It is certainly one of the most famous games in chess history: the 13-year-old future FIDE World Champion Bobby Fischer played a spectacular combination against IM Donald Byrne, one that has been shown and analysed by generations of chess players and writers. Today on what would have been Bobby’s 81 birthday, GM Efstratios Grivas gives […]
Monthly Archives: March 2024
Bu Xiangzhi, Yu Yangyi and Arjun Erigaisi finished the fifth edition of the Shenzhen Masters tied for first place with 4½/7 points each. The first tiebreak criterion was the number of points collected in their direct encounters, and it was Bu who had the best score, as he had defeated Arjun in the second round. […]
Freestyle Chess, formerly known as Chess960 or Fischer-Random, has recently shot into spotlight after eight of the world’s top grandmasters played in a recent tournament conducted in Weissenhaus, Germany. But what made this so intriguing, and what parallels can be drawn between regular chess and Freestyle? And: how can I train Freestyle using my current […]
Chess players have certainly heard of Daniel Fernandez, who has already published a couple of Fritztrainers for ChessBase. But recently, non-chess players also got to know him because of a YouTube video with the title – “We Used An Adult Toy To Beat A Chess Grandmaster”. How did this video happen? Are chess players cheating […]
The sixth edition of the Prague Chess Festival came to an end in the capital of the Czech Republic. Nodirbek Abdusattorov had already secured tournament victory in the Masters after the penultimate round. Meanwhile, the Challengers saw Ediz Gurel, aged 15, beating Anton Korobov to win the tournament outright. The prodigy also became the youngest-ever […]
Magnus Carlsen has been the World #1, since 2011! Apart from his tremendous chess talent, he also has a relatively higher HRV: his heart rate is typically between 75 bpm – 95 bpm, which enables him to balance alertness (for tactical danger and opportunities) and calmness (to optimize logical thinking and decision-making)! Calm heartbeats during […]
The Philidor Defence is celebrated for its historical significance and varied tactical approaches, including the aggressive early f5 push and the more dubious line involving an early d4 pawn exchange and fianchetto. This video course, by GM Christian Bauer, shows the Philidor Defence’s main positions and White’s significant deviations, highlighting the nuanced manoeuvres in a […]
Greek grandmaster Stamatis Kourkoulos-Arditis is on the verge of victory at the Karel Janecek Open, which is being held as part of the Prague Chess Festival. With one round to go, he has 7.5 out of 8, and is one point ahead of six players with 6.5 out of 8. In round 8, Kourkoulos-Arditis scored […]
Nodirbek Abdusattorov claimed overall victory at the Prague Masters with a round to spare after prevailing in a wild encounter against Parham Maghsoodloo. The Uzbek GM’s 6/8 score in the Czech capital allowed him to gain 15.5 Elo points and climb to fourth place in the live ratings list. Round 8 also saw Gukesh beating […]
Yevhenii Yelieiev is an International Master, German U25 Champion, and a short while ago he invited the public to join him on his “Journey to Grandmaster” on YouTube. As part of this journey he offers training and training advice and also checks training materials. In a recent video he wondered whether “Do you really need […]