As an active member of the U.S. chess scene, I of course know of Ray Robson, currently the youngest Grandmaster in the country at 16. In fact, as an active tournament player I have even had the chance to meet him, and play ping pong and chess with...
Chess players often find themselves in a situation when they need to win at all costs, or at least draw. Most of the time it happens during last rounds, but there are exceptions. Knowing how to handle such moments is an essential skill for any str...
There are many different types of chess mistakes, but some of them are especially widespread. They keep occurring in one game after another and are popular with lots of players. These mistakes may be dubbed typical and fixed via purposeful work. ...
2nd Annual Brooklyn Scholastic Chess Championship The Brooklyn Lyceum 227 4th Avenue Brooklyn, N.Y. 11215 Trophies to top 10 in each Section Plaques to the top...
Let me speak from my heart…in English! By “start of a tournament” we usually mean the first 2 or 3 rounds. They define the tactics for the whole event. However, unlike the finish, the first few rounds are less important. In a perfect world the be...
Originally my column has been titled “Preparing for international competition,” so today I decided to be more to-the-point and cover one of the most important topics in this field – planning one’s tournament schedule. Choosing where and when to p...
Time is an essential component of each serious (e.g. tournament) chess game. Just like the moves, it can affect the course of the match substantially. Being able to control your time, avoid time trouble, and take advantage of your opponent’s slow ...
One of the most efficient ways of improving in chess is analyzing one’s own games. The legendary world chess champion Botvinnik emphasized the importance of this activity and urged masters to publish analyses of their games in the media. I believe...
Every chess player fails to convert a winning position once in a while. Sometimes it happens even in situations when any move seems to secure the whole point. What is the reason for this? Chess is a sport, so the following three aspects are impor...
In the following game we see how young super grandmaster Carlsen executed a "simple" three-step strategy: 1.step: Creating a pawn majority in center This is the white reached after 10 moves. He has a pawn majority in center but paid it...
Alice sighed wearily. `I think you might do something better with the time,' she said, `than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers.' `If you knew Time as well as I do,' said the Hatter, `you wouldn't talk about wasting IT. It's HIM.' `...
Thousands of chess players dream of learning all the subtleties of the game of chess. There are different ways to do so, but all of them are related to one and the same question: How do we study correctly on our own, so that we don’t waste our tim...
By browsing Chess.com’s forums, I noticed that there are numerous threads dedicated to improving in chess, certain training practices, coaching and other issues of that sort. Let’s talk a bit about who and what can assist us in becoming a better p...
Psychology is an integral element of chess. To win a game (tournament, match) one needs to be strong not only in chess, but in the psychological sense as well. Every chess player can recall moments when he/she could not recover from a terrible los...
Every day I get a lot of fan mail (thanks, guys!), and many of the messages are dedicated to the evergreen subject “how do I get better in chess?” I am trying to do my best to offer individual advice to everyone. However, there is a ve...
When I was a kid, PCs weren’t that widespread yet, so books were our #1 choice when it came to chess studies. Of course, innovative technologies speed up the process of learning chess, but the old methods shouldn’t be totally neglected too. That’s...
hi in this article i will try to tell you how much each peices value is. In chess, the chess piece relative value system conventionally assigns a point value to each piece when assessing its relative strength in potential exchanges. T...
I'm not sure if I am allowed to post this here since this is not my article. The source of the article can be found here. http://www.thesmartset.com/article/article01210802.aspx I thought it was very interesting and didn't want to keep you guys ...
"I, of course, was aware of the mysterious charm of this "royal game". The one and only of all those that man invented that is not bind to the tyranny of luck and grants glory only to those outwitting their opponents, or to those having a certain ...
To some, chess is a hobby. It's a leisurely game to be played between friends having a conversation. At Pierrepont School, it's a passion. Students play it for fun after school and during lunch. On weekends, they compete against others at tournam...
It would seem that within the grand history of chess, we all sit in a privileged place in history where we embody the great cliche that we stand on the backs of giants. Numerous great players have been recorded and technological programs have...
Several years ago, I taught in a middle school behavior disorder middle school. One of the first things I implemented was chess training for my students. I did it because they were interested in the game and so I thought it would be a good way to ...
The Annenberg Foundation is one of the biggest contributors to chess in America’s public schools. The same foundation that sponsors the Annenberg Challenge that Barack Obama and Bill Ayers are linked to (Chicago Annenberg Challenge) also sponsors...
Rooks need open and half-open files. This is a well known "truth"! *** Here is a 5-step-program 1. occupy a open line with one rook and control it 2. double rooks in that line 3. get with one rook at second or seventh rank 4. Get them both ...
