Category Archives: Lectures

To be really good at chess you just need to ... What does time in chess really mean? Well, the simplest way to think of it is just 'what would happen if I got to move twice in a row? Or even more?' When you force the opponent to move

Read more...

Think of this as 'supercalifragilisticexpialadocious' for chess. The mysticism of this made up word is about equal to the mysticism of finding the right move order sometimes! Everyone - including high level GMs - has gotten the move order wrong. Lots of chess tactics exercises require you to find the

Read more...

Can you find good candidate moves without a plan? Supposedly you can, as evaluating a position should simply lead you to looking at whatever candidate moves are available. But - there are moves and then there are MOVES! The same candidate moves are available to our eyeballs as to any

Read more...

This evening we are going to look at early chess theory as it began to come together in the work of the first two world champions, Steinitz and Lasker. “When you see a good move, look for a better one” ~ Emanuel Lasker Before we jump into some great comments

Read more...

This evening is our second venture into the Dawn of Modern Chess. We're going to get into our Way-Back machine again and hop into history. We'll be visiting Wilhelm Steinitz, first world champion, to see if can pick his brain a little bit. Steinitz was really the first important theoretician of

Read more...

Here is the game between Nunn and Seirawan, Lugano 1983 that we looked at: How many of us would have thought of N:d5 to destroy the black pawn chain?? But the title 'Two Move Twister' refers to how shallow many of the tactics were in the game (many threats were

Read more...

'roger rabbit' = 'what's your habit' for not blundering?

Tonight's lecture is not so much a lecture as it is some time to play with a few practical goals in mind - and I kept it secret so that no one could go 'book up' in advance. We're gonna work on blunders again in a new way and we're

Read more...

Boy I wish I were a GM. I'd be famous, I'd have hot babes following me around and get *paid* to play chess...! Can you visualize that? O, I can! Have you ever had a chess dream? Chess is *not* just calculation - it's dreaming in patterns and trends while

Read more...