One of the questions we receive from players who are starting in the game and others with more experience as well is ''what should I play?'' It feels like one must decide and “marry” a set of openings for white and black in order to be a serious chess player, something close to being “an expert” on something.
No doubt this approach was very popular years ago, with super strong players making tons of points out of the same openings over and over again. However, times have changed and unfortunately (?) having a narrow repertoire is no longer the way most Grandmasters operate these days.
This is of course done for a clear reason. In times where everyone has access to all of your games, it becomes extremely difficult to beat a well prepared opponent, even if he is 200 rating points lower. After all, you won't be really facing him, but his excellent homework. That is why nowadays if you want to hit first you have to constantly keep playing new openings and going where your opponent expects less.
Still, there a few positive things about having a narrow repertoire and we have created a list in order to compare.
Narrow repertoire (1 or 2 systems with white/black)
Positive points:
Becoming an expert of your favorite opening system boosts your confidence and gives you a feeling of safety during the game; you'll be walking in well known land.
Less chances that you get surprised in the opening. With only one or two systems to study, one can actually learn all its secrets, or at least most of them.
More time to focus on other aspects of training like technique or tactical skills.
Sounds great, but now let's see the negative things about always playing the same.
Negative points:
You'll get caught, eventually. This will happen, sooner or later. With all the information available (all your games), engines and coaches. Chances are very high that your opening gets busted once or twice forcing you to repair it. Then it will get busted again.
You miss extra competitive weapons such as surprising your opponent with something new. Even if your Najdorf (for example) is in great shape, your opponent will be in a comfortable zone, he has been expecting it and preparing for it.
Narrows your chess too! By playing the same positions all the time you miss many forms chess can be played. You don’t expand your understanding.
Now that we are through with the comparison between the two styles of approaching openings, we leave the choice to you on which road you prefer to go, but our advice is that you become a much more uncomfortable player to face if you play 3 openings or more with each side.
The answer is clear, a recent look at strong Opens like Gibraltar, Qatar, or Reykjavik shows how using different systems is the trend nowadays. Kramnik for example, starts by 1.Nf3 as white, followed by 2.g3 and 3.0-0, but then you can't really tell if he will get into the Catalan or Reti or will simply do something else. In another game he tried the London system, and so on. Another clear example is the case of Peter Svidler, a well known attacking player, who has switched from his main 1.e4 to 1.d4, 1.Nf3, 1.c4 or even 1.g3. This makes him a more unpredictable player and therefore more difficult to prepare against.
To finish our article we will show you now three games by well known players employing rather unusual opening systems and winning convincingly.
The first game we will examine was played between the former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik and Peter Svidler. Kramnik's creative opening choice was meant to avoid Svidler's knowledge in the Grunfeld defense. Despite starting by 1.Nf3 and 2.g3, white took over the initiative at a very early stage of the game.
ur conclusion is that openings are very important, but not the most important. As we can see from the examples shown above, you can obtain a playable and interesting position with almost anything. Even if something is dubious, if your opponent is not prepared he won't remember the refutations. He can be spending time trying to remember something and in the end, when the time for important decisions comes, he will be short on the clock.
If you want to improve your chess level, you need to have a clear study plan. If you aim for a dramatic improvement at chess you need to work on all of the elements of the game in a systematic way:
tactics
positional play
attacking skills
endgame technique
classical games analysis
psychological preparation
and much more
That seems to be like a lot of things, and that is. But no worries, we have made it easy for you. Our comprehensive training course covers it all and much more. Sign up for 21 Day Training right now!
Pawn play is one difficult element in chess. Mastering the art of knowing what pawn you should move, and most important, when to do it, is definitely something that takes years to learn.
In this article we are going to have a look at a specific type of pawn play, the central ruptures.
Motivated by Carlsen's game against Li Chao in the Qatar Masters taking place in Doha, we have decided to do a deeper research on the type of central break that Carlsen executed in that game. This game has to be one of the best games of the year 2015 for sure, but let's have a look at the last critical position:
Magnus Carlsen – Li Chao, Qatar 2015
The position is a total chaos, a complete mess. Both kings are exposed and if black manages to play his pawn to a3 he will be mating the white king in no time. On the other hand, white can give a check with his knight and grab a pawn on g6 at the same time, but after black moves his king there are no more checks and it is black who will take over the initiative with a4-a3.
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In this total chaos, Carlsen played a powerful move that gave white a winning advantage; the move is 24.d5!!
