We’ve all heard the saying, “No combination exists without a positional advantage.” I’ve struggled with implementing that for years, and I’ve given up. While the statement is quite probably true (at least I’m not going to dispute it) I’ve come to the conclusion it’s also quite useless as advice.
It’s a lot like the adage “there’s [...]

Over at the Chess Cafe (I’d provide a link to it, but Hanon Russell doesn’t appear to believe in permalinks, so any link I’d provide here would break in short order, hence there’s no point in doing so) Mark Dvoretsky has written an excellent piece on the place of opening preparation in the development of [...]

I’ve been spending some time the last couple of years teaching chess classes (numbering from 5 to 36 kids). I have used both major databases in support of that goal, and I’ve been getting more and more annoyed with them. They both have some drawbacks, and I’d fully switch to one that lacked those drawbacks.
Here [...]