Chess is Fun Chess BLOG

A daily chess blog featuring chess lessons, chess instruction, instructive games, great players, lessons on openings, middlegame strategy, endgames, and great games.

Chess Blog: Exploiting Small Advantages - (Found July 2, 2008 )

In 1985, GM Eduard Gufeld produced a fascinating manual, Exploiting Small Advantages that offers 80 examples of the kind of careful technique required to achieve consistent results. If you are lucky enough to find this book, you will find gems that do not often appear in databases.
http://www.queensac.com/chessblog.html#chessblog05032004

Five Steps to Victory - (Found July 2, 2008 )

On the main Chess is Fun instruction site, I take visitors through the five steps to victory. (1) Identify the weakness; (2) Fix the weakness; (3) Attack the weakness with your pieces; (4) that will force your opponent to defend the weakness with his pieces; (5) then AND ONLY THEN attack the weakness with a pawn.
http://www.queensac.com/chessblog.html#chessblog05052004

Blockade - (Found July 2, 2008 )

Aron Nimzovich's first published book Most might say My System but in fact, earlier in 1925, Nimzovich published Blockade. It was a short work and was quite scarce until my uncle, Dr. Joseph Platz, translated it from the original German into English.
http://www.queensac.com/chessblog.html#chessblog05072004

The Spanish Exchange - (Found July 2, 2008 )

In 1998, English IM Andrew Kinsman produced a highly readable book on an important opening, the Spanish Exchange. After the standard opening moves 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6, Fischer, Timman, Shirov and others have helped to champion a line that rewards understanding, not just rote memorization.
http://www.queensac.com/chessblog.html#chessblog05082004

The Closed Sicilian - (Found July 2, 2008 )

Boris Spassky had great success on both sides of the Closed Sicilian, always seeming to win the game with white or black by a single tempo. The name of the opening suggests a passive approach, but the games in this line tend to be very sharp and double edged, with white attacking on the kingside and black on the queenside. Black's attack sometimes seems to succeed more quickly, but the presence of the white king on the kingside gives black more to do than just break through the pawn structure.
http://www.queensac.com/chessblog.html#chessblog05092004

The Chess of Richard Reti - (Found July 2, 2008 )

Chess master, chess journalist, and chess composer Richard Reti participated in most of the great tournaments of the 1920s until his early death from Scarlett fever in 1929. He leaves us with a lifetime worth of wonderful games and, more important perhaps, a range of fabulous compositions and an opening (The Reti) that continues to attract interest at the highest levels.
http://www.queensac.com/chessblog.html#chessblog05102004

Uncompromising Chess - (Found July 2, 2008 )

Many of you may never have heard the name Victor Kupreichik, perhaps the fiercest fighter amoung all Russian GMs. That says a lot when you consider names like Keres and Tal, but Kupreichik's games stand apart. A relentless desire to win, in every game, and enormous creative talent, finding original ideas in positions that others have dismissed.
http://www.queensac.com/chessblog.html#chessblog05122004

Shirov's One Hundred Wins - (Found July 2, 2008 )

Today, I offer all of the games in Sergei Soloviov's Shirov's One Hundred Wins, exciting, complex games all, as well as one of the two games in the book that involve the Perenyi Variation.
http://www.queensac.com/chessblog.html#chessblog05132004

Isolated Pawns - (Found July 2, 2008 )

Yesterday, I gave some tips on fighting against isolated pawns. If only it were that simple. It's complicated enough that GM A. Mikhalchishin and two other authors have provided an impressive tour of the issues related to isolated pawns.
http://www.queensac.com/chessblog.html#chessblog05062004

Chess Blog: Huebner's devotion - (Found July 2, 2008 )

In 1996, Huebner authored a memorable book, 25 Annotated Games. That may sound like a thin book, but those 25 games occupy 413 dense pages (with more diagrams within the analysis than within the game scores)! The analysis is detailed and comprehensive, a real joy to those who demand proof or just enjoy chess as science.
http://www.queensac.com/chessblog.html#chessblog04242004