Me and meditation? Bad relationship.We just didn’t click. I tried the apps.Tried the gurus on YouTube.Dropped $500 on a fancy gadget, which I threw away after two weeks.Even went to a temple in Thailand, and sat with monks. Peace never c...
I was halfway through a movie a few months ago when I paused it.Not because my parrot started talking again.Not because someone called me. I paused because something felt… off.Like I was in the front row of Hell Airlines, being pulled int...
“Is the Universe Friendly?” At first, I didn’t get the question. Is the Universe what? Friendly? What does that even mean? I dismissed it… until I learned it came from Einstein. Then I paused. Not a theory. No...
Would you love to have strong openings, memorize your variations, understand the plans, and be ready for the middlegame transition? Sounds like a dream? Actually, it's absolutely achievable. I’ll tell you how to do it. But before...
I wrote this a year ago but never dared to share it. You might appreciate my honesty—or you might judge me. But the message is too important to keep to myself. So, I drank some lion’s milk and hit publish. I hope that even if it ...
Even though I stopped playing chess professionally over 10 years ago, the lessons I learned from the game continue to shape my life. As I turned 36 a few days ago, I reflected on these lessons and put together a list of 36 insights that chess ha...
He made my day… and then immediately unmade it. At breakfast with the team a few days ago, our tech lead announced he’s set on raising his rating by 400 points in 2025 — from 1,300 to 1,700. I loved it! With his drive ...
We all started because of the LOVE for the game, but over time, we often get caught up in ratings, rankings, and external goals. What if we could give up all the pressure and rediscover the pure joy chess once gave us? Maybe that joy will bring ...
Are you familiar with this feeling?You look at the board. At your pieces. At your opponent.And you find yourself asking, “Okay. What’s next? What should I do? What should be my plan?” Or at the end of the game, your friend, coa...
They thought I was strange and crazy.I thought there was a virus in their souls. I didn’t have friends in school, and I didn’t care. But what is true is true.I wanted to spend time with girls. It took me time to hack the co...
Stoics and Zen masters would be proud of me if they saw my inner peace and the level of stillness I was in. But they would die from laughing if they saw how after a few hours I got so angry, that I threw my phone into the garbage basket. Every...
“In 1959, Floyd Patterson put his title on the line to fight Ingemar Johansson. Although he trained hard for the fight, there was something missing in Patterson’s camp as the day approached. Maybe it was hunger. Maybe it w...
Years ago I was walking with GM Levon Aronian, and he said something interesting: “Mike Tyson was THE Mike Tyson because of his fear. He was afraid of his opponents. And he would use that fear to train very hard, to analyze his opponents v...
They didn’t have any Grandmasters. They didn’t even have an International Master. The average rating of the team was around 2,200 and then there was this 11-year-old kid hanging around. He was about 1,600. It was the Thailand ...
“That’s a brilliant technique! You should write an article on this, Avo.”,- James Altucher, author of the bestseller “Skip the Line,” where he teaches different nice techniques for max speeding learning. And h...
Karpov, Kasparov, Ivanchuk, and Kramnik were playing just ten meters away from me. The 32nd Chess Olympiad was in Yerevan, Armenia. I was seven years old, and with my father, every day, we would go there to watch the games. I remember only one o...
I was pedaling my blue car in our yard as fast as I could.Our neighbour stopped me:“Kid, are you Schumacher? Go slower. There are lots of cars in our yard.” It was something like this, a bit older 😊 I got confused and ran home.&ldq...
How often do you get a winning position, but then you’re unable to win it? When at the end of the game, you’re like, “Ah… I was so close to winning…” Familiar feeling? Well, you’re not alone. Many...
On Feb 15, we turned 6. Six years... Madre mia! To say it was a perfect and smooth journey would be a big lie. We had ups and downs, survived clinical deaths a few times, and had many good and bad days. But every time we went through it, we...
Many of us play online chess or friendly games with our sparring partners. The question is – which time control in chess should you choose? A blitz time format or 60-minute game?With increment or without? Is bullet (1+0) a good time con...
Have you heard this joke? A man goes to a bar and orders a bottle of whiskey. After emptying it, he asks for another one and then one more. After the 3rd bottle, totally drunk, he decides to eat a sandwich. A few minutes later, the man, totall...
"To get what you want, you have to deserve what you want. The world is not yet a crazy enough place to reward a whole bunch of undeserving people." ~ Charlie Munger I was inspired by this quote and by the book "Poor Charlie's Almanack", to ...
“Appreciate everything, even the ordinary. Especially the ordinary.” — Pema Chödrön A week ago, IM Eric Rosen and I were discussing (the episode comes out soon) the crucial impact of early fans and supporters. While...
"Winners never quit, and quitters never win."Vince Lombardi During my life, I’ve seen so many people who stopped playing chess after their first painful defeat, and till now, over and over again, I hear stories like: “In ...
I have known this guy since my childhood. He’s the world champion and the smartest person in the world. He thinks so. He’s the world champion of arrogance. One day he finally confessed:“I’m not the smartest person anymore...
