Chess Tutoring, Chess Coaching, Chess Classes with NM Will Stewart

Strategy forms the basis of our long-term plans while tactics revolve around the current demands of the position. Incredibly deep positional maneuvers have always fascinated the chess world, however an awesome plan for the next 15 moves means absolutely nothing if you blunder and lose immediately. Tactical awareness is one of the most important skills that a beginner chess player can develop, as first the ability not to blunder will encourage rapidly improved results. Then [...]

It’s a fact of life we can’t win every battle. Sometimes we find ourselves in a precarious situation. Confronted with a superior enemy, our survival instinct begins to look for ways out. We defend to hold the position. Sometimes against heavy odds. What we need at those moments is a weapon to frustrate the victory of the stronger side in the conflict and secure a draw. Fight for a draw There are several ways of [...]

Double attack! All chess combinations are based on either double attack, or combined attack (for definitions see here). Three variants of double attack Double attack is a powerful weapon. It is a much broader term than fork. It covers the following situations: 1. Two units are attacking an object; this is the basic form of cooperative piece play in chess using concentration of force (which is one of the main principles of warfare), 2. One [...]

“My chess career has been rich in experiences, some amusing, others tragic, all of them interesting. Chess has taken me to the far corners of the earth, has brought me some fame, though little fortune. In my travels I have met thousands of people and made many lasting friendships.” “Chess has fully repaid me in the real things of life, the sharing of colorful experiences with my wife and son, the devotion and loyalty of [...]

Power domination in chess In the previous post we saw what Alekhine’s block was and how it worked. Through it we could see some central principles of warfare. As we know, combat is the only effective force in war. The combat force (which, in chess, is possessed by chessmen) and all military operations in a war must be directed toward a clearly defined, decisive, and attainable goals defined by your strategy. Without a power superiority [...]

Alekhine’s block is a chess combination with a piece sacrifice (Knight, Bishop, Rook, or Queen) on the 6th rank (3rd for Black). It’s used for the first time by the former world champion Alexander Alekhine in 1910. The idea is to physically restrict, or block the enemy pawn in front of the attacking piece (thus Alekhine’s “block”). As Nimtzowitsch put it, “First restrain, then blockade, finally destroy!” This tactical device is just one implementation of [...]

There are tons of great chess training websites all over the internet but how do you know which are the best? Fear not noble chess player as I have now compiled this amazing one-stop article that lists all the high-quality, FREE websites related to chess training that you’ll need to know about. I have seen a lot of pretender chess training websites out there, deceiving eager-to-learn chess fans with fancy marketing and a big Google [...]