Category: Blog
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Game of the Week V: Nakamura, Hi (2736) – Esipenko, Andrey (2714)
Game of the Week is back after a brief break! Weeks 5, 6, and 7 will be posted over the next few days. Thank you for your patience. After two years of absence from classical chess, Hikaru Nakamura managed to make a perfect comeback, implementing rich ideas in his games and keeping his realization technique…
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Game of the Week IV: Van Foreest, Jorden (2702) – Giri, Anish (2772)
“You should first sacrifice and then calculate,” responded Tal instantly. One of my favorite stories happened in the analyzing room of the USSR championship in 1978 as described in the book Garry Kasparov on Garry Kasparov: Part I: “Ex-world champion Mikhail Tal leaned over Garik (Kasparov) and with unfeigned admiration in his voice commented on…
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Game of the Week III: Jumabayev, Rinat (2631) – Van Foreest, Lucas (2530)
The annual Tata Steel Chess Tournament always captivates the attention of the entire chess world. Every year, we witness great competition with dozens of brilliant games! Even though the tournament consists of two groups – the Masters and the Challengers – the Masters’ games usually overshadow the Challengers’. Therefore, from time to time, some brilliancies…
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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…