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Chess pieces (chessmen) and a board is the essential part of each chess set.
If you have decided that you want to start learning how to play chess, then you need to get yourself a chess set. The board has 64 black and white squares and on it, you will need to set up 32 pieces.
Let’s now see how each piece moves and what you need to know in order to start playing your first game of chess!
Sicilian Defense is black’s most popular response to 1.e4. It is an opening employed at every level, from club players to top Grandmasters. There are many ways to play the Sicilian Defense and the resulting positions can be very different, which makes it a great opening choice for any player, regardless of their style. In general, the Sicilian is a dynamic opening and many lines can lead to sharp positions.
Positional Sacrifice is a very special kind of sacrifice in chess. The concept of sacrificing is quite common in chess. Players are usually happy to give up material in order to regain it with interest a few moves later.
There are sacrifices that lead to winning material, immediate mate, or mating attacks. In the latter category, we could include the Greek Gift sacrifice, the Double Bishop sacrifice, the sacrifice on f7, etc, but also many other tactics that are meant to open the opponent’s king wide open and then hunt it down.
The Catalan Opening has been one of the most fashionable systems in recent years. White fianchettos the light-squared bishop and gains space on the queenside and the center with the pawns. This strategy puts Black under serious pressure and often leads to a risk-free advantage for White. Magnus Carlsen made the Catalan his main weapon for the World Championship match against Ian Nepomniachtchi. Later he also successfully used it in the Tata Steel 2022.
The rise of the Berlin Defense is one of the most notable changes chess theory has experienced in the 21st century. This opening was considered dubious about 20 years ago, but now almost every top grandmaster has it in their repertoire. Same as the Petroff Defense, the Berlin has caused a lot of headaches to 1.e4 players and even made some of them switch to 1.d4.
Looking for a reliable weapon against 1.e4, but don’t want to spend your entire life keeping up with the theory?
Chess should be fun, after all…
GM Marian Petrov is back to train you on playing the Hyper-Accelerated Dragon, an ultra-modern opening that avoids most of the dangerous play by White.
Want to keep your opponents constantly guessing and not knowing what you are up to?
Play the 1.Nf3. It is a super flexible opening, that can transpose into literally… anything.
Every grandmaster recommends studying the classics, but why? Isn’t it easier to improve by solving puzzles, studying openings, and practicing online? Over-the-board tournaments have had one big advantage over online chess. After the game, you could invite your opponent to analyze the game together. You would go to a special room, sit there and discuss everything that had happened or could have happened during your clash. Some players would enter this room alone and join other players’ analyses.
Want to master an opening preparation? Probably every chess player at some point starts wondering how the champions of different generations would play against each other if time-traveling existed. Would Jose Raul Capablanca or Alexander Alekhine be able to beat the current top players? What about Robert Fischer? People also wonder how a modern grandmaster would stand against Paul Morphy or Wilhelm Steinitz. All these hypothetical situations usually come down to discussing one of the most important changes that chess has ever experienced. Modern players have got an indisputable advantage – they prepare with chess engines!
Tournament Preparation: How do you prepare for a tournament? Every chess player hopes to show their best in every game, but more often it happens they perform below their abilities. Why does that happen? There could be many reasons, but most likely they did not do their best before the game started. Confucius said: “Success depends upon previous preparation, and without such preparation, there is sure to be a failure.”
