The year 2019 was so rich for chess tournaments and exciting games that I decided to make my own list of the top 10 memorable games. It was not easy to choose from hundreds of great games, so chances are that your list would be completely differ...
People who followed the 2019 Tata Steel Chess India Rapid & Blitz will forever remember the last day of this super-tournament. First the live transmission brought us a strange five-move draw played by the world champion, Magnus Carlsen. Then...
A fork is one of the most important tactical elements in chess. There are dozens of different forks in chess, and I am sure you've seen many of them. Some of the forks are very common. For example, when I attend kids' competitions, I know that I...
According to Wikipedia, a Hail Mary is a very long forward pass in American football, typically made in desperation, with only a small chance of success. So, what's a Hail Mary pass in chess? Let me explain. Say your position is completel...
I bet you've heard the cliche that "chess is 99 percent tactics" thousands of times. While it is greatly overused and exaggerated to some degree, overall it is correct. The enormous strength of modern computers is based on their unmatched abilit...
If you have seen the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer, you may remember one of the Washington Square Park hustlers who held a sign offering a photograph or a game with the man who beat Mikhail Tal. Just like most of the movie's chess...
Do you want to improve your puzzle rush score? What a silly question. We all want to improve our Puzzle Rush score. Puzzle Rush is a great way to learn how to quickly spot and calculate common tactical patterns. Improving your Puzzle Rush scor...
One of the most promising Dutch junior players of the early 1970s was Roy Dieks from Amsterdam. In the final of the 1972 European Youth Championship, held in Groningen, The Netherlands, Dieks played a crucial game against Tony Miles (who would lat...
In general, when a very strong player faces a lesser one, the result is usually easy to guess. However, once in a while the “victim” turns the tables and devours the giant. In this article I will give you six games where the little fis...
We all love our ancient game for its beauty and inner logic, but have you thought about what attracts you most to chess? Some people would swear that there is nothing better than Jose Capablanca's positional masterpieces or one of Magnus Carlsen's...
Well, I’m back with six chess puzzles, with each game being given a brilliancy prize. However, a little secret: I like the little bios as much as the puzzles! Anyway have fun, and if you fail to solve a puzzle, just click the “?&rdqu...
Tags allow us to label each puzzle in Tactics Trainer with one or more tactical motifs (types of tactics) commonly encountered in chess. Understanding these motifs will help you recognize tactical patterns - both in Trainer, and in your actual gam...
A couple of months ago, I wrote an article about Puzzle Rush. Even though I could see its educational value right away, to me at that time it was mostly a new and very addictive toy. These days it is a must-have training tool for all my stude...
Chess.com's new game called "Puzzle Rush" is taking the chess community by storm! If you haven't tried it yet, you should. But be warned, the game is very addictive. While I doubt we will ever see "Puzzle Rush Anonymous," nevertheless, once y...
Everyone loves crazy tactics, and when all the games were brilliancy prizes it makes it even more fun. Imagine: If you solve it you can say, “I could have won that brilliancy prize!” Or, perhaps not. The tactics didn’t fall...
We all make mistakes playing chess, proving the old saying "to err is human."' However, it is one thing to miss a 30-move-deep variation like Fabiano Caruana did in game six of his world championship match. It's a totally different story wh...
Once again I offer puzzles full of tactics or sharp attacks. And, as in the previous article, all of them won brilliancy prizes. I’m offering small bios so you know who these players are, and I often give lots of analysis and prose, w...
I think it was GM Tartakower who once said "the wise chess player learns from someone else’s mistakes, the smart one learns from his own mistakes, and the stupid chess players never learn." So, let's be wise and learn from the games of th...
Chess tricks and traps have always caught the imagination and appreciation of chess fans as long as chess has been played. A nice trap shows tactical ideas, combinations, and fascinating concepts that capture our attention and stand the test of ti...
Everyone knows the story about the Trojan Horse that helped the Greek army win the Trojan War. Since chess is a model of a war on 64 squares, can't we use this 3,000-year-old trick on the chessboard? Just think of it: Your opponent hides his ki...
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...
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...
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...