Magnus Carlsen – Li Chao, Qatar 2015
A wonderful move that opens the D file and, what's more important, it breaks the coordination among the black pieces. But let's take a brief moment to look at the position in the first diagram. There are 6 pieces (!) controlling the square d5 square. During a game, it is kind of difficult to think about such a move unless you're a skillful player, and even so, still difficult.
After 24.d5 white's attack becomes unstoppable and there are still some tricks for black, but Carlsen finished the game in great style.
Continuing with stunning central ruptures, how many times you got the chance to push a pawn into a central square that your opponent has under full control (or so he might think)?. From my own practical experience, I can only recall one position, see the diagram below:
Castellanos,R – Garcia Roman,D, Mislata 2011
Black had just captured the pawn on e5 with his knight. If white takes the knight on e5 with his pawn then black takes the c5 knight and his king's situation in the center is of little importance with the position closed. However, white has a powerful move at his disposal. The move is 21.e4!! My opponent must have overlooked this move.
Having a pawn on f5 and another one on d5, it is difficult to foresee that white will be playing anything onto the square e4. However, as things turned out, black is defenseless after 21.e4. The queen is connected with the knight on c5 and white is threatening now to either take the knight on e5 or take on d5, both with a devastating effect.
The following position occurred in the game between Grandmasters Sergey Rublevsky (white) versus Imre Hera (black). Black has just captured on a2. He has a solid structure and apparently he's doing fine. He’s got the two bishops and is one move away from castling, so what could go wrong? You guessed right! Rublevsky played 17.d5! with a demolishing attack! Again, a pawn moves to a square that the opponent has complete control over.
In conclusion, central pawn breaks must always be taken into serious consideration. They are usually a useful tool to open the lines and, as we have seen from the examples above, they tend to disrupt your opponent's piece coordination. It doesn’t matter how many pieces are controlling the critical square, many times not every piece can actually take your pawn on that square. An idea that you should definitely to keep in mind for your future games!
If you want to improve your chess level, you need to have a clear study plan. If you aim for a dramatic improvement at chessyou need to work on all of the elements of the game in a systematic way:
tactics
positional play
attacking skills
endgame technique
classical games analysis
psychological preparation
and much more
That seems to be like a lot of things, and that is. But no worries, we have made it easy for you. Our comprehensive training course covers it all and much more.
there will be a MASSIVE 30% discount on all the RCA products! This discount is valid from today until Saturday, 31 October (inclusive). You can use the coupon “igor28” when making your purchase. Check here if you don’t know how to use a discount code. Second, we have released the second part of the premium video “Killer Endgames” by GM Nick Pert (a premium video from our partner, GM Simon Williams).
We released “Killer Endgames Part-1” for you, in the month of August. We received a lot of feedback from the students – many students (someone like YOU) liked the premium video. So, we have made the best foot forward and continue to provide you with what you like.
Don’t forget that you can get this premium video with the above-mentioned 30% discount! Just use the coupon “igor28”.
Moreover, there is another special offer, you can get. If you purchase the premium video, “Killer Endgames Part-2” by GM Nick Pert, you will get the RCA premium video, “Typical Mistakes in Practical Middlegame and Endings” (worth $15) completely FREE.
Additionally, we are doing our best to make the paper version of my book, A Promoted Pawn: My Chess Journey, available, and most likely it will be so. Since there are special offers in honor of my birthday, you will be able to purchase the book with a good discount.
Note: if you have already purchased the book in e-book format, you will just have to pay for the paper version (i.e. You need NOT pay for the actual book’s cost)
Also, we’re planning to sell the book during my next seminar in Trissur. You can get the book from me along with my autograph. If you would like to attend my seminar, just reserve your seat now here.
All chess players know that grandmasters can calculate many moves ahead, evaluate the position, and deliver the final blow. How do they do that? Is there a way an ordinary chess player can learn to calculate many moves ahead like masters do? In this article, we will answer those questions and show you a simple schematic that will tremendously help at calculating moves.
Step 1. Knowing when and what to calculate
The most important step in move calculation is actually to know when you need to calculate the variation and when you don’t.Chess players, even very strong Grandmasters, are not machines. They cannot simply calculate all lines and come up with the best continuation.
That’s why it is very important to realize when you need to calculate the line. The primary difference between a strong and a weak player is not how much each player calculates. The main difference between the two is in the ability of each player to find the right moves to calculate in the first place.
