by GM Magesh and GM Arun This week we shall see The Queen's Gambit Declined - Lasker Defence used by the reigning World Champion Vishy Anand against former World Champion Veselin Topalov. As you may know, Anand used this solid system in his final...
by GM Magesh and GM Arun Are you the kind of player who wants to attack, attack, and attack more? Are you the kind of player who wants something happening in your game every single moment? Are you the kind of player who would take an unclear posi...
by GM Magesh and GM Arun We promised you Kramnik this week, so here is Kramnik with his weapon of mass destruction: deadly precision in the endgame. Looking at the same opening, the same dull symmetrical position, many people would think a draw w...
by GM Magesh and GM Arun After writing opening articles for the last two years, I should admit that it tends to become more monotonous and less creative. So there I was just staring at the roof one day wondering 'what should I write about next we...
by GM Magesh and GM Arun Choosing to play a sideline sometimes helps a lot in avoiding a bunch of complicated theory that has been well analyzed and established by the elite players. It is quite common these days for players to venture into no...
by GM Magesh and GM Arun This week we shall see a very modern interpretation of the Najdorf Classical system from the Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2011 between Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura. Usually the classical system is more of a positi...
by GM Magesh and GM Arun After more than three months of break, I (Magesh) finally decided to play a couple of tournaments during the holiday season. My first one was the UTD GM tournament in which I did not fare very well. GM Alexey Dreev pretty...
This week we shall see an interesting game in the Queen's Gambit Declined between Alexander Moiseenko and Artur Jussupow from the European Rapid Chess Championship. Moiseenko being a 2650+ player for quite some time and an opening theoratician who...
by GM Magesh and GM Arun The London Chess Classic tournament has ended with Carlsen retaining his crown for the second year. Though he needed some luck to have that miraculous save against Kramnik from a totally lost position in the penultimat...
by GM Magesh and GM Arun Over the years that I have been teaching chess, I have come to realize that explaining 'what not to do' is actually easier than explaining 'what to do'! Hence, today we will be discussing one of my worst nightmares on ...
by GM Magesh and GM Arun We have studied the Caro-Kann advance variation before in our articles, but after seeing a game today I was compelled to get back to this variation. The game was played by none other than the creative genius Alexey Shirov...
This week we shall study the Bogo Indian Defence. Recently, the Catalan has become one of the most played systems and the specialty of this system is that White keeps playing for a win without any risk. For many players to play against the Catalan...
It is not news anymore that the World number 1 is having a bit of a slump in the last month or so. Carlsen ended up losing a bunch of points in the Olympiad and now he is struggling in the Bilbao Masters tournament. While Carlsen is trying to find...
This week we shall an idea against the Alapin system for Black. The Alapin has been a super solid variation for White against the mighty Sicilian. Many of the players who are not ready to face the long theoretical battles in the Sicilian often pr...
We have studied several opening ideas in our past articles. All those plans and those tiny little nuances that we try to understand are all very important, but also important is the question of when to use them exactly and when to neglect them? Th...
After two seasons of pure disastrous results in the United States Chess League (USCL) I was hoping for a fresh start this season. When I played for the Dallas Destiny in the first two seasons of the USCl, it would not be an overstatement to say I ...
When you combine the words 'best', 'young' and 'international' with a chess tournament, you know what to expect. One of the most celebrated chess tournaments for the youth, the World Junior Chess Championship, recently concluded in Chotowa, Poland...
Just as we had promised, you get to see the predator become the prey today. Last week there were some discussions about how the 500 elo point difference had made the game very one-sided. It is very true and we will see once again today how a stron...
After watching Inception, the following were the exact words that lingered in my mind, “Fantastic movie!!! Can someone please tell me the actual story???” I guess the feeling of a movie being above your immediate understanding is the trend these d...
Chess learning has evolved so much over the past ten years that I pretty much belong to the older generation of chess players. Becoming a Grandmaster by 21 used to be a great thing when I learned the game, but by the time I actually made my title,...
What is up with all these strong players leaning more and more towards variations where they develop their light-squared bishop to g2? Maybe it is my imagination or it is just a pure coincidence, but it does feel like strong players these days are...
This week we shall see the Caro-Kann's Advance Variation. Caro-Kann is a system where Black tries to maintain a healthy pawn chain and utilize White's weaknesses to win. Usually Black develops systematically in the opening without showing much agg...
The Evans Gambit is still one of the most dangerous weapons to deal with. In the recently concluded Copper State International closed GM tournament, this opening happened to surface a few times. It was employed twice by the promising youngster Mac...
This week we shall study the Catalan System which has been the favourite weapon of the former world champion Vladimir Kramnik and the reigning champion Vishy Anand who used it a couple of times against Topalov in the recent world championship matc...
