Training Techniques

Dominate Chess Tournaments: Quite often after a serious amount of time of regular training sessions, some people still struggle to show better results at tournament practice. How is it possible, one may think, after studying so much to still perform poorly and sometimes even worse than before training periodically? It can sound strange but this […]

Clock Management: Time trouble is a common thing in chess practice. No matter how strong a player becomes, the difficulty of the game increases as time starts ticking low. For some players it is even a chronic defect; they always get in time trouble and then they become used to responding under time pressure. That […]

Improve Your Calculation: The ability to calculate is crucial in every chess player’s journey to improvement. There’s no such thing as a completely positional game where no calculation is needed; no matter how calm and quiet things have been going, there’s always a moment where you’ll need to see more than your opponent.

Analyzing Your Own Games: It is common knowledge that the key to making progress in chess is the consistent and deep analysis of your own games. Once you have learned the most typical nuances of positional play and tactics, it is worth finding out what you miss in your own practice. It is necessary to […]

Chess Improvement: Going serious at chess all by oneself is something truly admirable. It is unnecessary to say that chess is one of the most difficult things to master and every day it continues to become more difficult as the level of the players keeps rising. How to become better at chess? That is a […]

Tactical Play for Club Players: It is a well-known fact that tactics play a major role in the chess game. The ability to spot tactical motifs and hidden combinations is a must-have for every chess player who wishes to obtain notable results. However, the vast majority of players do not shine because of their talent […]

Preparing for a game has become an important factor in today’s tournament practice. In times when the level of the average chess player has increased drastically, the pre-game preparation is considered a key step towards the desired outcome: victory. Of course, times have changed and nowadays this task is more difficult every day.

Dynamic vs. Static Play: Here are a couple of the questions we receive most often from our students. “When do I know when to play for an attack? And, when to stay quiet and follow the strategic path?” You can always find the answer to this question by looking at the position you have in […]

Gain ELO Points: Believe it or not, the title of this article is a frequent question among club players and aficionados. I’ve been asked this on several occasions while hanging out at the chess club. I couldn’t help but notice certain hopes for a “quick fix answer” as if there was a magic trick. Well, […]

Chess for Adult Players: How frustrating is to observe kids make leaps and bounds with seemingly no work while we adults work so hard and yet we barely make progress! While it is true that sooner or later everybody reaches a plateau, I think there are other, hidden factors at work when it comes to […]