Chess.com has finally given in to the temptation of viral cat videos, cute eyes, and meow meow meow and launched five new cat bots. Scaredy Cat, Angry Cat, Mr. Grumpers, Catspurrov, and Mittens are bots apparently based on internet cat memes. ...
Hey everyone, welcome back - it's been a while since I've posted. Having gone from posting once or twice a month to a completely blank half-year hiatus of blogging has been quite the journey. Life has been a slight obstacle as it tends to be somet...
Some material sacrifices have immediate rewards - could be a tactic, checkmate, material gain, etc. You can calculate most to the end, sacrificing material temporarily for a larger goal. Some sacrifices are intuitive, leading to an attack, a...
For the past few months I've been posting my monthly KID blogs on the brink of removing their monthly status... this time is no different. But summer's coming, and over the next three months, I'm going to try posting as much as possible. Planning ...
Why must I lose to this idiot??? - Aron Nimzowitsch after losing to Friedrich Sämisch in the last round of the 1925 Baden-Baden Tournament with first place on the line Sorry Nimzo, but I don't think we can call him an idiot....
I started posting what I learned and knew about the King's Indian Defense in September of 2021. Over the past half year we've studied and looked at the Classical KID in ten posts. It's time to look back on those posts and see what we learned from ...
Derek felt it all. The pain, the misery, the worry. He couldn't take any of it any more, so finally, after years of contemplation and sleepless nights, he decided to run for it. Overwhelmed by life in King Kayden's kingdom, as a lowly foot soldier...
Today I want to share with you all an absolutely stunning piece of King's Indian artwork. It's the perfect game to demonstrate how to play the KID, going ruthlessly for the white king's throat. First, to revive your memory, we'll be picking up w...
Almost a month into the year, and I've finally figured out my plan for blogging in 2022. This purpose of this post is solely to lay out my design and schedule for my posting in 2022, and to look back on what I've posted since I started. I began ...
The king is a strong piece - use it! - Reuben Fine Especially in the opening! Who doesn't love to see a fianchettoed king on e2, whether it's played by you or your opponent? That's the thing about the Bongcloud: it's bound to be interest...
It all comes down to this. I've adopted the first four of the five holiday bots, and now I have to attempt to adopt the final bot: Holly. Mrs. Claus is rated 2000, and has beaten everyone in the North Pole Chess Club. She's apparently never lost.....
This is where it should start to get hard. People have told me that beating Dash isn't easy. Let's see if they're right. So far I've adopted three of the five holiday bots: Powder, Eve, and Santa. They've all fell relatively easily. I'm hoping t...
I wish we could all multitask as well as Santa can. How does he manage to direct elves, maintain the reindeer, watch us all when we're sleeping, put us on the naughty and nice lists, eat cookies, and most importantly for us, play chess, all at the...
Yesterday I adopted Powder the Snowman quite convincingly. Today I need to win ten games against Eve the Elf, who is supposedly at the same level as a 1000 rated human. As far as I've seen, computers with ratings don't play like humans of the same...
It's that time of year again. Christmas trees are going up, presents are being bought... and chess.com's holiday bots are back! I'm going to try to adopt each of the five bots: Powder, Eve, Santa, Dash, and Holly. You can read more about each of...
PART 2: 13. Rc1 (the Kožul Gambit) Check out my post on how to play this line here - The Mar del Plata Attack: The Kožul Gambit. Game 1: FM Orel Oskar (2311) vs. GM Milan Vukic (2460) All of these games actually will...
We've learned how to play the Neo-Classical. Now let's analyze how masters play it. We'll learn from them, move by move, best move or mistake, and understand what is being played and why. Without further ado, let's look at our games for the main l...
Today we will be ending our journey through the Neo-Classical variation of the Mar del Plata! We've studied 13. a4, the main line, and 13. Rc1 with the Kožul Gambit so far. Now we will look at two of of the more less-common 13th moves, 13. Nd3&nbs...
13. Rc1 is the second most played 13th move in the Neo-Classical right behind the main line, 13. a4, which we covered in the last post. This post, if you noticed, is titled The Kožul Gambit, and not 13. Rc1. That's because the plan behind 13....
We're going to continue looking at the Neo-Classical line of the KID, starting on the 13th move. Last time I gave the four 13th moves that we are going to look at, and we will start with the most common and main line: 13. a4 This is the mo...
There is a whole lot to cover in the King's Indian Defense, let alone the Mar del Plata Attack, and within the Mar del Plata there are many, many lines to consider. We're going to look at them one by one, starting with the most common and popular ...
I clearly remember the first time I played the KID. It was actually pretty recently that I started playing it, around the beginning of this year. That first game instantly glued me to the opening. Being honest, that game was of very low quality. M...
