Chess clubs are often the first place to visit once a kid or even grown-up falls in love with the game of chess. One does not look immediately for advanced guidance, coach or start reading books; we look for the nearest chess club and check out their schedule and we go to that magic place as soon as we can. The beginnings are all about learning, meeting new people and engaging in chess activities such as lectures, tournaments and the most common one: casual blitz, endless sessions of the casual blitz.

I have been a member of my country’s Olympic team for more than a decade. In the last year, I was also involved “on the other side” as a coach of the women national team. These two roles gave me a unique perspective on the preparation a national team does before the most prestigious team event in the world.

The chess-related preparation for an Olympiad consists of two parts: improving the opening repertoires of the players and improving their form just before the start of the event.

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, to drive our opponent’s pieces back or simply to take over the initiative by creating tension and chaos.

These pawn moves are not at all easy to see, and sometimes even more difficult to play, but as every theme in chess, there are patterns that we can learn, remember and execute when the opportunity arises. Ruptures are similar to the commonly denominated “hooks”.

Continuing our series of articles related to Grandmasters from the past, in this article we want to present to you Vladimir Savon.

He is a Soviet player who showed great results back in the 70s when he was in his prime. Savon played in 11 Soviet championships and managed to win it in 1971 with 1.5 points ahead of players like Mikhail Tal or Vasily Smyslov.

He was only an International Master at that time.

Good chess players have a lot of patterns as an integral part of their chess knowledge. These patterns are accumulated along the years as one’s knowledge of the game expands. Most of these patterns can be found in the games of the classical players, though bear in mind that in modern times players like Fischer, Karpov, and Kasparov are also considered classics!

In this article I would like to take a look at somewhat lesser-known patterns in the Sicilian Defence, looking from Black’s point of view. In case you know these patterns, congratulations – you are most probably a player with a very good chess culture!

Openings are important.

Although it is common to hear well-experienced Grandmasters telling you that you should start by studying the endgame (as stated by Capablanca), this does not mean that you should put the opening aside.

In modern chess, when even the low rated players have great access to information and top analysis by coaches and strong players, it is mandatory to have a decent opening knowledge in order to compete.

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 one of the most popular openings in chess history and “an opening for World Championship matches” (Kasparov). The Exchange Variation, which introduces the Carlsbad structure, has proven to be very rich in strategic content for both sides.

One of the main weapons against 1.e4 is the French Defense (1…e6) and a very popular variation of this defense is the so-called Winawer Variation which arises after the moves: 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e5

The positions arising from this variation usually yield a thick central pawn structure with white pawns on c2-c3-d4-e5 and black pawns on e6-d5-c5 or c4.

Any chess player who wants to make progress and increase his level should focus on improving his overall chess understanding; this can be done by studying classical games, strategy, and endgames. In this article, we are going to focus on the last phase of the game and where you can start from in order to make it easier to learn and understand it.

The road to improvement and becoming a strong player is usually long and requires a lot of time and patience. If you are a club player who doesn’t fully dedicate to chess or you are just starting the long journey of improving yourself, we suggest that you focus on improving your chess understanding. As we have said before, we believe that investing a lot of time in learning long and complicated theoretical lines is not particularly useful at this point.