On the Pillory (4) – Like little children
After recent rapid and blitz tournaments in Paris and Leuven (June and July 2017), when I read enthusiastic and laudatory articles about Carlsen, a memory from my early coaching practice came to mind... The article Like little children asks whether anyone today still makes distinctions between a serious game, a rapid game and a blitz game... Continue reading
Competition – Entertainment (3) – Solutions
Below, not only competitors can familiarise themselves with the correct solution to the third task. This time solvers were even more successful than in the previous task!... Continue reading
Competition – Entertainment (4)
During the holiday season, our website will fill your time not only with the continuation of the solving competition but also with a humorous, though by no means easy, problem. In fact, we cannot exclude that the esteemed reader may have already encountered it, but on the other hand, we believe it will brighten your free moments!... Continue reading
Not all coaches are the same
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 (yours or your child's) and are looking for a quality coach without experience and don’t want to throw money away, it is certainly good to know how such a quality coach works... Continue reading
Competition – Entertainment (2) – Solutions
Now you can familiarise yourself with the correct solution to the second competition task. More than a dozen of you, including several readers from Slovakia and Russia, successfully tackled a truly difficult problem... Continue reading
Competition – Entertainment (3)
Dear readers, will you try to tackle the third task of the long-term competition? A brilliant study, whose author we will keep anonymous for now, can certainly be solved by a strong practical player; however, less experienced players can also succeed! By mere elimination and, of course, the necessary patience, one can reach the goal just as well... Continue reading
Competition - Entertainment (1) - Solutions
Here, dear readers, you can view or compare your solutions to both the first competition task for prizes and the other tactical tests... And as is our custom, we will add something extra to the solution. We will pause, admittedly not for the first time, on the correct technique of calculating variations: before you in the game stands a complex position! Which considered moves (candidates) should you examine first in your mind?... This article also includes (once again) a warning against the ‚petty-grubbing style of play‘ in the opening... Continue reading
Competition - Entertainment (2)
Our competition for nice prizes continues! This time, dear readers, you can focus on just one study, which may well ‚give you a hard time‘. The reward for successfully solving the task may be, as in the first part of the competition, not only a possible luxury prize in the form of a product from National Pen Corporation, but also – and we can guarantee this – an exceptionally pleasant feeling. You may have seen many studies in your chess life, but something so enchanting...? Continue reading
On the Pillory (3) - Brilliant information system
In the next instalment of this polemical column, we will first return to the time when a group of Yugoslav chess players created a new sophisticated information system. Their discovery not only prepared the ground for the entry of chess engines onto the stage of history several decades later, although the two complement each other perfectly... We will learn (or revise) the basic principles of the system; we will find out that without it it is practically impossible to analyse a game correctly and yet understandably.
In some tasks for readers, focused precisely on the art of analysis, we will then – no fear – return to the original content of the column. Among other things, the reader can try to correct a somewhat poorly commented game, apparently by a ubiquitous young master who still confuses the names of openings, some of which are several hundred years old! The game itself, however, has travelled the world, vying with its charms to be the crowning jewel of the past year!... Continue reading
Two moments from the eighth game from a coach's perspective
On the 8th game of the match in New York from the coach’s database: At last, we have waited! The 8th game of the World Championship match between Carlsen and Karjakin upset the balance. Regardless of the final result of the match, that is the development of its last third, much has already been written (and surely will be) about this decisive game of the match. Below I would like to introduce readers to two moments from this thrilling encounter until the very last moment, which I gladly and eagerly included in my coaching databases. The first situation concerns the seemingly voluntary relinquishing of an open file (a secretive rook move?), the second moment concerns the phenomenon of blockade (chapter of the article ‚Nimzowitsch in seventh heaven‘). Well, and at the very end of the article, the reader can also (unusually) take part in a competition... Continue reading
Madam Dynamics and Statics in an eternal duel!
This is also one way to understand chess! It is said that in chess there are only three basic components, which are either in conflict or „prefer“ to unite against the third power (any similarity to Orwell's 1984 or some current situations on battlefields is purely coincidental...). These are Material, Time and Quality of position. The cards are dealt as follows: Material = Madam Statics, Time = Madam Dynamics; the Quality of position is characterised by a certain treachery and is then the privilege of either one or the other lady. Which of these two powerful madams do you prefer? This is also answered by a test primarily intended for coaches to survey the knowledge of their more advanced pupils... Well, you wouldn't be on the right page if we didn't include a few „cultural questions“ in the test... Continue reading
For coaches (3) - Mate in 6 moves
Black has a decisive advantage in the position and can certainly win in relatively many ways. However, what interests us here is something else: Using a brilliant combination, let us mate the white king in no more than 6 moves! 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