Once the beginner has a grasp of the opening principles and some basic endgame knowledge, they often feel confident that their chess has improved enough to start winning games. However, they often run into trouble during the phase that comes after the opening and before the endgame, the middlegame! The middlegame generally starts after both […]

Grandmaster Sergey Smagin, Vice-President of the Moscow Chess Federation, believes that the FIDE World Championship Match in Sochi will not be an easy walk for Magnus Carlsen. “I am convinced that this World Championship Match will not be similar to the previous one. This year Viswanathan Anand won two major tournaments, one of them being [...]

Ο Σκακιστικός Επιμορφωτικός Όμιλος Καλαβρύτων-Επαρχίας (ΣΕΠΟΚΕ), στα πλαίσια των Εκδηλώσεων Μνήμης του Καλαβρυτινού Ολοκαυτώματος προκηρύσσει 2ο πανελλήνιο ανοικτό ατομικό διαγωνισμό σκακιστικού σκίτσου. Συμμετοχή...

Για το Πρωτάθλημα Παμπαίδων Κ8 (5ος και τελευταίος γύρος): ΣΟ Καλλιθέας – ΣΟ Αιγάλεω Β’ ( Κυριακή 2 Νοεμβρίου, 10:30) Για το Ομαδικό Πρωτάθλημα Παίδων-Κορασίδων (6ος και τελευταίος γύρος): ΣΣ Πετρούπολης Άναξ – ΣΟ...

Η μόνη γνωστή φωτογραφία του Κιμ είναι η αυτή, η ωραιότατη. Στη σελίδα 18 του A Book of Chess, του Κόνελ Αλεξάντερ (Λονδίνο 1973), διαβάζουμε : “Πριν 15 με 20 χρόνια δημοσίευσα μια μαρτυρία για έναν μικρό Κορεάτη, τον Έρνεστ Κιμ...

My Canadian opponent and I played the English Opening to a draw. After about 20 moves it became clear to me that we were evenly matched and that I was unlikely to win. After three moves I could have transposed into the Queen’s Gambit Declined, but I have never liked playing the White side of […]

Indian Grandmaster Harikrishna Pentala (2727), the current 2nd player of India and the 23rd player in the World, held a simultaneous chess exhibition on 29th October at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Belgrade. GM Harikrishna played on 30 boards against public figures (actors, politicians, athletes, etc.), University professors, representatives of the media, children, etc. [...]

The First Venezuelan Presidential Cup is taking place on 6-12th November 2014 at the 5-Star Hotel Tamanaco Intercontinental***** in Venezuelan capital Caracas. The event is a 10-player round-robin tournament, valid for GM and IM norms. The tempo of play is 90′ + 30″. Top seed is the Russian GM Aleksandr Rakhmanov (2636). Official website

Russian Federation and the city of Sochi are hosting the FIDE World Chess Championship Match 2014. It will take place from November 7th to November 28th, 2014. The match is between World Champion Magnus Carlsen (Norway) and winner of the Candidates Tournament 2014 Vishvanathan Anand (India). The FWCM 2014 shall be played over a maximum [...]

Last week, I wrote about the importance of learning and teaching through comparing similar but different situations. Again and again this theme pops up, and is easy to miss if one is not careful. It is easy to memorize a pattern without understanding its context and purpose, or more charitably, to have understood it once […]

Three engines lead the Top Computer Chess Championship TCEC. Komodo, Houdini and Gull obtained 4/5 points to share first place, followed by Stockfish (3.5/5), Chiron (3/5) and Junior (3/5). The leaders won their games in the fifth round. Gull defeated Hannibal, Houdini outplayed Naum, while Komodo  won against Chiron. You can see some of the interesting fragments [...]

German players GM Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu and  IM Matthias Bluebaum lead 18th OIBM Bad Wiessee Open Chess Tournament with perfect 5/5 score. They are followed by a group of no less than 19 players who obtained 4.5/5 points. Nisipeanu was much better after move 15th in his game against Graf and easily converted, while Bluebaum defeated Ukrainian GM Olekseinko in a [...]

The University of Texas at Dallas is organizing the 2014 UTDallas Fall FIDE Open from 21-26th November at the Embassy Suites Dallas – Park Central, 13131 North Central Expressway, Dallas, Texas, USA. The 9-round Swiss event with the time control G/90+30sec is open to players rated over 2000 FIDE or 2200 USCF. The event is [...]

The 14th Sautron Chess Open 2014 is taking place from 25th October to 1st November 2014 in Sautron, a commune in the Loire-Atlantique département in western France. The 9-round Swiss event gathered 187 players from 13 different countries (Algeria, Belarus, France, Germany, India, Italy, Mongolia, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Spain, Turkey and Ukraine), including 4 GMs, [...]

The battle of the generations “Shchelkunchik-2014″ Chess Tournament is organized by the Russian Chess Federation, businessman Oleg Skvortsov and Chess Support Fund on 19-25th December 2014. The Pre-New Year’s tournament will be held in Moscow Central Chess House to gather “Kings” and “Princes”. The team of the “Kings” will consist of the...