General Information
Kasparov’s games and himself weren’t called the ‘Beast from Baku’ for nothing. He was indeed a “beast”! His style of playing was more like a herd of full-grown African buffaloes and zebras charging toward you… as Thanos said, dread it, run from and it still arrives. His style of chess was extremely powerful, and his […]
Chess notation is the language of chess and you will eventually need to learn it if you want to continue down this road and make your journey easier. One of the first things you learn when starting out is how to read each square. Each of the 64 squares has a unique name and you […]
Pawn Structures. Ten? Can there be so many of them? Really? Yes, my man. They can and they ARE. In fact, each of them is pretty important, and you will come by them every now and then. If you are not ready, you might just fall into a nasty trap and end up losing the […]
The final standings of the Fide Candidates 1. Ian Nepomniachtchi – 8½ 2. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave – 8 3. Anish Giri – 7½ 4. Fabiano Caruana – 7½ 5. Ding Liren – 7 6. Alexander Grischuk – 7 7. Kirill Alekseenko – 5½ 8. Wang Hao – 5 The last round might have been not so […]
Kalashnikov Sicilian variation is not something you would usually hear a lot about, but it is an interesting line and quite a great practical choice for Black. It was used by La Bourdonnais against McDonnell back in 1834 but was not really popular until recent years. The reason is that similar to the Sveshnikov, it […]
Ian Nepomniachtchi is the winner of the FIDE Candidates Tournament with a round to spare and a new Challenger for the world championship against Magnus Carlsen. Ian Nepomniachtchi vs Maxime Vachier-Lagrave ended in a draw. The Frenchman has chosen an interesting double fianchetto system where he avoided moving his central pawns. This has allowed white […]
This round proved to be the most entertaining from the start of the tournament. All four games had a winner and no draws. The game which fans were waiting for was between Fabiano Caruana and Anish Giri. The American was a bit surprised by the move order which Giri has played. Now it was not […]
The central game of the day was between the leader Ian Nepomniachtchi and Fabiano Caruana. The Russian had a point advantage and white pieces. He decides to play Scotch. The game went into a well-known variation where the game is quite simple. Black was trying to make it a bit sharper but with simple moves, […]
The Russian Ian Nepomniachtchi defeated his compatriot Kiril Alekseenko and increased his lead by a full point. Nepomniachtchi’s win, with which he became the world number-three player in the live ratings, was surprisingly smooth and quick. He managed to surprise his opponent in the opening when he went for English, but when black was trying […]
Anish Giri managed to win against Wang Hao in round nine. He is now only half a point behind the leader. The remaining games have finished drawing, no not without a big fight. “It was very important for me to win this game to realistically stay in the race, otherwise it would have been really […]
