|
Alapin–Diemer Gambit
The French Defence is a chess opening characterised by the moves: :1. e4 e6 This is most commonly followed by 2.d4 d5. Black usually plays ...c5 soon after, attacking White's and gaining on the . The French has a reputation for solidity and resilience, although some lines such as the Winawer Variation can lead to complications. Black's position is often somewhat in the early game; in particular, the pawn on e6 can impede the of the bishop on c8, known by many players as the French bishop. Basics Following the opening moves 1.e4 e6, the main line of the French Defence continues 2.d4 d5 (see below for alternatives). White sets up a , which Black immediately challenges by attacking the pawn on e4. The same position can be reached by transposition from a Queen's Pawn Game after 1.d4 e6 2.e4 d5 or the declining of a Blackmar–Diemer Gambit after 1.d4 d5 2.e4 e6. White's options include defending the e4-pawn with 3.Nc3 or 3.Nd2, advancing it with 3.e5, or exchanging it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
King's Pawn Game
The King's Pawn Game is any chess opening starting with the move: : 1. b:Chess Opening Theory/1. e4, e4 It is the most popular opening move in chess, followed by 1.d4, the Queen's Pawn Game. Principles White opens with the most popular of the twenty possible opening moves. Since nearly all openings beginning 1.e4 have names of their own, the term ''King's Pawn Game,'' unlike Queen's Pawn Game, is rarely used to describe the opening of the game. Advancing the king's pawn two squares is highly useful because it occupies a square, attacks the center square d5, and allows the of White's and queen (chess), queen. Bobby Fischer said that the King's Pawn Game is "Best by test", and proclaimed that "With 1.e4! I win." Opening categorization and continuations King's Pawn Games are further classified by whether Black responds with b:Chess Opening Theory/1. e4/1...e5, 1...e5 or not. Openings beginning with b:Chess Opening Theory/1. e4, 1.e4 b:Chess Opening Theory/1. e4/1...e5, e5 are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aron Nimzowitsch
Aron Nimzowitsch (; , ''Aron Isayevich Nimtsovich''; 7 November 1886 – 16 March 1935) was a Latvian-born Danish chess player and writer. In the late 1920s, Nimzowitsch was one of the best chess players in the world. He was the foremost figure amongst the hypermoderns and wrote a very influential book on chess theory: '' My System'' (1925–1927). Nimzowitsch's seminal work ''Chess Praxis'', originally published in German in 1929, was purchased by a pre-teen and future World Champion Tigran Petrosian and was to have a great influence on his development as a chess player. Life Born in Riga, then part of the Russian Empire, the Jewish Yiddish-speaking Nimzowitsch came from a wealthy family, where he learned chess from his father Shaya Abramovich Nimzowitsch (1860, Pinsk – 1918), who was a timber merchant. By 1897, the family lived in Dvinsk. Mother's name: Esphir Nohumovna Nimzowitsch (born Rabinovich, 1865, Polotsk – 1937), sister – Tsilya-Kreyna Pevzner, broth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amos Burn
Amos Burn (31 December 1848 – 25 November 1925) was an English chess player, one of the world's leading players at the end of the 19th century, and a chess writer. Burn was born on New Year's Eve, 1848, in Hull.Richard Forster, ''Amos Burn: A Chess Biography'', McFarland & Company, 2004, p. 17. . As a teenager he moved to Liverpool, becoming apprenticed to a firm of shipowners and merchants. He learned chess only at the relatively late age of 16. He later took chess lessons from future World Champion Wilhelm Steinitz in London, and, like his teacher, became known for his superior defensive ability.Forster 2004, p. 9. Aron Nimzowitsch, in his book ''The Praxis of My System'', named Burn one of the world's six greatest defensive players. Although never a professional chess player, Burn had a long career of playing tournaments and writing. In 1913, Leopold Hoffer, the editor for over 30 years of the chess column in '' The Field'', the leading chess column in Great Britain, die ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rafael Vaganian
