Play with a plan. always Sometimes we do get bored and just make random waiting moves, not bothering to think about what is the real best move. Although sometimes this is necessary, usually it is not and sucks out the fun from chess...
This is not going to be a terribly advanced lesson since I'm not a terribly strong player, but I thought it might be helpful to explain some basic opening ideas and offer the sort of advice I would have found helpful when I was just starting out. ...
----I Can't Learn Chess!---- Many people make the unfair assumption that chess is for those of a higher IQ and therefore, shy away from learning and pursuing the game. Well in this small article I hope to prove them all wrong and show that chess...
IntroductionI played this OTB game recently, as black, and one of my club-mates suggested it is a good example for beginners to demonstrate the importance of development. My opponent was by no means a beginner so I was highly surprised to see him...
The title of the the book under review at the moment is somewhat deceptive. While Art Of Attack In Chess is, indeed, about attacking play in chess, it is specifically about attacking the opponent's castled King. That's it. Almost the entire 350...
This is the game I recently played. I do not submit any info about Mr. Murphy and the game he played as all have already been written by ADK at http://www.chess.com/article/view/a-little-taste-of-morphy. I advise to first look at original and the...
BGP: Space, and also the sub issue "How to get better at chess" In this 2nd issue of Beginners Gone Pro, I will discuss the importance of space. "Space" is the term describing the amount of squares one controls of his opponent's side. Examine...
I am a beginning player with only a few games under my belt, but I strongly feel that the title of this Article is true. I am curious about others' thoughts on this point. When I first started viewing games of more experienced players, I was sur...
Hi, this is the first of many Beginners Gone Pro articles I will be submitting. This article covers one of the more well known openings: The Ruy Lopez. The move sequence is 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 This opening is popu...
For every discipline worth studying, there is a set of iconic books. Chess is no exception to the rule, and Aron Nimzowitsch's My System is one of it's icon texts. Despite being Latvian, Nimzowitsch wrote the original version of My System in Ge...
When most of us learned chess, we were first taught to grab material and have a material advantage. This is not that bad, but playing positonally is usually better. Take a look at the starting position of the example below. You'll quickly notice t...
There are multiple variations of Legall's Mate, and sometimes forcing defeat cannot be so simple. Here is an example of Legall's Mate appearing in the King's Gambit. However, black has a response that is challenging to meet.... ...
It turns out that it's actually difficult to tell. The answer depends on how you define the word "strong". For example, does "strong" imply any of the following? strong because she plays quickly rather than taking days to consider her next move...
For many players the desire to improve their play pits them in a life and death struggle to win each game. Many players agonize over lost games and fluctuations in their ratings. Rather than carefully reviewing their games (and reliving painful ...
The game of chess is over 1300 years old and is one of the most popular games in the world. It has received more total thought time than many great works of art and literature. Like a great work of art, chess is a paradox on many levels. It's easy...
"No Stress Chess" is a chess set that comes with a deck of cards - 56 in fact. These cards show you a picture of a piece or pawn and how the piece or pawn can move. The idea is that once you set up the board - and move two pawns forward to make ...
I have been playing chess for as long as my daughter who is pre-school. We just started on Christmas Day. She interested me in the game due to her remembering chess from a Harry Potter Movie. As we strolled in the library looking for something ...
Finding good moves to play in a game is what we all strive for. Yet over and over we repeatedly make blunders and bad moves. Finding good moves have been written about by the likes of Capablanca, Lasker, Tarrasch, Pachman, Kotov, Dvoresky and man...
Here is a game I played against a player who had defeated me twice prior. I pinned his knight and rook then took control of the ending. I made a few mistakes in the ending but, it still ended well. Check it out I hope you enjoy. I sure did.
I have noticed that many chess.com players, and chess players who don't play on chess.com, do not know how to write notation, which is used to look back on your game to see your strong moves and weak moves. Notation is really pretty simple: You ...
Based on an analysis of the comments posted in the forums whenever the topic of RESIGNING is raised, here are ALL of the main reasons players give for either RESIGNing or, alternatively, CONTINUING TO PLAY until either checkmate, stalemate or a dr...
Annotated game on why sometimes the small details win the game in the end
Fool's mate or Two-move checkmate is an embarassing way to own any chess noob who hasnt had any experience in playing rated chess. This quick checkmate appears VERY rarely in rated tournaments, since white (the losing side, it has to lose) looks l...
I have to admit that when I first cracked the spine of Streetfighting Chess I winced. At first blush, this book appears to be a survey of the author's games and in my noggin alarm bells did ring. Digging into the book, my fears were quickly al...
