Today I will show a typical Isolani-game, when there is no real compensation for the Isolani. It will go slowly downwards with the position. Compensation is the keyword when playing with the Isolani. Otherwise the opponent, as Lasker in the fo...
Playing against an Isolated Pawn you should know the main rule: Never allow its advance! So a blockade and attack-strategy should be your aim, as you can see in the following example: Normally the Player with the Isolated Pawn has to ...
Some time ago I showed a game where I got the initiative in the early middle game: http://www.chess.com/forum/view/game-showcase/better-piece-play-and-a-pawn-storm-worked-well-together Very nice! you may think, but why mentioning it again? Well,...
Please look at following position: Black has given a knight for 3 pawns . This looks good if black can manage to bring the both ones on fifth row forward. But there is a danger. White is threating Nc4+ Nxb6 + Rxf2. If he would succeed wit...
In the following game we see how young super grandmaster Carlsen executed a "simple" three-step strategy: 1.step: Creating a pawn majority in center This is the white reached after 10 moves. He has a pawn majority in center but paid it...
Anand, the actual worldchampion in chess, searched often and scored well in his WC-match against Kramnik in open center formations. He lost only one in a game with a stable center situations. Did that happen by chance? I do not think so. Open and...
So let us look how Felix went on with his 1. b3- repertoire. You remember the first deviation in the black set-up in center (e5/d5)? 1. b3 e5 2. Lb2 d5 3. e3 Nc6 4. Bb5 Ld6 5. f4 f6 (black stabilizes the center) The idea behind it is cle...
Some weeks had passed and Felix had made some experiences with his new opening move 1. b3. He had bought a book according to this opening system and had tried it online in several games. It was not a glowing love but a modest satisfaction.- He ha...
In my first two posts according to that theme I advised to be patient. And there is a good reason for such a patience. It needs time to experiment with different openings before you may be sure, which opening may be suitable and which one not.- *...
Often in life or in chess we can understand things better through the illumination of the unvisible facts in the background. So please look at the folllowing endgame position: When I showed this position in my chess class and asked:" Whos...
Last time I tried to convince you,- and myself again, too-, that it is useful to build up an personal "opening repertoire". How can I build up an opening repertoire ? (1) So you have read it and now you say: "Well, I am convinced and mo...
The Yugoslav attack in Sicilian dragon is one of the sharpest lines in chess. The starting position (tabiya) is this one: Normally white goes here for a sharp kingside attack,- often in the h-file -, and black counters at the queenside. Oft...
The counter attack in center! "If your opponent attacks you with his pieces on a wing, counter it in the center!" There are some golden rules, that ...
Here we see an old game from 1935. Salo Flohr, normally a classic positional player and endgame expert, had build up with a King`s Indian set-up and played now a typical kingside attack.- White tried to lock the kingside, but at last a halfopen h...
We all like to have a passed pawn in our games. A passed pawn in our opponent`s hands may be not to our pleasure. So we should try to get him ourselves as a measure to set our opponent under pressure.- When the passed pawn comes more forward, th...
In my last article I showed two examples, where a pawn was offered to get the control and use of an open file. The second example was the first game of WC- match 2008. Anand gave a pawn to get the open c-file for his rooks. You remember? : ...
100 years ago in Duesseldorf/Germany took place the World Championship between Germans Lasker and Tarrasch. In the second game Tarrasch came out of the opening and early middlegame with a superior position. So Lasker tried to confuse him a littl...
So please look at the following pawnstructure. It is clear, white has the better one! He has a protected passed pawn at d5 and black pawn at c5 is a "weak" one. Would do you think about endgames with that pawnstructure? Right, they are in most o...
Rooks need open and half-open files. This is a well known "truth"! *** Here is a 5-step-program 1. occupy a open line with one rook and control it 2. double rooks in that line 3. get with one rook at second or seventh rank 4. Get them both ...
Pawn offers are in middle game a strategic weapon, for example to open a file and use it for a rook. Let us look first at an easy example: 1. Black offers a pawn white should better not accept In tha...
In 1972 started world championship between Russian titleholder Spasski and American challenger Fischer. Fischer had played brilliantly in the candidate matches and now whole Russia feared him to "rob" the title from the best chess country in world...
In my last article, we saw how young Aljechin let his opponent Euwe suffer with his "bad bishop".Today we see, how older Aljechin used the same "bad bishop"-concept again. But this time he took opponent`s knight also in "prison". As it happened ...
In my last learning article I showed, how great Capablanca managed to make his opponent`s bishop "bad". Today we see a position, where the bad bishop already exists. Euwe had made an opening mistake and now Aljechin came up with an easy plan: " E...
So in my last bloglesson (Strategy in chess: 5. Pawnoffer in middlegame) I gave an example, how grandmaster Uhlmann gave a pawn for locking out an very active bishop for the rest of the game. And this against great Bobby Fischer!- Today is this ...
Please look at this amazing lady dance inserted in following diagram. I am sure that you never saw such a dancing queen before ! Otherwise let me know! Please look and enjoy! ( Do not miss the annotations in the first and also the explanations...
