Having been a chess master since 1981 my goal is to give back to the chess community everything I possibly can. I wish to share all my knowledge and enjoyment of chess with the world. You will be able to take the knowledge my simple teaching offer...
I cannot tell you, my dear readers, how many times I've had this conversation with my younger students while we analyze their games: "What did you try to accomplish with your last move?" "Nothing!" "Then why did you play it?" "I don't know...
I will begin by affirming that the title of this article is deliberately oxymoronic. According to David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld's The Oxford Companion to Chess (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), a combination is "a series of forci...
When you hear the word "brilliancy," what comes to mind? A dazzling combination with multiple sacrifices? A captivating tactical melee in which both players display their calculational expertise? Without a doubt, brilliancy has a tactical connotat...
"Pawns are the soul of chess." In general, I loathe chess clichés, but some statements are so true, so deep, that they defy the notion of banality. Think about it. An inveterate patron of the Café de la Régence, an eighte...
The term "positional sacrifice" is construed by many players as a vague concept applied only in relation to complex positional battles between grandmasters. I exaggerate a bit, of course, but the art of sacrificing for positional compensation appe...
To chessify Jane Austen, it is a truth universally acknowledged that all chess players in possession of a weak square are doomed to a miserable existence. The concept of weak squares appears rather straightforward: avoid creating them, but never f...
In the first two parts of this series we discussed the cases where White firmly occupies the key central d5-square with one of his pieces. If such a centralized piece cannot be successfully challenged, Black usually experience serious problems. Bu...
Last week we analyzed a common situation that happens in many different openings. Black voluntarily creates a 'hole' on the d5 square hoping to compensate it with activity of his pieces (it is especially typical for certain variations of the ...
Many openings (especially when you play Black) have specific strategical problems typical for that particular opening. If you play the French Defense, then the bishop on c8 is your constant headache. In the Tarrasch Defense you need to live with a...
Today we'll talk about the positions with the shortest possible checkmates. I almost hear your question: “Are you talking about checkmate in one move?” No, we actually discussed this kind of checkmates here, but today we will talk abou...
Last week we discussed the 'impossible' checkmate with just a king and a knight and today we'll analyze a similar 'impossible' checkmate with a king and a bishop. As all of you know, king + bishop cannot checkmate a lone king. But if you add...
What is an impossible checkmate? If you open any book for beginners it will inform you that a king and a lonely knight cannot checkmate an opponent's king. Moreover, if you only have a king and a knight and your opponent lost on time in an Interne...
I decided to write on this subject after I saw the discussion in the comments section of last week's article where we talked about the tricky B+N checkmate. Somebody asked the question "why not Kd1 ??? what must we do after 58.Kd1 ??" Let's look a...
I call the endgame king+bishop+knight vs. a lonely king an 'embarrassing' endgame because I know too many cases where chess players left a chess board embarrassed. Indeed, just imagine how would you feel if you had a theoretically winning endgame,...
For more cool articles visit http://stuscorner.wordpress.com Ivanchuk, Vassily – Aronian, Levon, Linares 2007 What is thinking “outside of the box”? Before I answer to that question, we should analyse this position first. Black has just taken ...
In “Train Your Brain, Target Consciousness” (Part 1, Part 2) we took a look at weak squares and weak pawns. When studying things like this, you first look at the concept (in this case weak squares and/or weak pawns), you try to intellectually gras...
My last two articles (Train Your Brain! Target Consciousness Part 1, and How to Train Your Brain) were about weak squares and weak pawns, which I view as targets that need to be devoured or used. Creating a permanent seek-and-destroy mentality whe...
En algunas posiciones de medio juego y finales muchas veces el rey es una pieza que determina el resultado de la lucha. En las últimas semanas he estado enseñando este concepto a mis alumnos y revisamos varias posiciones interesantes de partidas ...
For more cool articles visit http://stuscorner.wordpress.com This article will help players to understand how to play against two Bs when you have two Ns. Battle of 2 Bs vs 2 Ns doesn’t occur frequently, but if you are fond of, for example, Chigo...
I was going to do Part 2 of Target Consciousness, but three reader questions (from Part 1) have convinced me to hold off on Part 2 for next week and instead revisit a painful subject for chess hopefuls. THREE READER QUESTIONS Mottsauce said: “I...
Target Consciousness. I coined this phrase long ago, and I still consider it to be of enormous use to students who want to play much stronger chess, and also appreciate high-level games. The concept is simple: you need to train your mind to spot t...
Some time ago we discussed the chess version of the well known phenomenon called the butterfly effect. We could see how a piece or a pawn sitting at one part of the board could affect the outcome of the whole battle on the opposite part of the boa...
The typical idea of trading the fianchettoed bishop by playing Be3,Qd2 and Bh6 is so common that many chess players execute it almost automatically. Indeed, how can you argue with a game like this: It is the games like this firmly engraved...
