Openings

Learn Openings and 5 Habits That Help You With It. It is difficult nowadays to get a good game without having a fair amount of theory knowledge. There is no such thing as an easy game anymore, like almost everybody, as amateur as they are, knows openings. It is probably the most studied phase of […]

Opening: From our very first steps into chess studying we are taught about the importance of the initiative in the game – a concept somewhat difficult to understand at first glance and one that demands a certain degree of comprehension of the game. Let us start with the official definition of initiative; what is it […]

King’s Indian Defense has a well-deserved reputation for spectacular battles often terminated with a massacre on White’s kingside castle. What’s most popular than the King’s Indian Defense against 1.d4? Probably nothing. The philosophy behind this defense has always been the same, black plays a kingside fianchetto regardless of what white plays and then he attacks […]

Opening Traps and Tricks: How many times do we lose a game or get a clearly worse position right out of the opening because we don’t know the secrets and hidden traps in it? As a beginner, it happens many times over the board and it seems like this is the only way we had […]

Slav Defense begins after the moves 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 and is one of the most popular choices against the Queen’s Gambit. This defense bears its name due to the number of masters from Slavic countries that started developing it and introduced it into tournament practice. Some of them were Alekhine, Bogoljubow, and Vidmar. The […]

Grunfeld, one of the most popular defenses for black today against 1.d4, is employed by both top players and amateurs who like to play active and look for complications with the black pieces. Some of the strong players who have successfully used it are Vasily Smyslov, Viktor Korchnoi, Bobby Fischer, Garry Kasparov (in the match […]

1.d4 Opening and why not to play it: From the very first moment we get into competitive chess we understand the importance of having a solid opening repertoire. However, once we set the goal of creating one, we realize it is not as easy as it seemed. Before getting to the complicated theoretical lines, you […]

1.e4 Opening and why not play it. Since we get started in chess we are hit by the ever-lasting decision of choosing our first move. I can’t speak for every chess player, but most of my generation started like that. Those with a positional inclination chose to play 1.d4 or 1.c4 while those with a […]

Openings and preparing them. Nowadays it is common knowledge that good game preparation plays a major role in achieving success in over-the-board tournaments. Opening preparation has become a habit for any active player and many spend an impressive amount of hours before the game trying to find the right opening idea in order to get […]

Opening preparation is a very important step in any player’s career. It is next to impossible to play high-level chess without proper opening preparation. Almost all players realize that, but nevertheless they miss some very important yet extremely powerful ideas when it comes to the openings.  The good news is you won’t need to spend […]