Today we'll analyze the last case of the Queen getting to the center early in the game. This time she doesn't go there voluntarily, since she must do it to recapture a piece or a pawn to keep material even. The simplest example is the ...
Last week we analyzed games where an early "development" of the Queen broke a well known opening principle and led to a disaster. Today we'll discuss the exceptions from this rule. Exception #1 is when you move your Queen and immediately a...
The following opening moves are extremely popular among inexperienced chess players: When I ask my students who play Black why they trade the knights and bring the White Queen into the center the usual answer is: "it is a bad idea to develop y...
In the first three parts of this article we analyzed many positions where a Rook was fighting two minor pieces. You could see how difficult it is sometimes to correctly evaluate the situation even if the material balance is about even. Today you'l...
In the first two installments of this article we mostly discussed positions where a Rook was fighting against two minor pieces in an opening or a middle game. Today we will talk about endgames. The good thing is, unlike openings and middle g...
It is common knowledge that in openings, as a rule, it is not a good idea to give up two minor pieces for a Rook and a pawn. The explanation is very simple: there are not many open files for your 'extra' Rook to work on and therefore such a sacrif...
I cannot even tell you how many times I had to discuss the subject of ' A Rook vs. Two Minor Pieces' with my students. Usually it starts in a position like this: And I face the same problem again: how do I explain that the trade of a ...
The Soviet Junior Championships traditionally took place in January, during the Winter school break. It was really an incubator of future champions since as far as I know, every single chess star from the former Soviet Union played there at ...
In Part Two we already had a chance to see GM Svetozar "The Opening Expert" Gligoric at work. Today we'll discuss his King's Indian Defence legacy. There are not many chess players who introduced as many ideas to the theory of the Kin...
[part 1] With his crystal clear, logical style of play, GM Gligoric has created many instructive games that allow you to understand the ideas of a particular opening pretty quickly. That's why the excellent book "I Play Against The Pieces" by Sv...
The year is 1959 and a rising chess star beats one record after another one. The youngest GM in history, the youngest Candidate for the World Title... Still the main accomplishments of Bobby Fischer's career are in the future and for now he ...
With the death of the legendary Grandmaster Svetozar Gligorić (1923-2012), the Chess World has lost one of the biggest chess Giants of the last century. I never had an opportunity to meet or even see GM Gligorić but my generation of ches...
I receive a lot of messages from fellow chess.com members. Sometimes I am frightened when I open my mailbox since I know very well that I won't be able to reply to many of them. There are requests like "I am an attacking player, what opening shoul...
I am frequently asked (mostly by young chess players) if the best players from the past could successfully compete against today's chess elite. I always had an opinion that the human natural abilities are approximately the same today as they were ...
Last week we discussed the basic ideas of the Rxe6 (or Rxe3 for Black) positional exchange sacrifice. Today let me present the hit parade of games where this effective and useful chess tool was utilized. 7th Place - GM Vlastimil Hort and his tot...
Today we are going to talk about a relatively common positional exchange sacrifice - Rxe6 (or Rxe3 for Black). As a rule, a player achieves two main goals with such a sacrifice: 1) eliminates the opponent's Bishop and therefore completely dominate...
In the first part of this article we discussed how dangerous a Knight can be if it is placed on the 'magic' f5 square (f4 for Black). As you could see in the games we analyzed there, the main danger coming from such a Knight is the coming sa...
In our life we are surrounded by thousands of opposites. Day and Night, Up and Down, Good and Evil. Almost every day we need to make a choice: Left or Right, Paper or Plastic, Ginger or Mary Ann (OK, I am just kidding about the last one. It is Mar...
Today we'll talk about a relatively common chess idea known as a "Rook Lift". When you do a Rook Lift, a Rook usually moves from the initial position to the third rank (or sixth rank for Black) and then jumps to the opposite side of the board almo...
When I first started playing chess, my favorite strategy was to wait until my opponent castles, and then castle on the opposite side and start a pawn storm! It was exactly what I liked about chess. This way of playing would promise a very ex...
As the old chess legend goes, in one of his games GM Alexander Ivanov played Nf3-g5 and after his opponent answered with h7-h6, Alexander realized that the only reasonable move he had was Ng5-f3. After pondering for a while, GM Ivanov said "Russia...
Last week we analyzed games where Anatoly Karpov suffered because his opponents used the dynamic power of their "criminals" and with a timely push of their central pawns completely destroyed Karpov's position (http://www.chess.com/article/view/smo...
Before we continue the discussion that we started here and here, let me answer a concern some of the readers expressed in their comments. Let me quote one: "The article began with a quote about a passed pawn, and the title is about this quote...
In the first part of this article we examined positions where a passed pawn was sacrificed to vacate a square in the center for a Knight. Today we'll analyze games where such a sacrifice clears files for an attack. Needless to say, the best ...
