GM Alexander Kotov is one of the most underappreciated figures in chess history. Ask average club players what they know about Kotov and at best they will recall his most famous game versus GM Averbakh. Personally, I don’t think that it was such a great game since in the middlegame Black had a strategically difficult …
Legal’s Trap also known as Legal’s Mate often arises in shown or similar positions. In this example it works like an opening trap for Philidor’s Defense. White pseudo-sacrifices the queen and mates by 3 minor pieces.The trap is named after Sire de Légal (1702-1792) who was a French player, or Joseph Henry Blackburne (1841-1924), who …
if you are a fan of history, and browse the same obscure corners of the internet that I do then you would have surely read the backstory to the following photograph. Perhaps, like me, you may have even seen it as part of a political post on Facebook, or other social media platforms as a …
Colin Kaepernick, Rachel Hill…GM Viktor Kupreichik & The Man Who Defied Hitler! Read More »
This topic is one I seem to get asked the most about! The truth is there are a lot of chess players out there that are willing to work hard, but they don’t know what to work on. That is what I want to talk about today, and in my next few blogs, some practical …