Coach Gabor Horvath’s Blog

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How titled players lie to you

How titled players lie to you

CM GaborHorvath
| Aug 18, 2024

This post is a word of warning for the average club player. As the chess world is becoming increasingly salesy, snake oil marketing is becoming more and more the norm. It is time to reconsider how much you trust titled players. The good old ...

Do it like John

Do it like John

CM GaborHorvath
| Dec 5, 2023

I saw a Chessable ad recently which is so hilarious that it really deserves a post. Inadvertently, they have created the perfect parody of modern chess marketing. I recommend you to watch the short video below, because it shows what can happen t...

The pitfalls of chess style

The pitfalls of chess style

CM GaborHorvath
| Nov 28, 2023

There seems to be a plethora of articles about chess styles on the major chess websites. If you read those articles, you get an embarrassingly long list of different styles to pick from. Just to name a few, you could be: tactical, position...

Procrastination in decision making in chess

Procrastination in decision making in chess

CM GaborHorvath
| Nov 14, 2023

This post is about another common mistake I see a lot as a chess coach. Pretty much all my students do it from time to time, and some of them are especially prone to it; so I thought it might be useful to write about it.      ...

Don’t drop your ideas like hot potatoes

Don’t drop your ideas like hot potatoes

CM GaborHorvath
| Oct 24, 2023

This is just a quick post is about one of the most common mistakes chessplayers make when calculating variations. I see it happening all the time while doing calculation exercises with my students; and of course, I used to make it a lot myself whe...

How to train threat handling

How to train threat handling

CM GaborHorvath
| Sep 19, 2023

I wrote a blog post about threats recently, and someone asked in a comment if there were any training methods to improve their threat handling. This is a very good an important questions. We all know from experience that knowing and understandin...

My league games from 2022/2023

My league games from 2022/2023

CM GaborHorvath
| May 22, 2023

This blog was on hold for a while, as I had a lot of work with my students, the garden, the house - so something had to give way. Well, at least I can post all my league games in one go, as the team championship has ended meanwhile. Our team ...

My first league game

My first league game

CM GaborHorvath
| Dec 7, 2022

Well, better late than never: this is my first league game from the 2022/2023 season, played three weeks ago. Our opponent was Nagyatád, one of the strongest teams in our division. After signing a couple of new players for this year, they l...

Playing in a team again

Playing in a team again

CM GaborHorvath
| Nov 2, 2022

In my last post I wrote about how we moved to a little town close to Pécs, and it turned out that this little town, Szentlőrinc, has a chess team which plays in the second league of Hungary. The way I found the team was actually quite int...

Back on track - chasing titles

Back on track - chasing titles

CM GaborHorvath
| Oct 25, 2022

It has been a while since I updated this blog. It has always been my intention to continue it, but life got in the way. So this is just a quick update on what happened to me while this blog was in coma.  The most important thing is that me ...

The power of cross-pins

The power of cross-pins

CM GaborHorvath
| Oct 22, 2019

I decided to write a post about cross-pins because quite a few of my students said that they never heard about the idea before our lessons. Of course, there is nothing new under the sun: while I was collecting material for this post, I discovered ...

Bangor Chess Congress 2019

Bangor Chess Congress 2019

CM GaborHorvath
| Oct 18, 2019

The weekend before last I participated in the Bangor Congress 2019, a 6 round rapid tournament which has been revived after a 14 year break, thanks to the energetic organiser, Brendan Jameson and his team. Tournament Organiser/Arbiter Bre...

Game analysis #9 - Running from a winning endgame

Game analysis #9 - Running from a winning endgame

CM GaborHorvath
| Sep 30, 2019

This is a game from userfriendly2, who posted it on the forum, asking for help with the analysis. I think the game is quite instructive, and White's mistakes are rather typical, so I decided to write a post about it. I added my comments to userfri...

My win against IM Tibor Károlyi

My win against IM Tibor Károlyi

CM GaborHorvath
| Aug 19, 2019

In this post I would like to show you an old game of mine, which I played  in 2013 in Dublin in the Irish National Club Championship. I was playing for Galway, and my opponent was another Hungarian, IM Tibor Károlyi, who happened to ...

Principles explained #2 - Why do we castle?

Principles explained #2 - Why do we castle?

CM GaborHorvath
| Aug 14, 2019

There are a lot of chess principles we hear all the time, but don’t necessarily understand, or never really investigate. The purpose of these posts is to take a closer look of those principles, and examine the logic behind them.  One ...

Game analysis #8 - Losing the unlosable

Game analysis #8 - Losing the unlosable

CM GaborHorvath
| Aug 6, 2019

This is a game from Giasira, who posts his games regularly under the topic "Road to 1600 Rapid, trying to improve after every game". His last game was a loss, and must have been a painful one, as he had such an overwhelming advantage at one poin...

My first online student's progress

My first online student's progress

CM GaborHorvath
| Jun 28, 2019

I just checked recently the old tournament games of my very first online student, and wanted to share some of them with you.  My student is a ten years old little girl from England. I started to give her face to face lessons two years ag...

A miniature in the Morra gambit

A miniature in the Morra gambit

CM GaborHorvath
| Jun 6, 2019

In this post I would like share with you a nice attacking game which I played recently in the Morra gambit. Although the Morra is not my main weapon against the Sicilian, I teach it to my young students, so I have to play it from time to time...

Game analysis #7 - Losing a playable endgame

Game analysis #7 - Losing a playable endgame

CM GaborHorvath
| May 7, 2019

Freehealthcare published this game on the forums, asking why he lost the endgame, as it did not look so bad. Well, the main reason was apparently a misplaced rook on b2 that got into trouble.  We all have heard that we should develop our...

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