I wanted to take some time to talk about time management in chess. Before I began writing this post, I took a look at what others had to say. Coach NM Dan Heisman gives a long history on chesscafe where he outlined how we got here. I implore you to read this because the history of how we arrived at… Read more →
Hello everyone, and welcome back. Today I have a fun attacking game to share with you. I like this game because it’s a good example of when to sacrifice material for a winning advantage. It also demonstrates the idea that an attack can come from anywhere at anytime. In chess you must stay vigilant! In addition to this, another loser/cheater… Read more →
This week, I’d like to talk about something that happens when you play any game online: Bad Manners (BM). I notice it happens more often online than it does in real life. The game I have today is a great example of this. During the game, at a particularly difficult moment for me, my opponent had the nerve to say… Read more →
This week I have an interesting positional exchange sacrifice to share with you guys. Sometimes you make sacrifices and the compensation is not immediately obvious. It’s entirely possible that the sacrifice I made during this game is not objectively correct, but it led to a position where my Bishop became more valuable than his rook. Let’s have a look: … Read more →
This week I have a fun little game to share, as well as a new segment I’m calling “The Wall of Shame”. This new segment is in response to the the rampant cheating that occurs in online chess, specifically on chess.com. I’ve decided as a way of shaming these idiots, that I would post their names with some minimal commentary… Read more →
I recently got up to a record high rating for me on chess.com, 2214. Of course yesterday I spent like 4 hours playing and had a precipitous 100 point fall. Such is chess I suppose. My play yesterday didn’t feel that bad, it felt various things just weren’t going right in each individual game. In some games I wasn’t managing… Read more →
I don’t have a long game to show you this week, I wanted to share a fun little opening trap that catches players off guard. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve caught someone with this trap and it’s not something that they usually expect. What I like about this trap is how natural looking the moves are.… Read more →
For the first time in years I beat a GM. Since I stopped playing on ICC and started playing on chess.com I noticed that I haven’t been paired with titled players as often. This is probably due to the fact that chess.com has more members than ICC and so the player pool is deeper. That said, this game was fairly… Read more →
Sometimes in online chess, you get trapped into playing mini-matches against a player. Either they’ll offer you a rematch or you’ll offer them one. A few nights ago I had such a mini match against a player on chess.com. I went like 1-3, and as soon as I won he declined my rematch. In this game I completely dominated him… Read more →
Hello everyone, as part of my attempting to improve my chess and eventually get back into the tournament scene I’ve decided to attempt to analyze one game a week. I realize that most blitz games don’t have a lot of value as neither player are necessarily looking for the “best moves”. That said, I’ve attempted to find a solid game… Read more →