Rafael Artemovich Vaganian (, , ''Rafael Artemovich Vaganyan''; born 15 October 1951) is an Armenian chess player holding the title of grandmaster (GM). He was Soviet champion in 1989. Chess career Vaganian achieved his Grandmaster title in 1971, at the age of 19. This followed an excellent result at the Vrnjacka Banja tournament the same year, where he took first place ahead of Leonid Stein and Ljubomir Ljubojević. It was also the year that he finished fourth at the World Junior Chess Championship, a competition won by the Swiss player Werner Hug. His international tournament record includes victories at Kragujevac 1974, São Paulo 1977, Kirovakan 1978, Las Palmas 1979, Manila 1981, Hastings 1982/83, Biel 1985 (the Interzonal), Leningrad 1987, Toronto 1990 and Ter Apel 1992. At Moscow 1982 and Tallinn 1983, he shared first place with Mikhail Tal and at Næstved 1985 with Walter Browne and Bent Larsen. He won the Reggio Emilia chess tournament twice, on the occasio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mikhail Tal
Mikhail Tal (9 November 1936 – 28 June 1992) was a Soviet and Latvian chess player and the eighth World Chess Champion. He is considered a creative genius and is widely regarded as Comparison of top chess players throughout history, one of the most influential players in chess history. Tal played in an attacking and daring combinatorial style. His play was known above all for improvisation and unpredictability. Vladislav Zubok said of him, "Every game for him was as inimitable and invaluable as a poem". His nickname was "Misha (name), Misha", a diminutive for Michael (given name), Mikhail, and he earned the nickname "The Magician from Riga". Both ''The Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games'' and ''Modern Chess Brilliancies'' include more games by Tal than any other player. He also held the record for the longest unbeaten streak in competitive chess history with 95 games (46 wins, 49 draws) between 23 October 1973 and 16 October 1974, until Ding Liren's streak o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rashid Nezhmetdinov
Rashid Gibyatovich Nezhmetdinov (, Tatar: '', Räşit Hibät ulı Näcmetdinov''; ; 15 December 1912 – 3 June 1974) was a Soviet chess player, chess writer, International Master and checkers player. Although he never attained the title of Grandmaster, he was a renowned tactician and created several brilliant games. Biographer Alex Pishkin compares him to Chigorin, Réti and Spielmann. Early life Nezhmetdinov was born in Aktubinsk, Russian Empire, in what is now Aktobe, Kazakhstan, to a Tatar family. His parents were "worked to death" when he was still very young, rendering him (and his two siblings) an orphan. (His older brother Kavi Nadzhmi became a notable Tatar poet during Soviet Times). Nezhmetdinov was then sent to live with his uncle, in a small town on the banks of the Volga river. From 1918-1923, the Russian Civil War devastated the region, particularly with the introduction of the '' Prodrazvyorstka'' policy, a system whereby peasants' foodgrain was confiscat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bobby Fischer
Robert James Fischer (March 9, 1943January 17, 2008) was an American Grandmaster (chess), chess grandmaster and the eleventh World Chess Championship, World Chess Champion. A chess prodigy, he won his first of a record eight US Chess Championship, US Championships at the age of 14. In 1964, he won with an 11–0 score, the only perfect score in the history of the tournament. Qualifying for the World Chess Championship 1972, 1972 World Championship, Fischer swept matches with Mark Taimanov and Bent Larsen by 6–0 scores. After winning another qualifying match against Tigran Petrosian, Fischer won the title match against Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union, USSR, in Reykjavík, Iceland. Publicized as a Cold War confrontation between the US and USSR, the match attracted more worldwide interest than any chess championship before or since. In 1975, Fischer World Chess Championship 1975, refused to defend his title when an agreement could not be reached with FIDE, chess's internat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vasily Smyslov