There are no general guidelines as of when and what you need to calculate. But I will try to give you some basic suggestions that will help you at deciding when you should calculate the variation:
1. When your own king or your opponent’s king is under attack, you should calculate the possibilities to end or continue the attack.
2. When there are many pieces/pawns under attack you should calculate the possibilities to win/save the pieces/pawns.
3. When the position is unstable (possible exchanges, pawns structure changes, simplifications etc.) you should calculate how you can benefit the most from it.
Step 2. Finding the candidate moves
After figuring out what and when to calculate you should find the so-called candidate moves. These are the moves that will most likely lead to the most favorable outcome. They generally make sense based on the current positional evaluation. After identifying3-4 candidate moves you should start calculating the lines, starting with what you think is the strongest candidate move.
The ability to calculate these lines solely depends on your calculation and visualization skills that can be enhanced by special exercises.
Ready to start systematic training that actually works?
After you have finished calculating the line based on selected candidate moves, you have arrived to a certain final position. In order to judge if the move was a good one or not, it is necessary to evaluate this position and to understand if you’ve achieved some improvement on the board.
This evaluation possesses additional challenges because you cannot see the position on the board, and need to evaluate it only based on your visualization ability.
Step 4. Using method of elimination
In order to make your life simpler, it is crucial to decrease the number of moves and variations that you need to calculate and analyze. If you start calculation of the line and notice that there are already many problems after move 3, there is no need to continue the calculation. Save some time and use it where it needed the most.
Chess is not a game for a perfectionist, by rather for a player who knows how to spend his resources wisely. You goal is to eliminate all bad possibilities and to calculate/play only the good moves.
Step 5. Making the final decision
The final step is probably the easiest of all five. You need to critically look at your analysis and select a single best move to play in the game. If you encounter two or more moves which are about the same quality, you can go ahead and play any of the two. It doesn’t need to be perfect, but it should be a good move.
After you have selected the move you will play, it makes sense to double check the line and to make sure that you are not making a mistake. When that is done, you can go ahead and play the move. If you did everything correctly, your position should slightly improve.
Many chess players wish to know if they will ever become Grandmasters. There are many exams available that can estimate your current strength, but none can tell you whether you can become a GM or not. Today we have compiled a short list of very important signs that may suggest you have a real potential for obtaining the highest chess title. Curious to find out if that’s about you? Read on!
1. Well-developed chess intuition
All grandmasters have a well-developed chess intuition. That means even without analyzing the position, GMs already know what's happening on the board, what side is winning and what move each player should play.
That won't be a 100% accurate analysis, like you will get if you calculate all of the variations or plug in the position into an engine. Nevertheless, it is a fairly accurate evaluation that can be used to make decisions during the game.
Another sign that you have a well-developed chess intuition is ability of guessing GM's moves during the game. It is very easy to check. Start watching any high level chess game and try guessing what moves one or another player will make. If the percentage of the moves you’ve guessed correctly is high, congratulations, you already may have a well-developed chess intuition.
2. Great memory for chess positions and patterns
Another very important thing for a strong player is a good memory for chess positions and patterns. Many grandmasters keep 100s if not 1000s of classical games in their heads.
Ability to memorize positions and games is extremely useful when it comes to preparation of openings, endgames or playing a typical middlegames. Grandmasters remember many classical games dealing with all sorts of pawn structures, endgames, tactical motifs, weaknesses, attacking schemes and so on.
If you have a good chess memory, you can put yourself a big plus on the potential grandmasters' checklist.
3. Superior visualization skills
Visualization is probably the single most important skill that a grandmaster needs because it is directly related to tactics. Without the ability to visualize positions, after certain moves are made and some pieces are captures, it is next to impossible to become a strong tactical player.
Visualization skills help tremendously at finding the correct tactics, calculating lines, planning the game and even finishing off the simple endgames. If you have strong visualization skills, your chances of becoming a grandmaster are much higher than for those who don't.
4. Ability to work on chess for hours
Even if you have all necessary prerequisites for becoming a grandmaster, you won't become one unless you spend a lot of time working on chess and perfecting your game. You see, even the most gifted chess players such as Magnus Carlsen, need to spend years to develop their talent.
That's why the ability to work on the game consistently, without getting bored and tired is crucial for becoming an elite chess player.
5. High level of competitiveness
Without a high level of competitiveness and a strong drive for becoming a better chess player it is not possible to progress. Some of the most competitive chess players such as Bobby Fischer and Garry Kasparov are also the most successful ones in history of the game.
