New Poll – How Do You Prefer to Study Chess?

Since I am always curious about how other players study the game in this day and age, I created a new poll to vote on this. Please leave a comment if your answer is not among the options!

Overlooked Queen Sacrifice

Angelwette – Jiganchine, 1998
Black played 31… cxd4 and after 32.Bh6 Qc5 – eventually Black won.
What did both players miss after 31… cxd4 ?

Chess Tactics of the Month - January 2014 - Part 3

Video with fragments from my ebook with best combinations from January 2014:

Chess News - World Champion Magnus Carlsen gives away 3 Draws at the Simul in Moscow

You might be surprised to hear in the news that Magnus Carlsen gives away 3 Draws at Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology Chess Simul ,especially given that the Simul was on only 13 boards. However this is one of the most prestigious technical universities in Russia, so to me this is not surprising at all, and is a bit reminiscent of the Bob Wade simul, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_records_in_chess

The worst result in a simultaneous exhibition given by a master occurred in 1951, when International Master Robert Wade gave a simultaneous exhibition against 30 Russian schoolboys, aged 14 and under. After 7 hours of play, Wade had lost 20 games and drawn the remaining 10 (16.7%)

Chess Tactics of the Month - January 2014 - Part 2

Video with fragments from my ebook with best combinations from January 2014:

Chess Questions - Is there a freely available online 7 piece Endgame tablebase?

Scanning through chess.stackexchange.com website for recent chess-related questions, I came across the following post that I'd also like to pose to the readers of this blog:

Is there a freely available online 7 piece Endgame tablebase?:
The only 7 piece site I heard about is http://tb7.chessok.com/ , and upon registration I am able to setup various positions with 2-6 pieces . However as soon as I setup a position with 7 piece, I get an error about service not being avaiable. Has anyone had better luck or know of any other site with 7 pieces tablebases?

7 piece endgame tablebases solve the mystery of many theoretical endgames, for example Rook endgames with 2 pawns vs. 1, which can be quite tactical if the pawns are on different flanks.

Chess Tactics of the Month - January 2014 - Part 1

Video with fragments from my ebook with best combinations from January 2014:

Chess Position Trainer 5 Manual Available

99.9 % of the content on this blog consists of my original posts, but occasionally it makes sense to share news from other websites that I subscribe to. Today's update comes from ChessPosition Trainer website:Chess Position Trainer 5 Manual Available