Basic Tactics: Pins and Forks Update

Yesterday, my beginning chess club saw an obscure miniature and then completed the worksheet Beginning Tactics 3. Beginning Tactics 3 Fi...

Calculate Update

This past weekend was the 26th annual Collyer Memorial chess tournament. I have played most years, and have had my best and worst tournament...

Learn from Others' Errors Update

My students this week are seeing a series of positions from my games in the 25th Collyer Memorial Chess Tournament. From the same positions,...

Oops Update

When I encountered this exercise at Chess.com's Tactics Trainer, I spent nearly a minute calculating the knight forks and threatened d...

Kindle Chess Books Update

"The Good, the Bad, the Ugly" I do not have a Kindle. While at Best Buy, I looked at them, even playing a game of chess with one...

Should be Easy Update

Position from Jobava -- Harikrishna, Riyadh 2018. White to move

Three Tactics Update

A pin, decoy, and fork often work together to exploit an elementary error. Sometimes, exploitation of the error is complex, but it remains r...

Patterns of Contacts Update

Lesson of the Week [A]ny tactical operation no matter how complex, can be described in terms of different combinations of contacts. ...to...