Two active bishops working in tandem are a mighty force. Indeed, the bishop's long range enables it to dominate vast swaths of the board, and to simultaneously play both a defensive and an attacking role. While the power of two bishops is...
When I have lessons with students, we usually go over their games. Invariably, the student comes to me thinking that the errors in the game are based on blunders, missed tactics, a bad opening, or some form of positional atrocity. Of course, thes...
Chess is well known as a game of strategy. This is why it is prominently pictured in all kinds of television commercials that have to showcase long-term planning (e.g. insurance, banking, etc.). It is a popular myth among people who don't play c...
There are many basic endgame rules you can find in any chess manual: Centralize your king! Create an outside passed pawn! Rooks should be placed behind passed pawns! ...I bet you've heard them dozens of times. And yet one very...
I think about chess a lot. I think about chess news, chess history, chess openings and endgames, my chess friends (living and dead), beautiful chess games, and how my 4,000 chess books are pushing me out of my home. But my main chess thoughts ar...
When I was still playing in tournaments I answered 1.e4 with various Sicilian lines (Richter-Rauzer, Accelerated Dragon, Paulsen and Taimanov systems, etc.) and the Caro-Kann. I always loved the Caro-Kann, and at the end of my career it became m...
The concept of overprotection, invented and verbalized by Nimzowitsch in My System, is defined by IM Jeremy Silman as "a strategically important pawn or square that is given more protection than it seemingly needs. Essentially a prophylactic ...
These games might or might not be masterpieces; the criterion for this series is that they taught me an extremely important lesson(s) that made me well rounded and much stronger. I’m hoping that these games will teach you the same lessons, t...
Dealing with a fortress — especially when you have a significant material advantage — is an infuriating experience. Indeed, what can be more frustrating than completely outplaying your opponent, only to find that he has con...
This series is all about the classic games that, as a young teen (15 years of age), affected me in a profound manner. In general, they were positional games since, for a kid that grew up on attacking chess and combinations (12 to 14 year...
This series is all about the classic games that, as a young teen (15 years of age), affected me in a profound manner. In general, they were positional games since, for a kid that grew up on attacking chess and combinations (12 to 14 year...
This series is all about the classic games that, as a young teen (15 years of age), affected me in a profound manner. In general, they were positional games since, for a kid that grew up on attacking chess and combinations (12 to 14 year...
It is so simple and yet so hard. If you tattoo the following concepts onto your brain you will play strong chess. When the forces clash always first consider the following concepts: Checkmates Checks Mate Threats Only once this is done cons...
This series is all about the classic games that, as a young teen (15 years of age), affected me in a profound manner. In general, they were positional games since, for a kid that grew up on attacking chess and combinations (12 to 14 year...
This series is all about the classic games that, as a young teen (15 years of age), affected me in a profound manner. In general, they were positional games since, for a kid that grew up on attacking chess and combinations (12 to 14 years of age),...
Am I going to write about chess players misbehaving during their games? Not really, at least not this time. In this article I will try to show you that chess can really be beautiful and surprisingly or not, this can be achieved without sacrificing...
This series is all about the classic games that, as a young teen (15 years of age), affected me in a profound manner. In general, they were positional games since, for a kid that grew up on attacking chess and combinations (12 to 14 year...
In the previous installment of this series, we discussed the situations where it is beneficial to break one of the cardinal rules of chess: do not push pawns in front of your king. As you could notice, in all the games that we analyzed last time...
This series is all about the classic games that, as a young teen (15 years of age), affected me in a profound manner. In general, they were positional games since, for a kid that grew up on attacking chess and combinations (12 to 14 year...
In the first two installments of this article, we discussed the situations where it is beneficial to ignore well established principles of chess. Today we'll talk about another "sacred cow" of chess rules, the most dangerous one to bend! H...
This series is all about the classic games that, as a young teen (15 years of age), affected me in a profound manner. In general, they were positional games since, for a kid that grew up on attacking chess and combinations (12 to 14 years of age),...
In the first part of this article, we discussed the situations where well-known chess rules can be successfully ignored. On the other hand, the classical rule that you should develop your pieces in the opening as quickly as possible is not easy ...
This series is all about the classic games that, as a young teen (15 years of age), affected me in a profound manner. In general, they were positional games since, for a kid that grew up on attacking chess and combinations (12 to 14 year...
I bet you've all heard an old joke where a man returns from a business trip one day earlier than planned and catches his wife with another man. She denies that anything is going on between her and that man trusts her, even though the obvious evide...
