‘A player of average strength asked us how to avoid traps in the opening. We gave him four rules: Move nothing beyond the fourth/fifth rank till all your pieces are developed (except a pawn, if it hits a piece or takes something). When Black,…
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John L. Watson [This withering indictment of the stupidity and arrogance of chess players was written over 16 years ago. It is still relevant today and lends weight to Sarah Hurst’s recent observation that ‘chess brilliance has nothing to do with high intelligence in other areas,…
Read MoreSchmidt – Rossolimo Heidelberg, 1949 Black to play This game is annotated in Victor Kahn’s La Conduite de la Partie d’Echecs, an attractive little book brimming with instructive examples of attacking chess. Too bad that it’s in French and long out of print. One of the great chess…
Read More‘What does the average player do when he can neither threaten anything useful nor has to parry some specific threat? He just has no guide, and probably ends up making a pawn move which he thinks will do least harm, but may actually ruin…
Read MoreNeil Coward Capablanca and Nimzowitsch were brilliant players whose names are revered to this day. However, these two men were completely different in their approach to chess. Nimzowitsch, scientific and methodical, one of the founding fathers of positional chess and author of My System, a…
Read MoreSznapik – Bhend Bath 1973 White to play The game continued 19 Bh4 g5 20 Bxg5 fxg5 21 Rh3 and White won in a few moves. Can you do better?
Read MoreSegel – Fox Antwerp, 1900 Black to play 23…Qxg3+! 24 Kxg3 Rg8+ 25 Kh4 Ng6+ 26 Kh5 Nf4+ 27 Kxh6 Ne6+ 28 Kh5 28…Rh8 mate The winner of this game, Albert Whiting Fox (1881-1964), is one of the forgotten masters…
Read More‘. . . although chess may be a thoroughly logical game when boiled down, you can’t boil it down when actually playing, so it is of more practical use to see it as logic and romance in conflict. Be ready to adjust your mind…
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Gary Kenworthy
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