Game Spotlight: Opening Blind
While knowing a lot of opening theory isn’t helpful at the club level (you should be spending more time on tactics and endgames), it’s still important to know some. At least, if the position...
Tagged: Sicilian Defence
Game Spotlight: Your Chess Hero
One of the more popular pieces of advice for improving players is to pick a chess “hero”, a professional player you play like, and study their games. While this is good advice in general...
Game Spotlight: Bad Shape
There is a shogi proverb that states, “Bad shape leads to bad shape.” Though more correctly, it should say, “Bad shape leads to worse shape.” The problem is that because most shogi pieces don’t...
Game Spotlight: 2019 Kenya Premier Chess League, More From Week 2
Still from the same TUK match, this game is interesting mostly because of the tactics. In particular, note the Queen sacrifice that was missed.
Game Spotlight: 2019 Le Pelley Cup 1
Last weekend was the 4th edition of the Peter Le Pelley Cup, commemorating our past Chairman. Ricky Sang won the top group of 8 players with a perfect score in 4 games. This game...
Game Spotlight: 2018 Jamhuri Cup 4
In this final selection from the recently completed Jamhuri Cup, we have an example of how openings are not necessarily fixed things. This game changes openings twice! The Capablanca Cup kicks off our 2019...
Game Spotlight: Being Inspired by the World Championship
The World Championship between Fabiano Caruana and Magnus Carlsen ended, with Carlsen keeping his title on tiebreaks. One of the unique features of this kind of match play, especially when there’s months to prepare,...
Game Spotlight: The Immortal Outpost Game
At some point when you learn Chess, tactics are no longer enough and you need to learn something about positional play. Invariably, the idea of outposts is one of the first of these new...
Game Spotlight: NCC 60th Open 8
I believe this is our chairman’s favourite game of the 2018 Nairobi Chess Club Open Championship. Queen sacrifices are among the most spectacular occurrences on a chessboard, so it’s fun to see one pay...
Game Spotlight: NCC 60th Open 7
I knew I wanted to highlight this game as soon as I input it at the 2018 Nairobi Chess Club Open Championship. There’s two things I think are notable about this game. First, White does...
