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This is the second article about opening principles for beginners. The first one was about controlling the center and this is of course really important. Now the next question arising in this phase of the game is how to develop your pieces harmoniously. This is the topic of…
The exchange variation of the French Defense ? Read through a few generic opening books for beginners and you will be lucky if the exchange variation gets more than a...
Here you are in your journey to become a strong Chess player. You know how pieces are moving. Also, you have already learnt many tactical patterns, (like the fork, the...
The French Defense is one of Black's main defenses against 1. e4. One of White's favorite ways to handle the french defense is the advance variation, in which White clarifies...
The French defense is one of the most popular defenses against 1. e4. It is regularly played at the highest level, although both 1… e5 and the Sicilian are more...
The Ruy Lopez is an opening that withstood the test of time. It has been played by players of the highest levels of strength since the Renaissance. It is one of the evergreen, classical, super-solid opening choices which are in every strong player’s repertoire. It...
This article focuses on positions arising from the Ruy Lopez opening, after the Ruy Lopez exchange variation starting with Bxc6 dxc6. This variation does not arise from the Ruy Lopez tense center, as White immediately exchanges the bishop rather than trying to keep the tension...
The Marshall attack belongs to the great family of positions arising from the Ruy Lopez opening, with a very specific strategy. But, let’s be honest, it is a one-of-a-kind opening and pawn center. So the usual plans in the Ruy Lopez do not exactly apply...
This article focuses on plans and ideas in central formations after white plays d4-d5 from the Ruy Lopez tense center. The closed center is one of the many pawn structures arising in the Ruy Lopez. The first type of center we are going to examine...
Experience (and some previous articles) shows that winning a game with a couple of connected passed pawns (or separated ones !) is often a straightforward task. More challenging is the...
After looking at the previous article learning that connected passed pawns always defend each other, one may wonder what happens if the passed pawns are separated by one or more...
Connected passed pawns are just a kind of King and pawn endgames. And, as you know, King and pawn endings are hard ! That is what we will discover together...
After Key Squares in pawn endgames, the next fundamental concept in King and pawn endgames is opposition. This is necessary to become a great endgame player. What is the opposition...
In our We have spent a lot of time on tactical patterns, haven’t we ? This is necessary so that they become obvious to you. You have also already studied the 3 most common checkmate patterns. In this article, we are going to continue and...
Zugzwang is not really a tactic. It is a situation where one player is put at a disadvantage because he has to make a move when he would prefer to pass and make no move. We have already met that situation in the Rook VS...
The idea of removing the defender in Chess is simple: an important piece or square is defended by a piece, the defender. Removing the defender gives you the ability to take the important piece or occupy the important square. There are few ideas that are...
A Zwischenzug is also called an “in-between move”. It occurs when a player, instead of playing the expected move, first plays another move, posing an immediate threat that the opponent must answer, and only then plays the expected move. Zwischenzug can be seen in attacking...