The 2012 World Chess Championship is taking place in Moscow, Russia on May 11-30 and features two of the best players in the game today: Defending World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand (India) and World Chess Championship Challenger Boris Gelfand (Israel). These two seasoned veterans in the chess elite are fighting it out for a prize fund of $2.5 million dollars (the winner will receive $1.5 million and the loser will receive $1 million). While Anand [...]

The essence of chess war is struggle between two opposing armies, or two hostile and irreconcilable wills of the generals of the two armies, each trying to impose itself on the other. It is like a pair of wrestlers locked in a hold, each exerting force and counterforce trying to throw the other. Chess war is therefore a process of continuous mutual adaptation, of give and take, move and countermove. The key here is that [...]

The Opocensky Variation of the Sicilian Najdorf with 6. Be2 remains one of the most commonly played lines for white against the Najdorf. In Fischer’s time in the 1950s and 1960s, more aggressive variations such as the Fischer-Sozin Attack, the 6. Bg5 Main Line, and the 6. f4 Amsterdam Variation were favored over the quieter Opocensky Variation with 6. Be2. However sufficient sources of counterplay were identified for black against the sharper continuations, and in [...]

The value of the truth is an enduring trope of the American cinema. In Tom Cruise’s Vanilla Sky, the protagonist is offered a choice to live in a world of his fancy, or to face the sometimes-gritty truth of a world far more real. Ditto the Matrix movie in which the main character can take either the blue pill or red pill. I chose the red one and, apparently, was involved in a chess game shortly [...]

Winning is chess is often over-thought and underachieved. Chess players by nature are very interested in psychology, and this often leads to detrimental effects on their quality of play as it easy to “psych yourself out” and over-think simple decisions. For the experienced player, playing chess should be ingrained in your brain similar to seasoned athletes retain muscle memory in sports. The best way to approach a game of chess is with a strong mentality [...]

In Lev Alburt’s seminal Test and Improve your Chess he offers an interesting recommendation. The GM, once one of the world’s best players, says we should be willing to invest a few hours into analyzing any given position. This develops the fabled GM memory which is said to hold ten times more patterns than the brain of an average NM. Putting thirty-two pieces into some semblance of order takes quite a lot of work indeed. [...]

The 2012 US Chess Championship kicked off with a bang yesterday with 5 out of 6 games reflecting a decisive result in the first round. The clear favorite to win the event is US #1 and World #7 rated Hikaru Nakamura, who began with a clean win over rising star Robert Hess. Although Nakamura is only 24 years old, he is already an experienced veteran at the elite levels of chess. In this exciting round [...]