The question in the title of the article might surprise you. Indeed, what can be easier than pushing your pawn to the back rank and choosing a piece you want it to become? In reality, there are more problems arising from a pawn promotion than...
The question whether to trust computers might sound pointless since we really have no choice in the modern world. Think about it: if a computer of one of the nuclear superpowers goes berserk, then it can potentially end humankind as we know it. Si...
Last week we analyzed the situations where promoting a pawn into a rook, bishop or knight was a logical way to achieve a goal (whether to win or draw the game). Today we'll see the games where underpromotion didn't make much sense and wasn't ...
When a pawn reaches the last rank it creates one of the biggest miracles of the game of chess. In such a situation the weakest chess piece can instantly become the strongest one! While in the majority of such cases, chess players indeed promote a ...
I noticed that when I teach the rules of chess to kids, almost nothing excites them more than a pawn promotion. I can see sparkles in the kids' eyes and have to answer the unavoidable question: "So, I can have two queens at the same time?" Of co...
Most of the classical attacking games have a similar scenario: the winner brings his pieces close to the opponent's king and then sacrifices something to deliver a winning combination. But what can you do if your pieces are far away from your oppo...
There are many openings in chess that were named after chess players who invented or make them popular. But what happens when such a chess player is forced to play against his own opening? How does it feel to fight your own brainchild? It is d...
In my recent article, "The Lonely Knight Checkmate," I discussed a very uncommon situation where a checkmate is delivered by a knight and the winner has no other pieces on the board besides pawns. Such situations are indeed so rare that all t...
After my very first lesson at the chess club of the Pioneer Palace, our coach gave us a simple checkmate-in-three-moves puzzle. Immediately our most advanced players started shouting that it is an absolutely impossible task. Some 40 years later ...
When I read the recent news that the Azerbaijani GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov crossed the magic 2800 mark, I wasn't surprised. Well, actually I was surprised that it didn't happen many years ago. You see, while it is difficult for me to tell wh...
As the saying goes, a talented person is talented in everything. Therefore I wasn't really surprised when I saw Hikaru Nakamura's tweet about making a killing in the stock market. $LULU with the big miss as my puts go deep into the mone...
Many chess tournaments have taken place in casinos, and many famous grandmasters have left the lion's share of their prizes at the playing tables. I personally know a guy who won a good prize in the Knock-Out World Chess Championship in Las Vega...
Last time, we started to analyze the old game Charousek-Alapin and learned a useful trick that can be used in variety of openings. As a rule, you can learn more than just one idea from a game played by a strong player. Let's see w...
In his book "School of Excellence: Endgame Analysis," IM Mark Dvoretsky analyzes two very similar endgames. He writes: "The game Sultan Khan-Tartakower, played in 1931, was indeed almost completely identical to Dolmatov's [game played in 1988]. ...
Most chess players like to study games by masters and grandmasters. Indeed, many of these games are real works of art and you can enjoy them immensely. Of course, you can also learn from such games. I still remember the shock I experienced ...
It's a shame that the grandmaster Nigel Short is not as well known to the general public as much as he used to be. In the 1990s he was one of the best chess players in the world and even played a match vs. Garry Kasparov, trying...
At of this writing, GM Hou Yifan is the sole leader of the super tournament in Baden Baden. Her play in this tournament so far is simply unbelievable and each game is a textbook example of good chess. Photo: Georgios Souleidis. Here is t...
GM Emil Sutovsky recently posted some shocking news on his Facebook page: a computer program, Ponanza, beat the best shogi player in the world. Not only that, but the computer program pretty much introduced a novelty on the very first move: no pro...
There are many different ways to improve your chess, but few of them can compete with the time-proven method of studying games played by great chess players. Indeed, this way you learn all the elements of chess from opening to endgam...
Chess and poker are frequently compared as both games are based on strategic thinking and decision making. I know many professional and semi-professional chess players who've completely abandoned chess in favor of poker. At some point ...
When chess players say "match of the century," usually they refer to the famous match between the USSR and the "rest of the world" that took place in Belgrade in 1970. In reality, many famous chess competitions (mostly world championship matc...
I bet that some of you, my dear readers, think that I am going to talk about "Fool's Mate" or "Scholar's Mate." Indeed, there is no way to get checkmated faster than Fool's Mate: And there is no more popular beginner's opening than Schola...
As I explained in this article, modern life forces me to recollect the episodes from my childhood years. One such memory is something that every Soviet schoolboy was supposed to know if he wanted to get into a good college, something I t...
In the beginning of the 1990s, I established a certain routine. Whenever I set foot in Moscow (and I did it pretty frequently), I would visit the Central Chess Club and climb a narrow staircase to the third floor to meet Botvinnik in his labo...
