When playing the French Defense -Advance Variation- as Black, the player realizes that pieces on the kingside have only one way to develop: the e7-square. Through that narrow passage, both bishop and knight find...
A significant number of openings (notably the French Defence and the Queen’s Gambit Declined) feature a “bad” piece. Because of the way a player chooses to develop, it becomes difficult for one of their...
Abdul Roba Adan won the Under 1800 section of the Nairobi Chess Club Open Championship with 4 wins and 2 draws. In this round 3 game, he somehow gets better development than his opponent...
The most influential of chess strategy books, Aron Nimzowitsch’s My System, was published in 1925. By codifying his own theories arising from games he played as well as contemporary masters like Steinitz, Tarrasch, Lasker,...
One of the greatest aspects of chess is its history. It’s the rare game where players regularly study games played over 100 years ago. But with all this reverence of what’s past, there’s one...
Since chess is a mental game, many players like to put their own stamp on it. It’s not just winning, it’s winning with their opening. To some extent this is misguided, in that proven...
Although information about new CM and FM titles has been hard to come by, there is one exception. Thanks to the reporting of AllAfrica, we can say that Uganda’s Gloria Nansubuga won herself a...
For the most part, very short games aren’t very interesting. That said, there are a few reasons they can be worth the effort of delving into. First, if you’re a newer player, most miniatures...
