In chess, there are three fundamental opening principles: it is either (1) classical, (2) hypermodern, or (3) modern. There have been many arguments throughout the years whether a differentiation is valid, after all the history of their creation is vague. There are some people that deny the existence of such opening principles, claiming that they…
Wesley So is one of the most underrated super grandmasters out there. If you are thinking about the most popular chess players, it is likely that Wesley is not included. This is so weird since he had many victories against his contemporaries. He had even beaten Magnus Carlsen himself in the first world chess championship…
Hikaru Nakamura is one of the most famous chess influencers right now. If you like chess and don’t know about Hikaru then you must be living under a rock. The guy alone almost doubled the overall interest in chess. People want to know everything about this grandmaster, they love him so much. Despite this, a…
When it comes to youtube channels about chess, two names come up more than anything. It is really either Agadmator or Gotham Chess. There is also Hikaru’s youtube channel, but I do believe that he attracts a different kind of audience than these two. I think that Agadmator and Gothamchess are still the foundation of…
Ruy Lopez, Sicilian defense, Queen’s gambit declined, you are probably familiar with these openings. How can you not be? It is something that you’d literally encounter every other game on lichess or chess.com, it is like being repeated on replay. Playing against these openings over and over again has an unintended consequence though, which is…
Classical is the default time control in chess. This is something that you would know after watching a couple of chess tournaments, it seems that people respect the classical format more than any other time control. Rapid, blitz, and bullet seems to be a sideshow, it is always about who is the best on classical….
Chess is probably one of the oldest games there is. It has a centuries long record full of twists and turns. The game has not been updated for centuries, yet people are still finding new ways to approach it everyday. Due to its complication, there have been many events and meta (most effective tactics available)…
Chess is complicated, this is a fact. There are so many pieces that each have unique movements (plus the pawns). There are also weird rules such as en passant, castling, pawn promotion, threefold repetition, stalemate, etc. No wonder why most people spend a lot of time thinking about every move, they have to consider a…
Winning a chess game comes from having two things: it is either when you have the material advantage or you have the activity advantage. Material advantage is obvious, it is when you have captured more pieces or pawns than your opponent hence having more units to use in the game. Piece activity is much more…
Chess hosts many time controls that would limit the player’s thinking time. It used to be that people would just play chess without any time limit, this unfair for one main reason. One could spend seconds thinking about a move and lose to a player that thinks for an eternity. The time control makes it…
