In one of my recent articles, I asked readers to share their goals for 2018. Despite my explicit warning that the goal of gaining rating points can be counterproductive, this is exactly what majority of our members wish. Well, your wish is ...
For most club players, blunders are a very big problem. They can ruin a game or even a whole tournament! Besides, they prevent a chess player from getting better results and a higher rating. That's why some time ago I wrote a six-part arti...
It is New Year's Eve and millions of people are making their New Year's resolutions. The top two resolutions traditionally have something to do with weight loss and achieving certain financial goals. Nevertheless, I am pretty sure that ches...
Despite severe criticism for a very high number of draws, the London Chess Classic was an interesting event followed by chess players around the world. After the first three rounds where every single game was drawn, many people, including the s...
Garry Kasparov's book My Great Predecessors is one of the best ever written about chess. If I had to take just one chess book with me on a proverbial desert island, that would be my pick. Well, actually I would take all five volumes of the book....
Even beginners know that castling is a very important part of an opening strategy since it moves your king away from the center into a comfortable home created by a rook and three pawns. But what if the new king's house is not so cozy, since the...
The games played by Jose Raul Capablanca have been analyzed in countless chess books, magazines and videos. Today, I want to show you two of his less famous games. Both were played against the strong American master Alexander Kevitz, and both de...
The Wall Street Journal is not the publication you want to read looking for a good laugh, unless you find such terms like GDP, P/E ratio or volatility index particularly funny. Yet, I couldn't stop smiling reading through their recent article abou...
In last week's article we learned some of the favorite chess patterns of super-GM Ding Liren. As you probably remember, he loves to play for domination when his opponent's pieces can barely move. His most common recipe to get this kind of a p...
In one of my recent articles we analyzed the games of Rudolf Pitschak. As one of the readers correctly pointed out, he wasn't the best player in the world. Actually quite far from that! And yet we could learn something from his games. Now imagin...
Recently a chess player asked me a simple question: "I have no chess talent, so should I spend my time on reading chess books and studying chess games?" I am sure that at some point (usually after a disappointing game or a tournament) many peopl...
From time to time I learn about strong players from the past that are generally forgotten now. I wrote about one such player in this old article. Today I would like to talk about another master who is pretty much forgotten today. Have you hear...
Unless you live under a rock, you know that the 65-year-old librarian James Tarjan beat the former world champion Vladimir Kramnik in the recently concluded Chess.com Isle of Man tournament. Of course Grandmaster James Tarjan is not an ordinary ...
All chess players encounter this situation in every single game. You are considering your next move and see numerous tempting opportunities. All the moves look equally strong, so which one should you prefer? What is the best move to play? There ...
The title of this article might surprise you. Indeed it sounds like an oxymoron. How can such a noble, royal game be barbaric? Well, the traditional definition of chess is a trifecta of art, science and sport. If you are mostly oriented tow...
It is not a big secret that I devote a lot of space in my articles to Hikaru Nakamura's chess. The reason is not even that just like thousands of his fans I am rooting for a grandmaster who has a unique, entertaining style of play. Hikaru's tran...
The 2017 World Cup is one of the most important events of the year and a real feast for the true chess enthusiast. It is even covered by the mainstream media, which usually ignores chess. Unfortunately the media got interested in chess for the wro...
The news about the four-year old Misha Osipov beating a grandmaster spread the world like wildfire. It must be a new record by a wide margin. Many people think that little Misha is going to be the world champion one day for sure. Photo: Che...
Strong and weak squares are a cornerstone of chess strategy. The definition of a weak square is very simple: it is any square that cannot be defended by a pawn. Usually such a weak square in our opponent's camp is the ideal place to put our pieces...
Challenge yourselves and you will challenge the world. —Garry Kasparov, "Deep Thinking" In last week's article we stated the obvious fact that the Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz tournament was effectively ruined for Kasparov by his ext...
The St. Louis rapid and blitz tournament was definitely the most anticipated chess event of the year. Even people who remember chess only when they see a puzzle in the Sunday column of their local newspaper were intrigued. Indeed, the retur...
The question in the title of the article might surprise you. Indeed, what can be easier than pushing your pawn to the back rank and choosing a piece you want it to become? In reality, there are more problems arising from a pawn promotion than...
The question whether to trust computers might sound pointless since we really have no choice in the modern world. Think about it: if a computer of one of the nuclear superpowers goes berserk, then it can potentially end humankind as we know it. Si...
Last week we analyzed the situations where promoting a pawn into a rook, bishop or knight was a logical way to achieve a goal (whether to win or draw the game). Today we'll see the games where underpromotion didn't make much sense and wasn't ...
