Middle Game
It is not easy to achieve positional mastery. The reason is that in order to do so one must follow the path of the development of chess since Morphy up until today. To give you a better idea here is a very brief description of what you would learn. Here is an (in)complete list of […]
Studying middlegames and understanding the most important positional motifs is one of the keys to improvement for every club player. While many young players put a great accent on the opening preparation nowadays, the difference between an experienced chess player and an aficionado is most of the time felt during the middlegame and endgame. It […]
Today, I have decided to come up with a few examples on the topic that are very challenging for any chess player – even of the highest level. This is primarily because it’s totally counterintuitive, namely using your king in the middlegame while the battle is in full swing. It’s difficult because the first thing […]
Today, I would like to discuss a topic, which in my opinion, is an important and interesting one, yet hasn’t been covered extensively in chess literature. How can sacrifices be used for a successful defense? Often, we cannot hope to survive an opponent’s attack by means of normal defensive moves that improve our pieces slowly […]
We all know the “normal” situation when the dominating knight is humiliating the poor bishop. Here is a “pure” example with only the relevant pieces on the board. However, in chess, as in life, things are rarely this simple. In the course of my career, I have discovered quite a few situations when the “bad” […]
If you are a Sicilian player, you are probably already familiar with this structure that is primarily employed by white against systems such as the Accelerated Dragon or the Hedgehog. It is characterized by the presence of white pawns on e4 and c4, a set-up that aims to restrict black’s typical freeing rupture, d6(d7)-d5. White’s […]
Pawn moves are of extreme importance in chess; from the opening stage to the endgame, pawn moves can change the character of the position and that’s often the case. In this article, we are going to talk about ruptures. The pawn ruptures usually allow us to clear squares for our pieces, drive our opponent’s pieces […]
The Carlsbad structure, arising after the exchange of White’s c-pawn for Black’s e-pawn, most commonly from the Exchange Variation in the Queen’s Gambit Declined – 1 d4 d5 2 c4 e6 3 Nc3 Nf6 (or 3…Be7) 4 cd ed – is one of the most characteristic structures in modern chess. The Queen’s Gambit Declined is […]
It seems that nowadays it has become more and more difficult to win an “easy” game. Every opponent, no matter how low-rated, has a fair amount of opening knowledge and short wins have become something almost nonexistent. There is plenty of information that can be easily accessed by anyone and, with the rise of the […]
Every chess player knows how important the center is. It is one of the first things teachers tell their students – you must control the center at every moment and occupy it with either pieces or pawns. It is what we try to do right from the opening – develop the pieces toward the center […]
