I would like to talk about the topic of exchanging off fianchettoed bishops, whether it is on b2, g2, g7 or b7. A fianchettoed bishop is useful both in defense, since it covers the king and on the other hand, without it there would be a complex of...
Most players think mates only occur during kingside attacks in the middlegame or after one side promotes a pawn to a queen and the other side keeps playing. But I have learned that mates can be found even in a wide open position in an endgame wit...
On my last tournament run in Europe, I had the good fortune of checkmating two opponents with a pair of minor pieces (bishop and knight and then two bishops). There were other pieces on the board, but the minor pieces did the heavy lifting. With t...
This is the final game on the Open Ruy Lopez I plan to investigate, and along with the other two examples this should provide the reader with a good introduction into the typical themes and plans in this slightly unorthodox opening. For instructio...
Some time ago one of my students told me that it is hard to find rook moves that do not capture the opponent's rook but rather put it in close proximity to the enemy rook. The examples of white playing Ra7 when black’s rook is on a8 came to my min...
INSTRUCTIONS: The following is a game designed to test some of your chess skills, including: opening knowledge, positional understanding, tactical sight, and endgame know-how. The idea is to play through the moves below belonging to an annota...
My normal weapon as Black against 1.e4 has been the French Defense for many years. A couple years ago, I started playing the Ruy Lopez as Black as well, but I still tend to choose the French against lower-rated opponents. Unlike the Ruy Lopez wher...
I would like to address the question of exchanges in endgames. Unlike middlegames, having a material advantage in endgames almost always leads to winning positions. There are different methods of converting either positional or material advantages...
In chess, like in life, the hardest blow is the one that comes unexpectedly. When one knows what to expect, he can prepare, adjust, adopt, defend, and can do many things to ease the blow. What do we call unexpected exchanges? I would think of it ...
I would like to talk about exchanges as a means to achieve some strategic objective. The first objective that I want to concentrate on here is to exchange in order to get an open file. An open file is a powerful weapon; the side that has the file ...
The US Championship is the event that all American players wait for with anticipation. This year it is being held at the glamorous St. Louis chess club from May 7 to 17 and gathers twenty four of the best American players. Let's just name few: Gat...
In the Sicilian Defense the exchange sacrifice on c3 is quite typical. In Dragon lines it is almost mandatory to sacrifice a rook for the knight on c3. In the other lines of the Sicilian defense it is not so clear if giving up a rook for the knigh...
“Extra Piece”… I think prominent chess coach Mark Dvoretsky coined this term. Let's say white has a great square in the center, which is defended and supported by a pawn and cannot be attacked by the opponent’s pawns. Naturally, white would like t...
There are many openings where black gets his knight to a5: Sicilian, Ruy Lopez, Gruenfeld etc. In the Gruenfeld the knight is a rather active piece there, while in the Ruy Lopez and Sicilian it does not do much there. I would like to take a look ...
This past week I played in the Foxwoods Open, one of the major US tournaments. Every year top GMs as well as less qualified players get together to play (chess, as well as other things…) at the world’s largest casino in Connecticut. T...
There are structures where black has a strong Bg7 on the open diagonal a1-h8. These positions can happen from Kings Indian, Dragon Sicilian, Benko etc. Usually white has his dark squared bishop on the c1-h6 diagonal, thus not opposing the bishop o...
I would like to talk about positions when one side gives away a piece and in return gets a couple of pawns. It is a great advantage if those pawns are passed pawns, because their strength is twice regular pawns. It is not easy to take into acc...
There are two wings on a regular airplane, right? What if I tell you there is only one wing? You can call me insane, out of my mind or just ignorant. This would be the first thought you might initially have. Then I tell you that I did my undergra...
There is so much material in chess where the queen is the super hero of the play. The queen checkmates, the queen puts itself on the altar to finish up a nice attack, the queen does obscure maneuvers to save the game with perpetual etc. We like to...
After Part 1 on The Power of Exchange Sacrifices I got a couple of responses where readers asked me to give examples of unsuccessful exchange sacrifices. Over the past few years, since I discovered the power of giving up a rook for a light piece, ...
Every strong player has his own chess signature. Smyslov is an endgame virtuoso, Tal is a wizard of attacking sacrifices, Topalov is famous for his imagination and creativity, Tigran Petrosian has many games with dynamical exchange sa...
There is much talk about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ bishops in the chess world. When a chess player thinks about a ‘bad’ bishop, he imagines the bishop blocked behind pawns without operational space and resembling a rather big pawn. The common stereotype is...
Hello everyone - this is my first article for chess.com, and in my weekly column, I'm going to focus on my own games, trying to explain my thoughts for your benefit. Feel free to leave questions and comments. If there's something you'd like to se...
The counter attack in center! "If your opponent attacks you with his pieces on a wing, counter it in the center!" There are some golden rules, that ...
