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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.”
The London System for a long time was considered to be a harmless and unconventional opening for lazy players. Things have changed once the current world champion Magnus Carlsen started using it to beat the best players in the world. It immediately caught everyone’s attention, and the opening got a huge boost of popularity. Nowadays it has a lot of adherents of different levels. It is a safe, solid, but at the same time, aggressive opening.
Remember the Abaci you see in ancient Chinese movies?
If only CALCULATING was that easy in chess.
In fact, it is often far more complicated and subtle than we realize or want to admit.
Yes, yes, this piece goes here, that piece goes there, then this piece goes here… I get it.
They say chess is 99% tactics…
But I have to disagree.
Chess is 100% strategy.
Think about it. From the very first move, you are trying to find a small gap… that little crevice inside your opponent’s rock-solid game.
Austrian Defense, also known as the Symmetrical Defense, is quite a rare opening.
Most people have never seen its starting position, although it has been known since 1604!
Nowadays it has been played a ton by Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and once even by Magnus Carlsen. He used the Austrian Defense as Black to beat his second, Daniil Dubov.
After ten games of the match, Magnus Carlsen was just one point away from winning the event. Ian Nepomniachtchi, the challenger, had to score 3.5 points in the remaining four games. This didn’t seem possible, but we could expect at least a big fight at the end of the match.
The eleventh game started with a new opening choice by White.
The start of the World Chess Championship match between Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi was tense and entertaining. Many experts thought it was going to be the toughest challenge for the current world champion in his career. Some people even predicted he would lose the title this year.
