It’s always good to win a technical ending against a higher rated player. Here’s a game I played the other day in our club’s weekly online arena. It was a rapidplay game played at 5′ + 10″ increment against an opponent I’ve known for the past 45 years or so. I had the white pieces. … Continue reading "A Minor Piece Ending" The post A Minor Piece Ending...

The Champions Chess Tour, launched by the Play Magnus Group, replaces the hugely-popular Magnus Carlsen Chess Tour put on earlier this year.

Ukrainian Open Chess Championship 2020 consisting of Classical, Rapid and Blitz events, currently is ongoing in Omelnyk, Ukraine, with participation of 38 players among the Ukrainian top. The event takes place from 17th-19th November and after three played rounds, seven players tie fro the top, scoring 2.5 points each. The first on the ranking list [...]

Opening ceremony of the 1st FIDE Online Olympiad for People with Disabilities took place yesterday. FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich emphasised that he is happy to open such an event for People with Disabilities and greeted all the participants with a special message: “Chess is winning against obstacles and challenges. You already won against your challenges, [...]

This week, we’re going to look at some of the ideas we discussed last week as they apply to an actual game. Once again, I randomly chose a relatively short game to demonstrate these ideas. My reasoning for doing this is simple: Any game played between two strong players should demonstrate good, principled play. Playing … Continue reading "Preparing for the Endgame Eight" The post...

Serbian International master, FST Trainer and Coach of the national team of Serbia, IM Miodrag Perunovic (the Butcher) released his first book – an Opening course at a superpopular platform for chess players – chessable.com, part of the Play Magnus and chess24.com family. Chessable.com was firstly developed as a simple private opening memorisation tool, but [...]

The 27th edition of Russian Team Chess Championship and the 21st Russian Women’s Team Championship started in the Grand Hotel Zhemchuzhina, in Sochi, following all health protocols of Krasnodar region. The event takes place from 18-29 November, and teams of Mednyi Vsadnik from Saint Petersburg and Ugra defend the title of the Russian National Team [...]

I’ve been going through old diaries and score sheets as part of the research on a new book about my torturous journey to the GM title. I thought it worth showing one of the games, a Queen’s Gambit Declined in which I played very sensibly. The exchange of light square bishops, together with posting a … Continue reading "Down Memory Lane" The post Down Memory Lane appeared first...

“Choices are the hinges of destiny” Pythagoras Another one of my students got to play in the online 2020 National Active Youth tournament sanctioned by the Chess Federation of Canada. The tournament consisted of 8 age groups with the games played under the 15 minutes + 10 seconds time control and in a 6 rounds … Continue reading "Quick Decisions (2)" The post Quick Decisions (2)...

After its several tournaments successfully completed online (European Online Chess Championship, European Youth Online Chess Championship and European Corporate Online Chess Championship), the European Chess Union announces European Online Women’s Club Cup to take place online from 19 to 22 December, through Tornelo Online playing platform. The event is open to all European Chess Clubs...

As I appear to be doing a mini-series on gambits in the Petroff Defence I thought I ought to revisit the Cochrane Gambit, which I’d written about previously. At the same time I was researching, in response to a request on the English Chess Forum, the life of Laurie Alexander, a strong London amateur in … Continue reading "Cochrane Gambit Revisited" The post Cochrane Gambit Revisited...