In last week's article, we discussed chess players' behavior. The big questions were if trying to flag your opponent in a dead-drawn position or playing out a completely lost position or some other perfectly legal things are ethical. Judgin...
A well-known saying states that all is fair in love and war. Our beloved game is actually both love and war. While it is pretty obvious that chess is a war on 64 squares, what about love? Well, check the Twitter hashtag #WhyILoveChess and...
Some 20 years ago I had a conversation with a grandmaster who grew up in a bad neighborhood. He was recollecting his youth years when street fighting was pretty common. I don't remember much from his stories, but one of his phrases has stu...
The coming world championship match is going to be Magnus Carlsen's biggest challenge since he won his crown. As I mentioned in my recent article, it is the first time he will defend his title against a younger challenger, the 25-year-old Americ...
At the very end of my article about MVL's trapped rooks, I mentioned that Tal was famous for his queen play. There was even a joke that a regular queen is worth nine pawns and Tal's queen is worth 12 pawns! The Chess.com member "fiercebadge...
Some chess tactical ideas are very common. For example, I cannot imagine any experienced chess player who never had back-rank problems in his games. Interference is pretty much at the opposite end of chess spectrum. Here is how Wikipedia describ...
I really appreciate my readers' feedback and therefore always read your comments to my articles. One of them, by the Chess.com member rossmckinley1224, made me think. Ross wrote: "For those of us struggling to achieve a 1000 rating on Ches...
Chess is more than just a game, at least for chess aficionados. As proof of this statement we like to mention that since the dawn of the computer age, our beloved game has been the main test of computers' ability to "think." Also, don't ...
Pattern recognition is one of the most important chess skills. Some time ago I even suggested an idea that Magnus Carlsen is so great in chess due to his incredible pattern-recognition ability. Through the years I've written a series of articl...
There was an anniversary a few days ago that was completely missed by the chess world. I am not talking about any chess player's birthday since they generally are covered by many chess publications (believe it or not, I even saw a note about Kar...
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov's result in the last Candidates' tournament has cemented his position as one of the world's very best players. In a year-old article, we already discussed what makes his chess so sparkling and powerful. Today I would like t...
I bet many of you have heard the famous chess saying: "If Tal has an open file, there will be mate," but do you know how this expression was born? Mikhail Tal's second, Alexander Koblencs, who coined this phrase, tells the story in his book...
The Candidates' Tournament was a real nightmare for Levon Aronian. Aronian, one of the pre-tournament favorites, ended the competition dead last. While Aronian's numerous fans hoped for a miracle for a long time, it was absolutely clear tha...
One of the most shocking games in the history of the U.S. chess championship was played in 2015. Can you imagine one of the world's strongest players losing his game in just six moves playing White? This is exactly what happened! I was really pu...
In an old article, I expressed the opinion that some games played by really strong grandmasters shouldn't be studied by inexperienced players. Therefore I suggested to assign chess games ratings similar to movies. The article claimed that acc...
In the end of October 2000, I played a traditional chess tournament: Cap d'Agde. It was a memorable event for me. First, it is not every day you mingle with such legends as Anatoly Karpov. Also, the way we entered the stage was quite remarkable....
The tournament of the year is over and we have a deserved winner. The quality of Fabiano Caruana's games was higher than anyone else's in the Candidates' Tournament and he kept his cool throughout the whole competition. Now we all are waiting fo...
Don't worry, I haven't lost my mind when insist that you are stronger than Magnus Carlsen even if your rating is just 1400. Also, it is not a April Fool's Day joke. It is pure math and logic, so let me explain. If you forgot what transitivity ...
Yes, you've caught me! Whenever I see a checkmate, I cannot help but re-phrase the well-known joke of Steve Martin. You see, Wikipedia has a page about different mating patterns, and it turns out that the checkmates I knew since childhood all have...
A popular saying insists that there are no bad questions: there are only bad answers. Well, I have a confession to make. There is a sort of question that is really difficult to answer. It usually goes like this: A student rated around USCF 1200 co...
In his famous book My Great Predecessors, Garry Kasparov titled a chapter about Mikhail Tal "Bluff as a Weapon of Victory." Indeed, there is no other world champion who sacrificed as many pieces and took as much risk as Tal. Yet as GM Averb...
Today we are going to talk about a very simple trap that any experienced chess player is supposed to know by heart. Yet,at least two legendary world champions fell into this trap in the most unfortunate moment: when they played their world champio...
These days, when opening theory grows exponentially, it is very difficult to come up with an opening novelty. The new move you are considering was either already played by someone, analyzed in some publication or already stored in somebody's com...
People love magic tricks! Yes, we know that the magicians trick us and they don't really saw women in half, and yet we cannot help but admire the miracle that happens right in front of our eyes. Now tell me, when was the last time you saw ches...
