Playing Against an Outpost

  In the diagram White has an outpost on e5, but Ne5 can always be met by …Nxe5 and after recapturing with the pawn, White’s outpost is gone. White needs to bring another piece to bear on e5, so White to move would play 1.Bg5 and follow it up with Bh4 and Bg3. If on the other hand Black is...

The Philidor Position

The Lucena and Philidor positions are the most important positions to know when it comes to rook and pawn endings. Here we will be looking at the Philidor position, which allows Black to draw against an opponent that is up a pawn. It’s important to note that the Philidor position only works if the...

Secrets of Zen Chess

Secrets of Zen Chess During my chess break, I ran into a friend of mine who loves chess and who had been in Japan doing a 4 week Seshin at a Japanese Zen Monestary.I asked him if he had time to practice his chess while at the monestary, and he told me that he had not, but that he had briefly spoken to a monk...

The Outpost

The diagram shows that White has the center and the d-file. In other respects positions are equal. White with the move will attempt operations on the d-file. This presents difficulties since the protected Black pawn at d6 represents a “granite block”. The key move in this position is 1.Nd5 and...

The Step Method in Chess

I stumbled upon a blog post that mentioned the Step Method in Chess, this piqued my interest and I began to research it further. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of information on the Internet, so I have tried to compile as much as I could find about this chess teaching program. The step-by-step method has...

Chess Training Schedule

Day 1 Study endings (1hr) Solve tactics (30min) Day 2 Study strategy (1hr) Solve endings (30min) Day 3 Play long game (1hr) Solve tactics (30min) Day 4 Solve strategy (1hr) Solve tactics (30min) Day 5 Study openings (1hr) Solve endings (30min) Day 6 Play long game (1hr) Solve tactics (30min) Day 7 Off...