The question that gives the title to this article is one of those to which every chess player has his own opinion and answer. It is an extremely complicated matter. Sometimes we are in a tournament situation where the full point is the only acceptable result. The most common reasons are the chase for a norm, a title, or worthy prize money. It is never clear what advice to give when someone asks “how do I win tomorrow?” which should be translated into “how do I avoid getting drawn” or “how do I create more winning chances”. The practice has shown many examples by World Champions on what their approach to must-win games is. In this article, we will discuss them as well as the openings that can be considered to play in such games.
Getting a good positional understanding is an important step to improving your play and becoming a stronger player. Studying the basic themes, seeing the positional masterpieces played by the great players and solving many exercises can help you in this direction. One of the most important concepts, which appears in probably every single game is weaknesses and understanding how to identify and use them in your advantage. Not only this, but you have to also try to create as little as possible in your position and know how to get rid of them if you have any.
One of the things every chess player has to do in order to improve at chess is seen many games played by strong Grandmasters. This is a great method of enriching your knowledge and getting to understand a wide variety of positions – not only in the middlegame but also opening plans and endgame. However, an important step of this journey is how you do this – you have to take your time and understand the positions and the plans employed.
2018 finished on an exciting note for the chess fans all over the world, with two last major events – the World Rapid and Blitz Championships. In spite of the fact that the details of the event were announced only a few weeks before its start, the strongest players from all over the world lined up to the start. All eyes were, as expected, on the current World Champions – Magnus Carlsen in the open section and Ju Wenjun in the women’s.
Can you recommend me a book? If only I had a dime for every time a player searching for improvement asked me this question. Books are of course extremely useful in our learning but with so many writers and the extremely high flow of information, we got these days choosing good material can be difficult. For this reason, we have decided to make an article with the 10 books every player aspiring to be stronger must have and most importantly, read. We’ll also add explain why we consider the books useful and with what purpose one can employ each one.
It is no secret that chess is difficult. In fact, we are convinced that it is among the most difficult sports one can choose. Studying chess can very often be frustrating, especially if you do it on your own. It is difficult to measure progress, you are never quite sure if you are improving. Unlike doing a physical sport, you can’t really see your muscles becoming shaped.
We get many questions from readers who want to know what books to read in order to improve at chess. Although we don’t have a specific answer to this question, as each individual is different and they may need to focus on different things in order to see improvement, we do believe that reading chess books can help you widen your chess knowledge and make progress. From classics to modern authors, there are many good chess books available on every subject. For this article, we have come up with a list of classical books every chess player could learn from.
In our previous article, we have been talking about situations when you should play dynamically and which features of the position can help you decide to go for this type of play.
In this article we are going to talk about the static play and when it’s time for you to show your positional skills.
As usual, you will have to pay close attention to the position you have in front of you and its particularities, but the following factors are usually indicators of static play.
One of the most difficult and probably most important moments in a game is finding a right plan that suits your position and helps you improve it.
You have to assess the position, identify what you have to play for and what can be improved in your position and find the right move that helps you achieve your goal. There are many factors that have to be taken into consideration in these moments, from the pawn structure to the position of the pieces and weaknesses.
Magnus Carlsen has won 3-0 in the playoff and secures the World Chess Championship title until 2020! By winning in London he joins legends such as Wilhelm Steinitz and Alexander Alekhine with 4 classical WC titles. In all the games in the rapid, he proved his advantage. In game one Caruana could make a draw in the rook endgame after he managed to fight back almost lost position but then missed his chance.
