capablanca - tag

A gentleman of the highest order with impeccable manners and a sublime personality. Jose Raul Capablanca was a master like none other. His manners and appearance were fully in keeping with the beauty of his play. His supreme understanding of the game amazed players of all ages.

Nimzo-Indian Defence is probably one of the most common answers against 1.d4 nowadays. The defense was introduced by Aaron Nimzowitsch, the founder of hypermodern chess. Black doesn’t occupy the centre with pawns right from the start and plays for quick development. The center is controlled first by the pieces and only later on black will […]

In this post, I would like to show a very simple, yet very effective chess principle that is present in every game of chess. While our opponent’s moves are providing vital information about their intentions, still we often fail to understand them in their entirety. By entirety, I mean not only understanding their intention, but […]

It is not easy to achieve positional mastery. The reason is that in order to do so one must follow the path of the development of chess since Morphy up until today. To give you a better idea here is a very brief description of what you would learn. Here is an (in)complete list of […]

Playing Better Blitz Chess: Quite often we have met club players who perform well in tournaments with classical time control and give a strong appearance of being underrated players. However, when the time trouble comes they tend to collapse quite easily. The same is seen at rapid and blitz events; some players can’t even finish […]

You have probably heard a lot about the importance of studying the classics and the many things you can learn from old games. Nowadays, when most of the players focus their training on openings and finding novelties that help them get an advantage from the first moves, this type of training is slightly overlooked. However, […]

New 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 […]

A game of chess is a complex affair. It starts long before the first move has been played. It starts at home. For chess, the wise words of Benjamin Franklin, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail” are applicable to the fullest. But how do you prepare? For now we will leave the […]

Capablanca’s Endgame Technique has always been one of my idols and the first conscious raise of my level happened after every day, 3-month study of his games. It was the winter of 2004-2005 and for three months, December, January, and February all I did was study and analyze Capablanca’s games every single day all day […]

Knowing the classics is a basic part of every chess player’s general culture. In times where modern chess games, engine analysis, and engine spectacular matches occupy 98% of the attention, it is refreshing to look back in time and admire the greatness of the pioneers of our game. There are plenty of books written on […]