You’ve already seen that the King’s Gambit is a powerful weapon. If Black isn’t ready to respond properly in the opening, they will easily lose the game in a few moves. It’s clear as day that simply accepting the opponent’s sacrificed pawn is the wrong strategy. Why? It forces you to go on the defensive…
Cheating is probably one of the biggest world chess problems. That means unfair play by participants. In most cases, it’s computer-assisted cues. However, today we’ll talk about the story of another cheater who became famous in the early 2010s. His name is Borislav Ivanov. Technologies are developing very fast: now everyone has access to the…
You probably already know how the scholar’s mate works. Now it’s time to learn how to save yourself from it! All players face such a threat from time to time. But there is nothing to be afraid of. We’ll tell you how to unfold a simple and reliable defense against the scholar’s mate. White goes…
This opening is associated with the Renaissance. It has been loved by players for many centuries because it often leads to dynamic games. You need to see it just once to grasp its beauty. A cascade of victims and non-standard ideas look impressive on the board. But nowadays, the King’s Gambit is rarely used by…
Many people have heard the word combination “scholar’s mate”, even if they’ve never played chess before. Although they might guess its meaning, very few of them know how it works on the board. Let’s have a look at how to win the match in just 4 moves. Before we dive into the mechanics, we’d like…
In early September, the Sinquefield Cup grand chess tournament took place in Saint Louis. The high point of the competition was a sensational development that occurred in the 3d stage. Hans Niemann, a rating outsider, confidently won against the World Champion Magnus Carlsen. After such an unexpected defeat, the Norwegian player resigned from the tournament…
Each kind of sport has its own organization with managing rights. In chess, FIDE executes this role. It’s an abbreviation for “Federation Internationale des Echecs” in French. The headquarters of this institution is located in Lausanne. In fact, Switzerland can be called the queen of sports. This country of constant neutrality also accommodates the headquarters…
It’s always been interesting to observe one person standing up against the whole system. Such things frequently occur in sports. One of the most engaging plots evolved in the world of chess. American grandmaster Robert Fischer vs USSR and the entire Soviet system! Today we recall the events that happened 50 years ago. A trap…
How does one identify the world’s top chess players according to FIDE ratings? To answer this quite reasonable question, an American physics professor Arpad Elo invented a special rating calculation system for a 2-player game. FIDE started using Elo’s ratings back in 1970. Since 2012, separate ratings were implemented for rapid and blitz chess. These…
Today, no chess player can defeat a machine. Even Magnus Carlsen on a good day would be powerless. However, this wasn’t always the case. There was a time when matches of a human vs computer in chess did not have an obvious leader. Humans kept demonstrating their superiority. Such encounters used to be incredibly fascinating…
