about the first 15 minutes of the show analyzing the position. My general considerations were that White was slightly better due to the act...
Today's show coincided with the first round of the Candidates Tournament in London. Unfortunately, none of the games were exciting (all draws, most fairly short), so it was not a big topic of conversation. However, I was asked who I thought would...
At the beginning of the show I suggested that more questions that were "position oriented" could be suggested, such as how to solve puzzles, analyze positions, problems that viewers had with positions, etc. Thankfully the viewers complied, an...
One of the final questions on today's show was "What do you consider the game in chess history that, if I study, I will learn the most?" (I paraphrase) This question raises three important issues: An unannotated "pure" game is only worth what th...
When I get asked generic questions on the show about improvement, there's about an 80% chance that I already have at least one Novice Nook containing a much more comprehensive answer than I could easily cover on the air. This, of course, makes me ...
Tonight's show was a lively one and I think one of the best. It's always fun when I get to do a little story-telling to enhance an answer. Moreover, the good questions from the audience led to an interesting show - when it was over I was quite sat...
It's not the entire story - it's just what I know from talking to Michael on the phone, a series of email exchanges over a year+ period, and following the saga on the internet. As you will discover near the end, I only met Michael in person once.....
At the beginning of this week's show almost every question involved openings. Don't get me wrong; I think openings are important - it's the only part of the game which you are guaranteed to reach each time you play. But this obsession with opening...
The Mongoose Press Prize for the best question went to LazyChessPlayer for: "One of the rules of blitz games is you can only move when your clock is running and you can not move until your opponent has pressed his clock. Although I heard of this ...
Mongoose Press graciously offered free copies of The World's Most Instructive Amateur Game Book for the best question on each of the Dec 7 and Dec 21 shows. I scribbled down seven questions which were contenders for the prize. Here they are (I apo...
[Scene: Courtroom hearing on Chess Coaching. Dan on witness stand, a few hundred inquisitive spectators watching the proceedings...] Bard: You are aware of the accusation that chess coaches can't really help people play chess better - that they a...
Today's show featured a bit more use of the demonstration board, which usually makes for good TV. One player said that no matter what his opponent did, he always brought out his two knights first, and was this OK? So I set up a board and said "Wel...
Due to (my) technical error, the show got started late, but we got in the full 90 minutes - the show must go on ! At the start and end of the show I made two announcements: Congratulations to Chess.com for getting to 6,000,000 members! What a fea...
As always, a wide ranging set of questions on today's TV show. And, as usual, I referred several of the new viewers to my earlier blog "What's a Good Opening?" at http://blog.chess.com/danheisman/whats-a-good-opening since that is such a popular q...
Four years ago my wife Shelly and I were having our anniversary dinner at a restaurant in downtown Philadelphia. The meal was rather sumptuous, so afterwards we decided to take a walk. After we strolled a while Shelly made an unexpected suggestion...
