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Today I will discuss the Knight + Bishop endgame checkmate.

This endgame was well analyzed by Philidor a long time ago, in 1749.

It is not the most common mate you will see, it occurs once every 5000 games, but it is definitely important to know how to use the Knight and a Bishop together.

I have seen many guides that are trying to explain how to actually checkmate a lone King with Knight and Bishop, but they’re very often failing to teach.

TheChessWorld begins to publish articles written by WGM Natalia Pogonina as a part of TheChessWorld.com & Pogonina.com cooperation. Natalia Pogonina is three-times European champion (U16, twice U18), bronze prize winner at the World Championship (U18) and European Women Championship, winner of the gold medal at the 1st International Mind Sports Games,co-winner of the 2008 Student World Championship, and #1 at multiple prestigious international tournaments. Her current elo is over 2500.

Continuing last week’s story about the ’09 Russian Superfinal, I would like to share with you my game from round 3 against the experienced 2-time vice-World Champion IM Alisa Galliamova, who also happens to be the ex-wife of GM Vassilii Ivanchuk. We have played before twice: I won one game and drew one.

Have you ever found yourself in a position where you think, you should win this endgame but don’t know how even though it looks so simple?

Many players did. In fact, they failed to win these dead-won endgames and end up with a draw or even a “0” right next to their name.

It feels very disappointing to draw one of these “almost won” endgames. It feels even worth losing one.

If you’re curious to know how to win them, read on.

It always surprised me how many chess players are unfamiliar with chess terminology. I was recently talking with a player whose rating will hit the master’s level very shortly. We went over the game which was just played between two of us and I mentioned the word “Skewer” while analyzing. He obviously did not know the term and looked puzzled; I gladly explained that a Skewer is just a reversed pin, with a more valuable piece up front. We laughed.

I’ve decided to compose these commonly used chess terms and phrases and to form into a single writing in order to let chess players all around speak the same “chess language”.

Chess is a very complex sport requiring a player to be in great mental and physical shape in order to perform well in rough competition. Many factors influence player’s performance, but food intake before and during the competition plays significant role in any chess event. Food intake before and during chess tournament significantly affects player’s performance. In particular, nutrition impacts player’s psychological state, alertness, memory recall and overall brain performance – the most crucial characteristics for chess. Therefore, chess players should develop individual diet to fit their needs.

As we all know, the ultimate goal of chess is to deliver a checkmate.  Fortunately not all checkmates in chess are as complicated as the one discussed here. Today we’ll focus on 13 most common checkmates in chess.

You should always look to setup one while playing a game and also be aware of these structures in order to avoid nasty surprises prepared by your opponents.

By looking at this positions you will learn basic checkmating patterns and will train your ming to  create and find similar position in your own games.

I have written multiple articles on chess strategy and the middle game, but for some reason, I have avoided writing on the endgame theme. I was scanning through the “Lazy Person’s Guide to Endgame” by GM Ian Rogers published in January 2010 in Chess Life Magazine and decided to write my own thing. The first endgame analyzed by GM Rogers is the famous Queen vs. Rook ending. He claims that it is an easy win for the side with the queen.

Although some players believe, psychology has nothing to do with chess, it is surely an important element of the game. Dr.Emanuel Lasker, who held the World Championship title for 27 years, wrote “It’s the players who fight over the board, not the wooden pieces.

During a chess game both players are trying to trick each other, obtain an advantage and ultimately to win the game. Sports physiologist and a chess master N. Krogious, believes that there are many “right” moves for one or another position during a chess game, but sometimes, even a weaker move plays a decisive role in the game and wins because of psychological factors.

According to Wikipedia, chess strategy is concerned with the evaluation of chess positions and setting up goals and long-term plans for future play (Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia). Most chess players understand perfectly well that choosing the right strategy against a stronger or a similar-level opponent may decide the outcome of the game to their advantage.  However, many chess players usually underestimate the importance of developing the right strategy against a weaker opponent. Only a computer program plays the same way against all the opponents. Humans, on the other hand, have the advantage of employing different strategies based on the opponent’s strengths and weaknesses to achieve the best possible results. Knowing what chess strategy to follow against opponents of different strengths is a key factor for success at chess.

This crossword has only 6 words in it. Guess why? Because there are only 6 types of different chess pieces. Yes, the task is to place names of chess pieces into the squares. Can you do it?