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: Winning on the dark-squares - (Found July 2, 2008 )

As an aspiring young player, I heard much about "light-squares" and "dark-squares" but I'm sure that I did not understand. So lets take a BLOG-day and look at an important theme.
http://www.queensac.com/chessblog.html#chessblog03162004

Chess Blog: Double-attacks - (Found July 2, 2008 )

Two interesting items for today's blog. They have in common double attacks, although in a subtle way. The first is a composition of Reti's. The key is gaining time to catch the passed pawn. And finally, a nice game of Alekhine's with one of the finest moves ever to grace a chessboard.
http://www.queensac.com/chessblog.html#chessblog03172004

Chess Blog: Nimzovitch's System - (Found July 2, 2008 )

Aron Nimzovitch's My System is widely recognized as a classic of chess literature. Part one covers the "elements" of chess, part two reviews Positional Play, and part three provides 50 illustrative games. If you sincerely want to improve, I wholeheartedly recommend that you study parts two and three. To make your job a bit easier, I provide all of the games in part and one of the illustrative game below.
http://www.queensac.com/chessblog.html#chessblog03182004

Chess Blog: 1001 Brilliant Ways to Ckeckmate - (Found July 2, 2008 )

The best way to improve your chess tactics Practice, practice, practice. For years, before every tournament, I used to review the positions in Reinfeld's books just to sharpen my tactical focus.
http://www.queensac.com/chessblog.html#chessblog05012004

Chess Blog: Take my Rooks! - (Found July 2, 2008 )

Here at Queensac, we adore queen sacrifices. Almost as exciting is the double-rook sac! Yassar Seirawan and Nikolay Minev have produced a compelling book, Take my Rooks!, devoted to this theme. They have found more than 130 games that involve the theme and help us to understand when it works, when it doesn't, and what some players missed along the way.
http://www.queensac.com/chessblog.html#chessblog04302004

Chess Blog: The Art of the Attack - (Found July 2, 2008 )

In 1965, Vladimir Vukovic authored perhaps the premier manual on tactics, The Art of Attack in Chess. More than just a presentation on how to attack a castled king, he classifies attacks and focuses upon grandmaster games to illustrate his points. He provides a special section on the games of Capablanca and Alekhine, a real treat for those who have not yet seen these games.
http://www.queensac.com/chessblog.html#chessblog04292004

Chess Blog: Super Nezh, Chess Assassin - (Found July 2, 2008 )

Five time Russian champion Rashid Nezhmetdinov sustained his standing atop the world of chess by attacking... always attacking. As the story goes, he defeated Mikhail Tal so many times that Tal hired him as his trainer.
http://www.queensac.com/chessblog.html#chessblog04282004

Chess Blog: Russian Chess League - (Found July 2, 2008 )

Today's game was no exception, but I call your attention to the diagram. That position dwelled on our screen for about 30 minutes. I wish that I could tell you that my students and I figured out all the complications. The fact is, I wound up devoting a few afternoon hours to the task and, indeed, there were a more than a few surprises that we had missed.
http://www.queensac.com/chessblog.html#chessblog04262004

Chess Blog: Winning with the Najdorf - (Found July 2, 2008 )

There are many books on the Najdorf. Today, I focus on one, a 1993 effort by Danny King Winning with the Najdorf. He reviews all of the main lines in 61 well annotated games played between the early 1940s and the mid 1990s.
http://www.queensac.com/chessblog.html#chessblog04252004

Chess Blog: Solitaire Chess - (Found July 2, 2008 )

Horowitz's column in Chess Review, Solitaire Chess, was a fixture for decades. In each column, he presented one game, usually a classic encounter, with instructions inviting the reader to play through the game, one move at a time, with a specified number of points for each move. Readers could then compare their scores with others and judge their progress from month to month.
http://www.queensac.com/chessblog.html#chessblog05022004