Category: Blog
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Game of the Week II: Vidit, Santosh Gujrathi (2727) – Shankland, Sam (2708)
Suddenly, your opponent plays a line that he has never played before according to your preparation. What should you do? First, take a break for a moment before playing your mainline home prep. I would recommend spending at least 5 minutes trying to understand what is happening. There are a few likely scenarios: The good…
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Game of the Week I: Bernadskiy, Vitaliy (2599) – Tabatabaei, M. Amin (2643)
Allegedly, Radjabov said in an interview during the 2010 World Blitz Championship that “Everyone is getting tired. You might as well start with 1.a4 and you can still beat them.” Carlsen decided to test this statement against Radjabov during their 2012 World Blitz Championship game, and it worked like a charm for him! I guess…
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Game of the Week LII: Lagarde, Maxime (2638) – Mosadeghpour, Masoud (2489)
Man’s ego is always the biggest obstacle on his way to success. The ego leads us to be more interested in what we want rather than what the person in front of us is doing, which is detrimental to chess improvement. However, chess masters have been training to overcome the ego obstacle with a lot…
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Game of the Week LI: Kollars, Dmitrij (2622) – Safarli, Eltaj (2579)
This week’s Game of the Week will clearly demonstrate the following principles: 3. Don’t play on the side where you are weaker unless necessary. 4. Symmetrical positions can hide a lot of possibilities and troubles for both players. The Game of the Week LI is – Kollars vs. Safarli Thank you for reading! If you…
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Game of the Week L: Mamedov, Rauf (2656) – Anand, Viswanathan (2751)
The engine equalizes easily when it comes to sidelines, which can create false impressions of security. Because of this, such variations are not deeply studied by the majority of players who play against the line. Also, a player may think that finding “simple” moves will not be difficult in order to avoid playing those lines. …
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Game of the Week XLIX: Gelfand, Boris (2663) – Adams, Michael (2700)
A small twist in the opening can change the flow of the game. The opening phase of the game has been a common focus of the Game of the Week series, but it is still exhilarating to find a fresh, deep idea in an opening that always makes me appreciate the research aspect of the…
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Game of the Week XLVIII: Carlsen, Magnus (2855) – Nepomniachtchi, Ian (2782)
The brain may fail you when the tension is at the highest level. Several years ago, as a young and ambitious player, I made a bad move in an important game which led to a position where I got tortured for a long time and eventually lost after a drawish but difficult-to-defend endgame. Coping with…
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Game of the Week XLVII Carlsen, Magnus (2855) – Nepomniachtchi, Ian (2782)
“A Knight on f5 is worth a pawn” Garry Kasparov Kasparov made this statement because often, the Black side castles short. White’s knight then becomes quite annoying for Black and can create attacking ideas all the time. What about the value of the knight on d6 or d3? If we consider that either the e…
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Game of the Week XLVI: Shirov, Alexei (2673) – Erdos, Viktor (2615)
What should you do if you cannot figure out how to equalize against a certain opening variation? The old chess wisdom says to play the variation with the opposite color and let your opponent show the equality to you if it exists. Of course, wisdom evolves over time. Nowadays, we can run strong engines and…
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Game of the Week XLV: Keymer, Vincent (2639) – Bjerre, Jonas Buhl (2569)
Wilheim Steinitz famously claimed that the king is a strong piece and can defend himself. The first World Champion’s firm belief in this statement could be seen in his games, though sometimes, he appeared to put a bit too much trust in that assertion. Occasionally, the king would end up in a dangerous spot right…
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Game of the Week XLIV: Gelfand, Boris (2680) – Martirosyan, Haik (2624)
This last round game was neither important for the final standings, nor particularly spectacular. However, it was a very clean game by Gelfand and is a good example of why he was an elite player for over 2 decades. Game of the Week XLIV is-Gelfand vs. Martirosian Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this…
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Game of the Week XLIII: Van Foreest, Jorden (2691) – Surya Shekhar Ganguly (2617)
The talented young Dutch grandmaster with the white pieces introduced one of the most creative opening novelties I have seen in recent years. This game was played in round 4 of the ongoing FIDE Grand Swiss in Latvia, with both players on 1/3. Game of the Week is XLIII- Van Foreest, Jorden vs. Surya Shekar…