If you want to become a grandmaster you must be competitive, you must try to win every single position against every single opponent you face. You should take each defeat as an opportunity to patch your preparation holes, to return and win.
6. Ability to stay focused for extended periods of time
Chess matches can be long, extremely long. Any grandmaster has played games which lasted for 6-7 hours non-stop. These kinds of games are exhausting and drain you both mentally and physically. In order to win such games you need to preserve energy and stay focused for the whole time. Any mistake can end the game not in your favor.
If you want to become a grandmaster you should be able to stay focused for very long periods of time. You need to learn making the best moves, even when you're tired or totally exhausted. Only then you can win games against stronger competition and be on your way to breaking that magical 2500.
7. Ability to perform well under pressure
It is a fact that defending in chess is much harder than attacking. There is a lot more at stake when your king is under pressure. You can get checkmated and the game will be over instantly. Any chess player ends up in terrible position sooner or later. It takes a true talent and courage not to give up and to pull yourself out of the losing position.
It is not possible to become a grandmaster without the ability to save lost games. You need to learn playing your best chess under pressure, even when you are down in material or under a serious attack. That will save you many games, and will gain you plenty of rating points.
Is it enough for becoming a grandmaster? It is no way to know. But if you can do it, the chances are you can become a GM someday.
If you want to improve your chess level, you need to have a clear study plan. If you aim for a dramatic improvement at chess you need to work on all of the elements of the game in a systematic way:
tactics
positional play
attacking skills
endgame technique
classical games analysis
psychological preparation
and much more...
This book is not about how I became a Grandmaster..
Nowadays, chess players are very muchfocused on their games – to improve their chess skills, reach the highest goals, increase their ratings, win tournaments and so on. But, as a chess player, it is also very important to know about ‘chess’ and how it originated.
That’s why, today, I’m going to provide you with a nice article – “The History of Chess”. Get ready, it’s time to relax a bit and READ about chess. Please feel free to share this article with your friends, even those who don’t even play chess, as this is for EVERYONE.
CHESS – A GAME OF ROYALS
ORIGINS OF CHESS AND CHANGES THEREAFTER
According to chess historians, chess is one of the oldest games in existence; it originated around the 6th century AD.
In those times, The Indian Rajah (king) believed that war was the most effective school in which to learn the values of valour, decision-making, endurance,circumspection and bravery. Because of this, it is believed that war was chosen as the model for the game.
The most fascinating and frequently repeated story credits the invention of the game to the holy saint Sissa, at the courts of the Indian King Balhait. The King was disturbed by the prevalence of gambling and the addiction to games of pure luck.
Therefore, he summoned Sissa and requested the wise man to createa game that would require pure mental qualities of prudence, foresight, bravery, judgement,endurance, circumspection and analytical and reasoning ability, to oppose the teaching of games in which chance (luck) decided the outcome by the throw of a dice.
At some time thereafter, Sissa returned to the court of the King with a board(ashtapada) consisting of 8 x 8 = 64 squares, with rules not much different from the ones we use today. There were two armiesof different colours, each consisting of 32 men, whose object was to capture or slay the king of theopposing army.
The ruler was so pleased that he gave the inventor the right to name his prize for the invention. The man, who was very clever, asked the King this: that for the first square of the chess board, he would receive one grain of wheat (or in some tellings, rice), two for the second one, four for the third one, and so forth,doubling the amount each time.
The sovereign, arithmetically unaware, quickly accepted the inventor’s offer, even getting a little offended by his perceived notion that the inventor was asking for such a low price, and ordered the treasurer to count and hand over the wheat to the inventor.
However, when the treasurer took more than a week to calculate the amount of wheat, the ruler asked him the reason for his tardiness. The treasurer then gave him the result of the calculation and explained that it would take more than all the assets of the kingdom put together to give the inventor his reward.
Let’s calculate the rice grains needed tofill a whole chess board is an 8×8 square, containing 64 squares. If the amount doubles on successive squares, then the sum of grains on all 64 squares is: 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 on the 64th square and atotal of 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 for the whole board.
That’s about 18 billion. So if a bag of rice contained a billion grains, you would need 18 billion such bags. Actually, a real bag of rice weighing 100 lbs has less than 3 million grains.
TO BE CONTINUED…..
I don’t wish to drag out the length of this article, so we’ll continue the rest of“Chess History” in the next part.
Check 
Second, we have released the 
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