In today’s article I am going to discuss a specific structure which gives a type of position with a complex interplay of attack and defense on opposite sides of the board. This type of structure does not have a specific name, although I am s...
Dear Thamizhan, I am a d4 player, rated 1300-1400 and I enjoy playing the Samisch Variation against the King's Indian. a) What are the factors or principles that I must use in order to win a game whenever I am in a good position? b) Since th...
A big part of being a good player is knowing what liberties you can afford, and where the real danger is. Knowing from experience what kind of attack is deadly and what can be shrugged off is more important than being able to calculate more and fa...
You cannot always get a great position out of the opening. Besides falling into preparation or just making a mistake (everyone does) you can also have a temporary loss of control or weak nerves. Being able to fight back in a bad – or even lost – p...
In this article a popular pawn structure will be reviewed: when White has pawns on e5 and d4, and Black – on e6 and d5. It is typical of the Caro-Cann, French Defense, and can occur in other variations as well. For example, in the following game i...
As you know, there are all kinds of chess games. When you sit down to play, you don’t know what kind of game it will be. It could be a long endgame where one side is slightly better. It could be a fast defeat for a player who is too optimistic. It...
Openings like the Réti and Reversed King's Indian became popular in the 1920s when the hyper-modern players like Réti, Nimzowitch, Breyer, and Grünfeld came into the limelight. They introduced a revelation: central control need ...
As you might know, I have decided to change the topic of my column from the psychology of chess to “Attack and Defense”. On Chess.com we have (or had) columns about endgames, openings, and strategy. I decided to cover the interplay of attack and d...
Hello, I have a question: I have always been taught that when both kings are castled on opposite sides, you should go for an attack on the opposite wing. Recently, however, I played a game in which, after I castled king side and my opponent quee...
One concept that new players sometimes find difficult to grasp is weak squares. “I understand how a piece can be weak, but a weak square? What does that mean?” A square is weak when it is controlled by your opponent and you have little or no c...
Dear GM Panchanathan, I am expert level chess player trying to attain master level. Do you have a studying/training program you would suggest? I think one of my weakness is finding the "correct" plan in a position. Can you suggest how would one ...
This article will address the concept of open files and ways of exploiting them to one’s advantage. Open files are files free of pawns. They serve as important routes for heavy pieces, especially for rooks that can burst into the enemy’s camp via...
SirLewis asked: I often times work really hard in the middle game to try and get an advantage, but when the dust settles I find that I'm in a completely hopeless endgame. Right from the beginning of the endgame my opponent has favorable condition...
Chess theory is based on general principles, regularities, notions. They help us improve our chess understanding and become better players. However, following general principles religiously, without taking into account the features of each particu...
The main goal in chess is to mate the opponent. This can be done indirectly by creating a decisive material advantage, or via a straightforward mating attack. However, one shouldn’t aim for an assault in any position. If there are no prerequisites...
Pawns are very important fighting units. While having limited mobility and being the least valuable piece, a pawn has a large potential and, together with other pawns, defines the course of the game. Pawns form the landscape of the battleground, a...
Chess authors often use the term “two-bishop advantage” in their annotations. Today I would like to elaborate on this evergreen concept in more detail. The two-bishop advantage occurs when one side has two bishops, and the other &nda...
An isolated pawn is a pawn that has no pawns of the same color on neighboring files. Chess theory has many variations featuring this type of pawn structure, e.g. the Queen’s Gambit Accepted, Caro-Cann and others. In these systems the d4 (for White...
From the very first steps in chess we learn the average value of the pieces. A queen is worth about two rooks, bishop and knight – about 3 pawns. Of course, it is an approximation. Chess is a very complex game, so quite often imbalances occur. Thr...
Initiative in chess means activity that allows enforcing a certain style and tempo on the game, and making your opponent play reactively. This is a very dangerous weapon in the hands of chess masters who enjoy active play and know how to attack. I...
Just like I promised last week, this time we will talk about the middlegame. The middlegame is the main stage of the game. Studying this part of chess is essential to understanding concepts such as weak squares, a strong center, open files, the ar...
Sometimes during a game we have to make a decision: to risk or not to risk? Let me explain. “Risking” means choosing a continuation which is not necessarily the strongest objectively, but may either make your position worse or, if the other player...
Today I will provide the solutions to the previous set of exercises and give a new set to solve. Please, write down your solutions in the comments section. This will ensure that I go over the plans that are not the main ones in the position and th...
Last week I shared a win of mine from Cappelle la Grande 2010. That win against IM Jorge Cori took me to 6/8, and in the last round, I was black against GM Yuriy Kryvoruchko. For whatever reason, I failed to sense the critical moments in this game...
