Tactics
5 Reasons Why Chess is the Best Game for Your Brain
5 Reasons Why Chess is the Best Game for Your Brain
Chess is a board game that has been around for generations and it’s the best pastime to adopt if you want something that is fun, stimulating, and will benefit …
Read more
8 Tips on How to Advance in Chess from Basic Level
8 Tips on How to Advance in Chess from Basic Level
“Unlike other games in which lucre is the only aim, [chess] recommends itself to the wise by the fact that its mimic battles are fought for no prize but …
Read more
The Orangutan Opening in Chess
Introduction to the Orangutan opening
The Orangutan opening (primarily known as the Sokolsky opening, the Polish opening, or Polish Attack) is an unorthodox opening in the game of chess. It’s rarely used in official top-tier tournaments and chess games – …
Read moreTactics – Removing the Guard
The tactical device of removing the guard is also known as removing the defender. The name of the tactic is almost sufficient in itself to describe how it works.
The opponent has a piece which is defending another piece, or …
Read moreTactics – Mating Patterns involving Bishops
Two bishops, or a bishop and another piece, can work together to cut off the king’s escape squares, protect the mating piece and deliver mate. The long-range impact of the bishop is often the key to these patterns.
The mating …
Read moreTactics: Beware the Red Herring
This problem presented itself recently while I was doing tactics training on ChessTempo.
The three features which jumped out were the semi-exposed king on the g-file, the unprotected knight and the awkwardly placed queen. I quickly dismissed the opportunities …
Read moreA familiar tactical pattern
The first game in Zenón Franco’s Morphy: Move by Move
From a king’s gambit opening, Morphy sacrificed a piece to expose Black’s king and then opened the centre to launch …
Read moreGame Analysis: On (almost) every move, consider ALL Checks, Captures and Threats
This position arose in one of my recent games. White is better here to the tune of about +6, partly because of the knight on the great c6-outpost, the pressure on the backward c-pawn and the superior dark squared bishop.…
Read moreThe beauty of pattern recognition in chess
Focussing on patterns in chess is a good idea. Depending on who you listen to, the number of patterns a chess player knows could be the difference between being mediocre and good, or between being a master and a grandmaster.…
Read more