The next several articles will be dedicated to the topic of Intuition. What is intuition in chess? It is a concept, hard to define and there can be endless debates about whether a certain decision is intuitive or not. Nevertheless, it is useful to...
This article concludes our series on Key Positions! Last time, we studied how strong players from the past sacrificed pawns positionally. Really what we looked at was one strategic method out of numerous methods used by strong players to achieve g...
Today we will look at few examples from world champions' practice where one side sacrificed a pawn for positional reasons. In some cases this sacrifice was absolutely necessary, while in the other cases it was optional, even questionable. We will ...
Generally speaking there are two types of chess players: optimists and pessimists. The first tend to stay positive and evaluate positions in their favor, while those in the latter category often give the opponent too much credit and underestimate ...
This article will build on the topic of seeing and correctly assessing key positions which we started studying in the previous article. In last week's article we looked at this concept by analyzing a recent endgame. Today we will see several openi...
A strong chess player calculates variations well but also knows when to stop and evaluate the resulting position, resorting to experience and knowledge of typical positions. An experienced player will know that certain positions are better for him...
Today's article is the last one in the "Tactics" series. The positions presented today show the role of tactics in modern practice. We will start with an example that shows how in complex strategic battles grandmasters of the highest caliber can m...
Today's article features positions from the recently completed 22nd North American Open that took place in Las Vegas from December 26th-30th. It seems that the holiday atmosphere and the popularity of gambling in Vegas had its impact on the player...
Defensive methods have improved drastically in modern chess. It is really rare for one to see clean combinations, where one side finishes off the game without the other side putting up tough resistance. Top players over time have accumulated numer...
Today we will study games from the past where players used or failed to use tactics to gain a positional advantage or to achieve a draw in a worse position. It is no surprise that the games of Karpov and Petrosian show up as they were the masters ...
Today's column is about tactics and I would like to concentrate on examples from recent games. Since tactics are a key weapon of any chess player, the topic of tactics in chess is overwhelmingly important, and there are more books and material pub...
Similarly to classic works of literature, chess games played by World Champions should be studied for the general understanding of how chess ideas evolved over time. There are so many games played by them that sometimes one wonders where to study....
Today's article is dedicated to the technique of calculation in chess and the examples will show different aspects of this skill. I will also try to give some recommendations for how to train this invaluable skill. Let's jump right away into...
Welcome to a new column called "The Best Moves Never Played" -- this article is a short introduction of what this column will or will not cover. During any real game some of the best moves were never played because the players did not find them ov...
With this and last week's article I am wrapping up the Endgame articles that I have been writing for the last two years. Last week we learned how to use references for analysis of one's endgames that happen to be of a theoretical nature. Today we ...
I have been writing this column about endgames for more than two years - a genuine surprise for me because it feels like I just started. It is time to move on to a different topic but before going forward we need to look back and have a wrap up of...
With this article we finish the series on Initiative in the Endgame. The following selection of endgame positions is from the recent European Club Cup. The first position is a good example of when to give up extra material to achieve a draw. Bla...
This article and the next article will wrap up the series on Initiative in Endgames. Here, I offer you a series of endgame positions from the recent 28th European Club Cup. The first two positions are unique, and the themes include zugzwang and ...
As I checked out the news items that chess.com offers, one game from the Spice Cup caught my attention. The opening featured a Maroczy-bind type of structure, which I play and therefore was interesting to me but what really was interesting was the...
"Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."- Mark Twain I feel like this saying fits perfectly as the theme of many chess games. How many chess players are romantics at heart and go after a dr...
Today's endgame is from Sao Paulo and features a fight between Caruana and Carlsen. Carlsen playing black captured the initiative in the late middlegame and tried many resources to capitalize on it. In the end with two consecutive mistakes he let ...
A blunder at the end of the game... is it an accident or something one can predict? Wang Hao had to defend against Gelfand for a large chunk of the game and at last equalized only to lose a move later. We will not try to do neuroscience here and e...
Today we continue with the topic of initiative in endgames. Today's game once again shows the transition moment when one sides loses the initiative, and the other side seizes it. Placing the rook on a passive position cost McShane his advantage, a...
This article starts the series that will cover the topic of initiative in endgames. There are many definitions of what initiative is. In my own terms a player who has initiative usually dictates the play. He can create direct threats and puts the ...
