Openings

Improve Your Openings! Every chess player, of any level, is constantly trying to improve and show his best chess over the board. In order to successfully accomplish this, it is important to study all three phases of the game: opening, middlegame, and endgame.

Vienna Game was developed at the end of the 19th century. The main idea of this opening is to defend the e4 pawn and the d5 square, launching an attack with quick f2-f4. This is a rare opening, and cannot be often seen in Grandmasters’ games. Black has strong counter-chances with d7-d5 push. This is […]

Garry Kasparov is considered to be the greatest chess player of all time. From 1986 to 2005 he was ranked the world’s number 1 for 225 out of 228 months! Kasparov holds a record for winning 15 consecutive tournaments. He is also the youngest ever undisputed world champion at age of 22. A great deal […]

One of the most frequently asked questions from amateurs to masters is the simple “what is better – 1.e4 or 1.d4?” However, the answer to this question is not that trivial and it depends on many factors. In this article, we will try to give you our views and some explanations that will hopefully help […]

This column deals with updates on recent developments from the site. The focus would be both on topical variations and rare lines that you can use in practice-Ed. My friend, Max is a Karjakin fan. Now that Sergei has come ahead of Magnus in the World Blitz Championship he has reason to be happy.

Dutch Defense is a great attacking opening choice where black prepares the king’s side attack from move one. In order to avoid complications in the center black usually locks it up early in the game. Dutch was never a super popular opening, especially on the top level. Nevertheless, many strong players including Alexander Alekhine, Bent […]

Queen’s Indian Defense is a very solid opening that utilizes the queen’s side bishop to control the center and the long diagonal.  Black focuses on controlling the center with pieces rather than pawns like in all Indian systems.  Queen’s Indian borrows some of its ideas from Nimzo-Indian setups. Both openings use the same idea of […]

King’s Gambit is one of the most popular openings for the past 300 years. It was played by many strongest players including William Steinitz, Bobby Fischer, David Bronstein, and Boris Spassky. It is a true gambit, with many aggressive and super-aggressive lines. This opening may be especially effective at the club level since many players […]

Grunfeld Defense is a very popular choice for amateurs and professionals alike. It was tried and tested many times in elite tournaments and World Championship Matches including Kasparov – Karpov and Kasparov – Kramnik. This Opening is a hyper-modern opening with many interesting ideas for both white and black pieces. It was played by many […]

Beat Under 1400 Players: One of the key moments in your progress is when you start winning constantly against a low-rated opposition. This means you are ready to move on to the next level. Very often we see club players who praise a positive result against a higher rated player although in the next round […]