Openings

Yury Markushin
10.05.2016
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Yury Markushin
10.05.2016

Every chess player wants to learn opening traps not only to safeguard themselves from unexpected trouble but also to use them as weapons to win games. There are many basic and well-known traps like Fools and Scholar mate that everyone knows about. Here we will discuss far more sophisticated and advanced traps that happened in […]

WGM Raluca Sgircea, IM Renier Castellanos
09.26.2016

Hedgehog is one of the most popular set-ups for black nowadays and it can arise from several openings. However, it is one that’s not to everyone’s taste. Black willingly gives white a space advantage right from the start and chooses a compact position where his pieces are placed behind the wall of pawns. After the […]

WGM Raluca Sgircea, IM Renier Castellanos
09.21.2016

Torre attack against the Fianchetto Defenses has been already studied once. It is time to have a look inside the equally popular Nimzo / Queen’s Indian tandem.

WGM Raluca Sgircea, IM Renier Castellanos
09.14.2016

Torre Attack Against the Indian Defenses: There are many solid ways to play 1.d4, nowadays the most popular being the London System (2.Bf4) partially thanks to the efforts of Gata Kamsky and his excellent results in this line. However, there is another sideline that is an excellent weapon to fight against the tactical King’s Indian […]

Yury Markushin
09.02.2016
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Yury Markushin
09.02.2016

Chess Master and You: What are the differences? A lot of players wonder, what are the main differences between an ordinary player and a chess master? Is that the fact that masters can calculate many more moves ahead and instantly find 5 move tactics? Or does it have to do with experience, intuition, and luck? […]

WGM Raluca Sgircea, IM Renier Castellanos
08.22.2016

Fort Knox Variation in The French Defense: The French defense is a very popular choice nowadays among chess players of all levels. It’s quite flexible and it offers black unbalanced positions almost in any line. In this article, we will have an inside look at the so-called Fort Knox variation of the French and we […]

WGM Raluca Sgircea, IM Renier Castellanos
08.11.2016

Ragozin Defense has become very popular nowadays against the move 1.d4. Given its flexibility in the move order, black can employ it in different move orders, depending on white’s starting move.

WGM Raluca Sgircea, IM Renier Castellanos
08.05.2016

Openings played by Grandmasters: Modern chess has become a sport of not only skills but also knowledge and memory. It has always been like this, but since the irruption of computers in our game, memorization has become more important than it used to be.

WGM Raluca Sgircea, IM Renier Castellanos
07.11.2016

Semi-Slav Defense is one of the most popular options nowadays against 1.d4. It is a complex opening in which black is able to fight for the initiative without taking any major positional risks. The Semi-Slav Defense was one of Kasparov’s most dangerous weapons when he was in his prime, but many other attacking players like […]

WGM Raluca Sgircea, IM Renier Castellanos
07.08.2016

Italian opening, also known as Giuoco Piano (Italian for “quiet game”) has always been under the shadow of the ever-popular Ruy Lopez as white’s main weapon against 1…e5. One of the reasons for this is that the positions arising from the Italian are far less complex than the ones that can arise in the Ruy […]