Inspired by Morphy Update

Lesson of the Week This week's lesson for advanced students features part of a complex struggle that reveals how Yasser Seirawan was i...

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...

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,...

Breaking Down Tactics Update

Some tactics training sessions are long; others short. Yesterday morning, I attempted three problems on Tactic Trainer on my iPad. This app...

Here we go again! Update

Finding the study by Leonid Kubbel (see " One by Leonid Kubbel ") in Tal's Winning Chess Combinations (1979), sent me back in...

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...

A Greco Miniature Update

Lesson of the Week Most of the games of Gioachino Greco (1600-1634) are miniatures (games lasting few moves, 20-25 moves being the longest t...