Showing posts with label chess opening. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chess opening. Show all posts

Saturday, 5 March 2016

Webinar « The Art of Defense in Chess » by GM Igor Smirnov


Many students were only and asked me their questions in live. I recorded this webinar for you if you missed it or if you want to watch it again!

You can read the article and download the pgn games on this page : http://chess-teacher.com/webinar1/ 






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1. signs up at Amazon.in (create new account) using THIS LINK
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Winning Patterns


Hi, My name is Sagar Shah and i am rated 2359. I played a very interesting game against Sofranov Velizar, in june 2013 and with the help of this game I would like to explain the importance of recognizing patterns in the middlegame and using them effectively.




FREE TRAINING COURSE QUICK SUCCESS IN CHESS - http://goo.gl/zGgvbQ
Are you looking for quality Chess openings at first? - http://goo.gl/86VpnJ
Intermediate-Package - http://goo.gl/ni0BLg
RCA-Advanced-Package - http://goo.gl/vZzdxZ
Chess Books - http://goo.gl/vZzdxZ
Solve chess Puzzles online - http://goo.gl/lbazL0



Amazon.in giving Rs.200 gift card free for new users

How to climb the offer:
1. signs up at Amazon.in (create new account) using THIS LINK
2. makes a purchase of Rs.599 or more
3. you will get a gift card of Rs.200 in your account with in 4 days.

Gambit Rules by GM Igor Smirnov


In this video we'll analyze some important practical rules for playing gambits (and for counteracting gambits). 
We'll be analyzing quite an unknown gambit that you can play against Sicilian defense. 
You'll test your skills trying to guess right moves in a really cool game!
Enjoy it! :)




FREE TRAINING COURSE QUICK SUCCESS IN CHESS - http://goo.gl/zGgvbQ
Are you looking for quality Chess openings at first? - http://goo.gl/86VpnJ
Intermediate-Package - http://goo.gl/ni0BLg
RCA-Advanced-Package - http://goo.gl/vZzdxZ
Chess Books - http://goo.gl/vZzdxZ
Solve chess Puzzles online - http://goo.gl/lbazL0



Amazon.in giving Rs.200 gift card free for new users

How to climb the offer:
1. signs up at Amazon.in (create new account) using THIS LINK
2. makes a purchase of Rs.599 or more
3. you will get a gift card of Rs.200 in your account with in 4 days.

Professional Opening preparation by GM Igor Smirnov

Hi, I am Igor Smirnov, International Grandmaster and chess coach.In this video,I am explaining how to select a good opening and how to know whether an opening is good or not and also some tips about opening and opening stage.So you will not get any problems in opening stage after watching this video.So please do not forget to subscribe my channel and thumbs up the video.




Best chess training course you must know about


FREE TRAINING COURSE QUICK SUCCESS IN CHESS - http://goo.gl/zGgvbQ
Are you looking for quality Chess openings at first? - http://goo.gl/86VpnJ
Intermediate-Package - http://goo.gl/ni0BLg
RCA-Advanced-Package - http://goo.gl/vZzdxZ
Chess Books - http://goo.gl/vZzdxZ
Solve chess Puzzles online - http://goo.gl/lbazL0

Amazon.in giving Rs.200 gift card free for new users

How to climb the offer:
1. signs up at Amazon.in (create new account) using THIS LINK
2. makes a purchase of Rs.599 or more
3. you will get a gift card of Rs.200 in your account with in 4 days.

Wednesday, 27 January 2016

Best chess training course you must know about


FREE TRAINING COURSE QUICK SUCCESS IN CHESS - http://goo.gl/zGgvbQ
Are you looking for quality Chess openings at first? - http://goo.gl/86VpnJ
Intermediate-Package - http://goo.gl/ni0BLg
RCA-Advanced-Package - http://goo.gl/vZzdxZ
Chess Books - http://goo.gl/vZzdxZ
Solve chess Puzzles online - http://goo.gl/lbazL0




Monday, 4 January 2016

Choosing Openings Repertoire: Going Narrow or Wide

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.
    Ready to start systematic training that works? 
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    What do top players do?
    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!

    Wednesday, 4 November 2015

    5 Key Reasons You're Not a Chess Master

    All chess players want to become masters, but only 1% succeed and the other 99% fail. Is that because they don’t have talent, necessary IQ level or some other master traits? Nope. The 99%don't reach the master level for a completely different set of reasons. Curious to find out why? 

