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

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 [...]

It’s not easy to keep up with the constantly changing schedules, venues, player lists, etc. for the elite chess tournaments of 2012, so I decided to centralize my research here. The climate at the top of the chess world has become very interesting lately, as Magnus Carlsen and Levon Aronian have greatly distanced themselves from other super-grandmasters on the current ratings lists – Carlsen at #1 with 2835 FIDE and Aronian stubbornly chasing at #2 [...]

The 7th Mikhail Tal Memorial Chess Tournament 2012 has been confirmed for June 7-19th in Moscow, Russia and will showcase an incredible line-up of elite grandmaster talent. Tal Memorial Chess 2012 has arranged the participation of 7 of the top 10 highest rated players in the world, only missing current World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand at #4, Sergey Karjakin at #8, and Vassily Ivanchuk at #10. The Tal Memorial 2012 promises to be one of [...]

There is no such thing as a “sure thing” in chess. A game is not over until the clock has been stopped and hands have been shook. Comebacks in other sports like basketball and football are easy to spot, as you can’t miss Eli Manning leading Another 4th quarter comeback drive against the Patriots. But events can be a little more subtle on the chessboard. It’s easy for your opponent to be lulled into a [...]

The details have been officially confirmed for the 2012 US Chess Championship – taking place May 7th – May 20th at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis. The 2012 edition of the US Chess Championship is one of the strongest ever held in the United States, with two 2700+ FIDE Super-GMs ready to battle it out as the hands-down favorites. Gata Kamsky (2804 USCF, 2741 FIDE) is a 3-time winner of the [...]

While Magnus Carlsen has been busy making a sprint towards 2900, one Grandmaster has nearly been able to keep pace – Levon Aronian. Aronian is widely regarded as one of the most creative players in today’s world of chess, consistently creating dynamically imbalanced positions very early in the opening. Aronian’s energetic style and accurate technique has propelled him to his current standing as the #2 highest rated chess player in the world at 2825 FIDE, [...]

It seems like promoting chess has always been an uphill battle, requiring some type of catalyst to maintain the game’s popularity. Going back to the 1950s and 1960s, there was Bobby Fischer and the Western World against the Soviet Union. In the 1970s and 1980s, there was the changing of the Soviet guard amidst a string of incredibly hard-fought matches between Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov. In the 1990s Kasparov dominated the game, however he [...]