Learning a new opening can be a challenging but rewarding task. Once you have gotten used to a certain variation (e.g. the French Defense or the Catalan), it can be difficult to switch to playing something else, but at the same time it will e...
Blundering in chess is one of the worst feelings that we experience while playing the royal game. A well-played strategic masterpiece can be completely spoiled with a single careless move. Anyone, including the very best...
The best way to improve your tactical skill is through practice; the more you solve, the stronger you'll become. If you're not sure how to go about solving tactics, this three step guide is for you: First, look at all the possible checks ...
When it comes to playing good positional chess, all strong players know the importance of improving the activity of your pieces. As the great Tarrasch once said, "One badly placed piece makes your whole position bad." Here are three tips for impro...
The ability to attack successfully is a necessary skill for the ambitious chess player. Here are three tips to help you with launching your attacks: Try to involve as many pieces as possible into the attack. The more pieces you have lined...
A famous saying goes "chess is 99 percent tactics." Here are three tips for studying tactics: Practice calculation and solve puzzles at least three times per week. Your ability to spot tactics successfully during a game will depend upon patter...
King and pawn endings are essential to every chess player's understanding of the game. Here are three practical tips when there are just kings and pawns left on the board: Try to create passed pawns. Without queening a pawn, you wo...
Time trouble can plague even the best players in the world, and often leads to painful blunders and losses on time in winning positions. In order to improve your time management skills, follow these three steps below: Try not to use more ...
Every chess game begins with an opening, which means that when reviewing your own games, it's important to analyze what happened in the first few moves. Here are three ways to improve your openings: Evaluate the outcome of the opening. Did you...
Modernized: The Open Sicilian by IM Zhanibek Amanov & FM Kostya Kavutskiy This book is the second in the Modernized series, as last year MetroChess released Modernized: The King's Indian Defense&nbs...
It is often said in chess that the hardest thing to do is "win a won game". This is because the tendency of most players, once a material advantage is achieved, is to relax, allow their opponent to slowly creep back into the game, until the positi...
Garry Kasparov needs no introduction. The games and career of the former World Champion, who was on top of the chess world for over 20 years, offer a ton of instructional value and they should be studied by every serious chess player. Shankland ...
Regardless of level, every chess player is looking for ways to improve their game. They solve tactical puzzles, research openings, practice endgames, study master games, and much more. But one area of their chess that is often neglected is the psy...
