Traps, Tricks & Mistakes: Nightmare
Losing a game after having the advantage is painful. If you are a frequent reader of these series, you will remember such a situation happening to Gukesh in the London Chess Classic, 2023. It’s...
Category: Traps, Tricks & Mistakes
Traps, Tricks & Mistakes: Luck
Is there luck in chess? Objectively, in chess all the information is available. Both players see the same board, the same pieces and the time available in their clocks. Starting with that information, each...
Traps, Tricks & Mistakes: Morphy’s Secret
Paul Charles Morphy (1837 – 1884) was a genius American chess player. Despite his short chess career, his contemporaries considered Morphy as the world’s greatest chess master. In Morphy’s time, chess theory was poorly...
Traps, Tricks & Mistakes: Powerful Pin
The Maroczy formation against the Sicilian Defense features the two characteristic White pawns c4 and d4 against Black’s d6. White’s idea is to restrain Black’s typical central advance d5 while enjoying space advantage. Because...
Traps, Tricks & Mistakes: Critical Magic Moment
The 2023 Sinquefield Cup was the strongest international classical chess tournament in the U.S. and the final event of the 2023 Grand Chess Tour. Ten top international players played in a Round-Robin system with...
Traps, Tricks & Mistakes: Wrong But Succesfull Attack
The Champions Chess Tour (CCT) 2025 was a competition featuring two online events: “Chessable Masters” and “Chess.com Classic”. Each event consisted of three sections: Qualifier, Play-In and Playoffs. The Qualifier section was open to...
Traps, Tricks & Mistakes: Master Lesson Forgotten
Nowadays, the chess community has access to a myriad of books, articles, videos, courses … about all aspects of the game. Many title players have contributed with theoretical innovations, openings, and new ideas. And...
Traps, Tricks & Mistakes: Zero Chances
The 2025 Prague Chess Festival was a round-robin with 10 players that took place on February 26-March 7 in Prague, Czech Republic. The venue was the prestigious Don Giovanni Hotel. The tournament used a...
Traps, Tricks & Mistakes: Cruel Heartbreaking
The tournament Norway Chess takes place in Stavanger (Norway) every year. It consists of two sections: Women and Open. In 2024 they made history as the first super-tournament with an equal prize fund for...
Traps, Tricks & Mistakes: Beauty Mistake
How should a beautiful chess game look like? Technology progresses very fast and discussions about IA appear daily in the news. Nobody argues that nowadays chess engines play better than humans. However, can machines...
