“You always admire what you really don’t understand” Blaise Pascal This past week I rediscovered, again, the greatness of Capablanca. One of my students had to go over one of his games and annotate it. This is part of a clear goal to learn and improve his positional play. Here is what he provided for … Continue reading "The Great Ones" The post The Great Ones appeared...

First of all, I have several important projects starting up at the moment, so my posts for the foreseeable future are likely to be much shorter than in the past. I’ll tell you more in due course. Perhaps the only advantage of the current lockdown is that it gives us a chance to rethink the … Continue reading "Chess Clubs after Lockdown" The post Chess Clubs after Lockdown appeared...

Are you ready to build a solid foundation of basic chess knowledge? Well, here we go! We’re going to start building our foundation by learning how to start a game of chess correctly. If you’re a beginner who has mastered the game’s rules but gets crushed by more experienced players regularly, you’ll find a solution … Continue reading "A Foundation for Beginners...

“A dream becomes a goal when action is taken toward its achievement” Bo Bennett (businessman) Seeing the French defence being played against 1. e4, white might not be too thrilled about the arising closed or semi-closed positions black has at its disposal. The main reply against it is 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. … Continue reading "Need Sure Points? French Defence, Tarrasch, Open...

Two fairly random tactics questions for you. You’ll find the answers at the foot of the article. The first one’s easy: White to play. This one’s harder: Black to play. I’ve written before about the puzzles at lichess.org. They now have a totally new puzzle system, with a new puzzle database, including the two positions … Continue reading "New Lichess Puzzles" The...

During the break between Christmas and New Year’s day, I was sorting through all of the writing I’ve done for The Chess Improver in an effort to further organize it and determine what I’d write about in 2021. After an afternoon of sorting, I was inspired to write a series of pieces that will help … Continue reading "A Foundation for Beginners One" The post A Foundation for...

The World Student Team Championships in Graz 1981 was one of my best results. I helped England to the Silver medal with 6.5/8 on board 4, having played 7 out of my 8 games with Black. This was also enough for me to get the gold medal on my board. I played the Modern Defence … Continue reading "Graz 1981" The post Graz 1981 appeared first on The Chess Improver.

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” Friedrich Nietzsche Last week I went down memory lane revisiting an old SF book. The main story from it was about the … Continue reading "The Price for Staring Into the Abyss (2)" The post The Price for Staring...

Chapter 1 of Chess Puzzles for Heroes, a puzzle book with a difference intended for players of roughly 1000 to 1500 strength, looked at the importance of avoiding moves allowing your opponent to play a tactic: a frequent source of error at lower levels. Chapter 2 taught you that, if you see what might be … Continue reading "Chess Puzzles for Heroes Chapter 5: 2nd Draft" The post Chess...

Well, the year 2020 was certainly one for the books! I suspect there will be many volumes written about the historic events of this passing year. It’s frankly amazing how quickly our lives changed. In January of this year, my calendar was set in stone. I had my teaching and writing schedule laid out precisely. … Continue reading "Those New Year Resolutions" The post Those New Year...

As we come to the end of the year I want to share a game that I played over forty years ago in a county match. I was nineteen at the time and in the process of breaking through from junior chess to national level, having won the British U21 Championships that year. The Merseyside … Continue reading "Forty Years Ago" The post Forty Years Ago appeared first on The Chess Improver.