    Most chess players don’t reach the master level for the following reasons:
    1. They Don't Set Goals
    Setting goals is very important part of achieving them. By setting a goal and a deadline for when it should be achieved you will keep yourself motivated and increase your chances of success by as much as 500%. Keep in mind that the goals should be realistic, meaning you shouldn't set a goal of becoming a Grandmaster in 3 month if you're currently 1400 rated. Nor should you set a goal of learning all 1000 endgames from the endgame manual by heart in a week or two.
    The goal is there to motivate you, not to kill you. That's why picking an achievable goal is a very important step. After you have picked a realistic goal, you should document it. Take a piece of paper and write what your goal is, when you will achieve it and what happens if you don't achieve it on time.
    For example, you can write that your goal is to solve no less than 3 tactics problems per day, every day for one month of time, starting month/day/year.
    If you don't do that you will donate an extra 100$ (if that does not motivate you, you can go for 500 or 1000$) to the charity of your choice, won't be able to use your phone for specified number of day, watch your favorite TV show or some similar “punishment”.
    By simply having a realistic, written goal, deadline and consequences in case you fail to achieve it you will set yourself for success.
    2. They Don't Plan Their Training
    Most chess players are training spontaneously, by randomly working on different aspects of chess that they feel comfortable with. Nothing is wrong with this approach, except that it usually doesn't lead to improvement.
    Wouldn't it be great to improve your tactical vision so that you could see all of the threats 10 moves ahead?
    Wouldn't it be nice to study the endgames so that you don't have to take chances when playing those Rook and Pawn endings?
    Wouldn't it be helpful to learn some positional game ideas as well as some attacking techniques? And indeed it would be nice to brush off your opening preparation, so that you don't end up in these losing middlegames.
    Surprisingly most chess players know what they need to be doing, but somehow they don't do it. Having a precise study plan, that will keep you motivated and focused while providing you with the right resources will help you to become a better player.
    3. They Don't Schedule Their Time
    Once you have the goal and the training plan it does not mean that you will automatically improve your game. You need to put the work first. And in order to do that, you need to schedule your day, so that you always have time to stick to the plan.
    You will be much more likely to commit to a certain activity like jogging, weight-lifting or becoming a chess master if you schedule when you will do that. For example, you may train for 5 days per week from 8 to 9 am. Being consistent and working on chess in step-by-step manner will get you where you need to be.
    4. They Don't Track Progress
    Having some sort of analytics or in other words tracking your chess improvement progress is very important if you want to become a stronger player. Writing down what problems you did, which ones you've solved correctly and which ones you didn't is very important for realizing what you understand and what you don't.
    The same goes to the games you play. You need to track in what kind of openings/middlegames/endgames you perform best and worst at. Then, you need to make appropriate adjustments to fix your weaknesses and build on your strengths.
    5. They Don't Make Changes
    Last, but not least, alternating your training routine once a month or so will help you to avoid the plateau in your chess. Have you noticed how easy it is to improve at first? While you're lower rated, you can easily pickup as many as 200-300 points in matter of months.
    Then, when you get stronger at chess, improving tends to become more difficult, partly because your brain gets used to the exercises you typically perform. Therefore, alternating your routine is crucial to avoid plateauing on the certain level.
    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. Sign up for 21 Day Training right now!

    Saturday, 31 October 2015

    5 Ways to Immediately Improve Your Opening Play

    Many players think that their opening preparation is the weakest piece of the chess chain. Regardless of whether that's true or not it makes sense to work on all parts of the game. It is not wise to disregard any elements of chess and opening is no exception. Today we will talk about the five ways to improve your opening play.

    1. Understand the main ideas
    The very first step for understanding any chess opening is learning the main ideas of that opening. Many players make the mistake of memorizing variations instead of learning how a certain opening should be played. Instead of blindly memorizing the moves, it is much more efficient to understand the plans and counter-plans for both sides.
    That way you won't get lost if your opponent deviates from the main lines you have learned. You will know the basic ideas of the openings, weak spots of setups, typical attacking maneuvers and so on.
    2. Learn about the placement of pawns and pieces
    After learning the main ideas and plans of the opening you should spend a little bit of time, learning about the pawn structures. Each opening has a unique pawn structure associated with it.
    If you want to learn how to play the opening well, you need to understand the advantages and disadvantages of those pawn structures and also to learn about the typical piece placement.
    The second point is especially important because the correct positioning of pieces will almost guarantee success in the middlegame.
    3. Analyze games of the masters
    After learning the main ideas and typical pawn/piece structures you need to go a step further and study the master's gamesplayed with the same opening. Only by analyzing the high level games you will be able to get fully submerged into the opening and understand typical attacking/defensive ideas.
    By understanding a dozen of high level chess games, you will feel much more confident playing that opening, thus your over-the-board results will improve.
    When you’re picking the games to study, you shouldn't give preference to necessarily the most recent ones, played by the most prominent players. It is better to start by going over the games played early on; understand the ideas of these games first and only then move to the modern games.
    4. Create an opening database
    It is extremely important to create an opening database for storing your opening preparation lines and ideas. All grandmasters do that, and there is a very good reason for it. A simple opening database, tremendously helps at systemizing all of your opening preparation.
    Not only that, but it also helps in broadening your opening knowledge, making it deeper and more versatile. Unfortunately, most amateur chess players don’t realize that and prefer to save time on opening databases.
    By simply organizing your current opening repertoire into a database, you will be able to see things that you have never noticed before. You will see what lines you understand and which ones you don't. You will see what lines give you the highest probability of winning the game, and which lines typically lose. Based on that priceless information, you will be able to improve on you opening preparation and become a much more theoretical player.
    To make your life easier and your training more effecient, we have setup a comprehensive guide on how to work on your opening repertoire, how to setup a chess database, how to prepare for your opponent, and so on.
    This guide is a part of the complete package of our training course. You can learn more about it here.
    5. Blitz it up
    The final step of working on your openings is getting enough practice. The most efficient way to practice a new opening is by playing plenty of short time control games to test out the new ideas.
    You probably know that I'm not a big fan of using blitz as a training tool. This is an exceptional case though, and many grandmasters recommend playing blitz to try-out certain openings and you should too.
    ***
    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:
    • opening preparation
    • 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!

