Middle Game
We often stress how important it is to pay great attention to pawn moves, as they usually leave behind unpleasant weaknesses. These are small pluses that can be developed during the game – they give something to play against and develop a plan around. In positions where there are no important weaknesses in the opponent’s […]
Having a deep positional understanding is one of every chess player’s goals and one of the features that make a difference between a master and an amateur. But the strategy is not only about weaknesses and pawn structures; it extends to the pieces on the board as well – a chess player must be able […]
Have you ever stopped and asked yourself in which positions you feel comfortable? I know that for a long time I did not. It is all too easy to get carried away with your repertoire, you choose to play the King’s Indian because you have seen a few beautiful games ending in some spectacular mating […]
Weakness is probably the most important part of the chess game. Most of the ideas that can surface in a position are usually based on some kind of weakness. Whether it is a pawn, a square or a whole bunch of squares, weaknesses are something we try our best to provoke in our opponent’s position […]
This is one of the most problematic aspects of learning when it comes to playing good chess. If the acquisition of tactical skills is more or less straight-forward: just solve an infinite number of tactical puzzles and you will be fine, the study of positional chess and improving your understanding is less concrete. I will […]
Who doesn’t like a good, successful attack? It is probably every chess player’s dream – to crush their opponent with a well-conducted attack and crown it with a beautiful sacrifice. There are many players who like to attack and it is something we see often especially at the club level. Attacks are started in most […]
In chess, the King is the one piece we try to protect almost throughout the whole game. We castle, we put it into safety and try to weaken it as little as possible, but can it actually help win the game? For most of you, it’s common knowledge that the monarch is a key piece […]
One of the first things we learn about in chess is the value of the pieces. We start off with the points-value of the pieces and favorable combinations between them. Later on, we understand that this value is only relative and there is much more to chess than some simple rules. We learn that when […]
We have been talking a lot about attacking and finding active ideas in your games, but very little about how to defend and put up a good resistance when under pressure. Many players train their tactical skills, but very few know that defense can be trained in a similar way. Perhaps this is the reason […]
A very important feature of the position and one that we should pay special attention to during every game we play is the pawn structure and the changes that it might suffer throughout the game, as your plans should also change with it. The study of the most important pawn formations will not only help […]
