Mark's Chess Blog

'Think like a chess player'. The analogy is used everywhere and is overwhelmingly positive. What does it mean? Chess players will recognize their own approach to chess in many of ... Read More

A series of 12 charming French postcards illustrate basic tactical themes in chess. Follow the Suggested Reading links below each image to find out more about the tactic illustrated ... Read More

In Christmas Tree Puzzle, your About Chess Guide wishes you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. And don't forget to solve the puzzle. It's not as easy as you might think : ... Read More

Levon Aronian of Armenia, the no.3 seed with a pre-tournament rating of 2724, beat Ruslan Ponomariov of the Ukraine (no.9, 2704) to capture first place at the FIDE World Cup, ... Read More

What's hot? What's not? Here are ten chess openings all players should be familiar with. Are you? Since the most popular first move in chess is 1.e4, it follows that ... Read More

In Chess Video on the Anti-French, polgarfan says, 'I found this new blog that has a cool animated flash chess video with audio commentary. It's potential is great as a teaching tool.' ... Read More

Here are more excerpts from interviews with the players at the 2005 FIDE World Cup, Khanty-Mansiysk (Siberia), Russia. See the official site (linked after the excerpts) for the full interviews. Zurab Azmaiparashvili (seeded ... Read More

A couple of months ago we noticed an eBay auction offering some of the items from Bobby Fischer's infamous storage locker. After the auction closed prematurely, we assumed that someone ... Read More

There is only way to judge an opening book: by using it in competition. Some considerations have to do with the author's chess knowledge. Other considerations have more to do ... Read More

It doesn't matter whether your favorite phase of a chess game is the opening, the middle game, or the endgame; everyone likes to talk about openings. Here are three recent ... Read More

The official site of the 2005 FIDE World Cup, Khanty-Mansiysk (Siberia), Russia, has been posting interviews with many of the 128 players. Here are some comments that caught our eye. See ... Read More

Buying a gift for a chess player is almost as easy as learning how to play the game. No real chess player ever has enough chess sets or enough chess ... Read More

To keep track of the action in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, we started the thread FIDE World Cup 2005 • Frequent forum contributor xplorxplor, better known to his friends as xplor, is keeping track of ... Read More

What's new on the World Championship front? In November we had the World Team Championship and the World Junior Championship. Congratulations to all newly crowned winners! World Team Championship Organized every four ... Read More