Category: Chess school
About coaches
How to recognise a quality coach from an average, below-average or even downright poor one? You might think it's no big deal. A coach simply ‚explains something‘, demonstrates, analyses. However, if you care about improving performance (whether your own or your child's) and are searching for a quality coach without experience and without wanting to throw money away, it is certainly good to know how such a quality coach works... Continue reading
Jene, would you like the Royal Cobra?
This is how one of the world's best theoreticians and super grandmaster Daniil Dubov could have asked his opponent Jan Nepomniachtchi in the last round of the World Blitz Championship at the end of last year! „But what does the Royal Cobra have to do with the World Championship and our beautiful game?“ the reader might ask. Well, few know that in opening theory there really is a variation called the Cobra... Continue reading
Love is love, fashion is fashion: Black has been helped in the opening by the good old Dragon, but with sharpened teeth, while online blitz games are commanded by the old Stafford Gambit.
In today's article we will focus on the changing fashion of two variations that have recently become very popular. We will touch on the Dragon variation, in which Black calmly allows the still dangerous Rauzer Attack. But we will mainly focus on the killer of White; well, especially in blitz games. Have you ever heard of the Stafford or Staunton Gambit? We will also advise how to deal with it as White... Continue reading
The spirit of the ‚h‘ pawn demolished not only the Pirc-Ufimcev Defence but also conquered the world champion
In the previous article I dealt with new views on the function of the edge ‚h‘ pawn. I asked the question, who will be the first to pick up the gauntlet and write an undoubtedly voluminous work on how mainly computers elevated this often modest pawn at the beginning of the millennium to a modern hero... However, I chose the game for analysis for another reason: in my previous article ‚2033: 1.h2-h4!…‘ I ‚forgot‘ something fundamental. The ‚h‘ pawn does not have to be ‚alive‘, it does not have to be present on the board. Its spirit can – perhaps together with Caissa – hover over the board... Continue reading
2033: the secret of the best first move solved! Neural networks, artificial intelligence and quantum computers unanimously declare: 1.h2-h4!
This is roughly how we can imagine the chess world in 10 to 15 years – nothing else really fits, and ... it is not exactly a joke or an attempt at one.
Why did the author put the year 2033 in the title? By no means am I playing Nostradamus or Baba Vanga. Even George Orwell gave up in his (dystopian?) work 1984 from 1949! Continue reading
Carlsen's intuition or mathematics
Of course, in this article we will not deal with any mathematical equations. The discussion will be about playing style, thinking over the chessboard. That is, the algorithm of finding a suitable move in a game. Why does Magnus Carlsen win a large percentage of tournaments? Where does his quite significant advantage over his contemporaries come from? I asked similar questions and tried to find answers, for example, in the article ‚The Phenomenon of the Phenomenon Carlsen‘. Elsewhere I even compared his playing style to Capablanca's and even – of course with exaggeration – mentioned a possible reincarnation of perhaps the most talented chess player of all time into Magnus Carlsen... Continue reading
Olympiad in Chennai and another rising star of the East
Before I started writing the previous article about the ongoing Olympiad, I hesitated whether to highlight the Uzbek youngster and rapid world champion Nodirbek Abdusattorov or the Indian star Dommaraju Gukesh. Both had reached 100% score after the fifth round, but as it turned out, especially the Indian youngster had no intention of ending his sprint and achieved a phenomenal eight points after the eighth round! The game that the young Indian grandmaster showed, for example, in round 6, cannot be simply overlooked... Continue reading
A somewhat forgotten world champion
Battles at the top of the tournament, amazing individual results of two young men from the East, that is what is talked about at the Olympiad! But is the world champion playing in Chennai? Certainly! It must be credited to Carlsen that he regularly participates in Olympiads. Here he was rested only in the first round and then tries to help as much as possible by winning many games against theoretically much weaker opponents and by his participation in the Norwegian team – his homeland. He defeats opponents in his typical way... Continue reading
Olympiad in Chennai – a combination that stayed behind the scenes, yet will travel the world
Originally I had an article ready for readers about another young world super talent who, at the moment I am writing this article after round 7, can boast a perfect score. However, while watching this round of the Olympiad, my eye fell on a game and especially a possible combination that I must share. After all, dear readers, you will surely encounter it soon in all possible media... Continue reading
The youngest world champion is excelling at the Olympiad in India
When the Uzbek prodigy, now seventeen-year-old Nodirbek Abdusattorov, won the rapid World Championship at the end of last year, many probably considered it a fluke. If you do not follow the career of this serious young man, I bet you have not heard of him for over half a year. Although this year's Olympiad lacks a number of strong players (the teams of China and the Russian Federation are not participating, France is missing two super grandmasters, etc.), there is still ‚something to watch‘. After the fifth round, Nodirbek has on his account... 5 wins and has crossed the magical 2700+ mark! And what is more, he has also left behind a star of such calibre as Fabiano Caruana... Continue reading
Chess quote
Chess is the touchstone of intellect.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Chess quote
Chess, like music and love, has the power to make a person happy.
Siegbert Tarrasch
Siegbert Tarrasch