    Thursday, 29 October 2015

    Grand Master birthday and exciting offers!

    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.
    30% discountCheck here if you don’t know how to use a discount code.
    designSecond, 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. 
    • Number of DVDs – 1
    • Number of files to download – 2
    • How to decompress split zip files? – check here
    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.


    Sunday, 18 October 2015

    5 Steps for Calculating Like a Grandmaster

    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? 
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    Step 3. Evaluating the position
    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.

    Friday, 5 June 2015

    Top 5 Opening Mistakes Most Chess Players Are Still Making

    Today we will talk about the most common opening mistakes that many chess players around the globe are making subconsciously, without realizing that they are doing something wrong. These mistakes are easy to spot and fix, but you need to know what to look for. Here they are: 
    1. Neglecting development
    Every chess player knows that the goal of the opening is to develop pieces. A player which does it more efficiently and correctly possesses an advantage in the early middle game. Due to development advantage he can start an attack sooner, without compromising his own king’s safety. These players often win the game in early middle-game with an impressive attack on the king stuck in the center (this is particularly important theme and we pay a lot of attention practicing attack on the king at the center in our chess training course) or struggling from undeveloped pieces.
    Sounds great isn’t it? Why many players neglect development and lose games? There are 3 reasons for that:
    I. These players get greedy in the opening, grabbing an extra pawn and sacrificing 2-3 important development tempos.
    II. These players move one piece multiple times for no good reason. A ‘good reason’ is defined in this case as ability to win a significant amount of material due to some sort of tactics, or to deliver a checkmate.
    You should be careful though, since you may waste many important tempos on winning material, which you may never get and end up being far behind in development (aka lost).
    III. These players may not know where exactly to develop their pieces (we will talk about this case in one of the sections below).
    Take a look at the game below that clearly demonstrates what happens to ones who neglect the development: 

    2. Launching an unprepared attack

    Most chess players know that in the opening they supposed to develop pieces, castle, connect the rooks, occupy the center and only then launch an attack. However, if they see a possibility to check an opponent or attack some of his pieces they will go for it even if that does not promise any material gain and requires early queen development.
    You should always keep in mind that unprepared attack will delay your development, since you most likely, will have to retreat sooner or later making unnecessary moves and losing tempos.
    The best strategy is to complete the development and only then launch an attack.  Otherwise, you can end up playing the opening when your opponent has already entered the middle game (trust me, you don’t want that).

    3. Delaying castling

    Castling is a very important part of development. Not only castling puts your king to safety but also connects the rooks. There are reasons when it is dangerous and even deadly to castle, but these are more exceptions than general cases, mostly caused by lag in development in the first place.
    In most openings it is best to castle quickly and continue on with the game without too much worrying about possibility of the king getting exposed and vulnerable.

    4. Not having a middle game plan

    The simplest way to play the opening is to develop chess pieces to the positions where they appear stronger. Bishops should be developed on open diagonals, rooks on open files and knights at the center. However, the best approach for playing the opening is to know exactly where to position your pieces according to your middle-game plan.
    For example, if you are planning an attack on short side castled opponent’s king you need to place the bishop on a long diagonal, bring up the knight and a queen. You may also want to position the rook in such a way that you can lift it quickly when needed.
    When developing pieces always think about your future middle game plan. That way you can save yourself many importanttempos and obtain an advantage. In the final run that could be the difference between checkmating or being checkmated.

    5. Playing intuitively

    Playing intuitively means making decisions based upon feelings rather than calculations. Unless you are 2500 rated, you probably should not rely on your intuition too much. This is how games end with under 10 moves checkmates.
    The rule of thumb is to evaluate the position at least 2-3 moves ahead, also taking into account the basic chess opening principles.

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