I've been working on another course with IM Daniel Tapia, and we're happy to be able to release it today. Daniel did an amazing job creating the videos and the content for the course. The Board Awareness course covers how to avoid blundering and h...
An important part of chess is the stage of the attack. This doesn't occur in every single game, but it's useful to know when to attack and how to successfully carry out an onslaught against the enemy king. There are a few positional cues that ...
In my last blog post I introduced what tactics were and their importance in chess. The video covered pins, forks, and skewers. There are a few more common types of tactics, and I've gone over them in another video. Here I cover discoveries, re...
Understanding basic mating techniques is critical to winning games early on in one's chess career. A material advantage that carries on into the endgame will require the chess player to have a good understanding of mating with King and Queen or Ki...
A chess tactic is a sequence of moves that leads to some sort of tangible gain. This could be delivering checkmate, winning material, or obtaining some other sort of advantage. For most players, practicing tactics is what helps take their game...
I've been working on creating a course on Attack for the past month or so, and I finally released it today. If you want to learn how to attack the uncastled or castled king in addition to learning more about common mating patterns, you'll probabl...
A new Chesscademy course was released today that serves as an introduction to the Sicilian Dragon. This course is quite special to me because I started playing the Dragon at the tender age of 8 and continue to play it to this day. The opening comp...
In the final installment of the series, I want to focus on the value of coaching and the importance of reviewing one's tournament games. I have covered a variety of studying habits up to this point such as analyzing annotated Grandmaster games and...
In the previous post I covered the importance of studying annotated grandmaster games. However, you can't readily test your abilities and notice a positive trend in your play without putting your newfound knowledge to the test. I recommend playing...
The second topic I wanted to cover in this series is the importance of self-study. Of course, this term by itself is quite broad - what exactly is "studying" chess? Some may try to play as many games as possible, while others may choose to build a...
How do I get better at chess? This is the question that every chess player asks himself or herself at one point or another. In fact, as a coach, I hear this from my students multiple times a day. Everybody wants to improve - however, most play...