Vasily Vasilyevich Smyslov (; 24 March 1921 – 27 March 2010) was a Soviet and Russian chess grandmaster who was the seventh World Chess Champion from 1957 to 1958. He was a Candidates Tournament, Candidate for the World Chess Championship on eight occasions (1948, 1950, 1953, 1956, 1959, 1965, 1983, and 1985). Smyslov twice tied for first place at the USSR Chess Championships (1949, 1955), and his total of 17 Chess Olympiad medals won is an all-time record. In five European Team Championships, Smyslov won ten gold medals. Smyslov remained active and successful in competitive chess well after the age of sixty. Despite his failing eyesight, he remained active in the occasional composition of chess problems and studies until shortly before his death in 2010. Besides chess, he was an accomplished baritone singer. Early years Smyslov was born in Moscow, into a Russians, Russian family. He first became interested in chess at the age of six. His father, Vasily Osipovich Smyslov, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Judit Polgár
Judit Polgár (born 23 July 1976) is a Hungarian Grandmaster (chess), chess grandmaster, widely regarded as the Strong (chess), strongest female chess player of all time. In 1991, Polgár achieved the title of Grandmaster at the age of 15 years and 4 months, at the time the youngest to have done so, breaking the record previously held by former world champion Bobby Fischer. She was the youngest player ever to break into the FIDE top 100 players rating list, ranking No. 55 in the January 1989 rating list, at the age of 12. Polgár is the only woman to have been a serious candidate for the World Chess Championship, in which she participated in FIDE World Chess Championship 2005, 2005; she had previously participated in large, 100-player-plus knockout tournaments for the world championship. She is also the only woman to have surpassed 2700 Elo rating system, Elo, reaching a peak world ranking of No. 8 in 2004 and peak rating of 2735 in 2005. She is the only woman to be ranked in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poisoned Pawn Variation
The Poisoned Pawn Variation is any of several series of opening moves in chess in which a pawn is said to be "poisoned" because its capture can result in a positional loss of or a loss of . Sicilian Defense, Najdorf The best known of these, called the Poisoned Pawn Variation, is a line of the Sicilian Defense, Najdorf Variation that begins with the moves: :1. e4 c5 :2. Nf3 d6 :3. d4 cxd4 :4. Nxd4 Nf6 :5. Nc3 a6 :6. Bg5 e6 :7. f4 Qb6 after which 8.Qd2 Qxb2 usually follows, accepting the "poisoned" b2-pawn. White can also play 8.Nb3, protecting the pawn. One of the pioneers of this line was David Bronstein, who tied the 1951 World Championship match against Mikhail Botvinnik 12–12. Bobby Fischer later became a proponent, playing it with great success. The line was most famously played in game 7 and game 11 of the 1972 World Chess Championship match between Fischer and Spassky. In both games Fischer played Black and grabbed the pawn. In the first ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Doubled Pawns
In chess, doubled pawns are two pawns of the same color residing on the same file. Pawns can become doubled only when one pawn captures onto a file on which another friendly pawn resides. In the diagram, the white pawns on the b-file and e-file are doubled. The pawns on the are doubled and isolated. In most cases, doubled pawns are considered a weakness due to their inability to defend each other. This inability, in turn, makes it more difficult to achieve a breakthrough which could create a passed pawn (often a deciding factor in endgames). In the case of isolated doubled pawns, these problems are only further aggravated. Several chess strategies and openings are based on burdening the opponent with doubled pawns, a strategic weakness. There are, however, cases where accepting doubled pawns can be advantageous because doing so may open up a file for a rook, or because the doubled pawns perform a useful function, such as defending important squares. Also, if the opponent i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pin (chess)
In chess, a pin is a tactic in which a defending piece cannot move out of an attacking piece's line of attack without exposing a more valuable defending piece. Moving the attacking piece to effect the pin is called ''pinning''; the defending piece restricted by the pin is described as ''pinned''. Only a piece that can move any number of squares along a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal line (i.e. a bishop, rook, or queen) can pin. Any piece can be pinned except the king. The pin is one of the most powerful chess tactics. The inverse of a pin is a ''skewer'', in which a more valuable piece under direct attack may move to expose a less valuable piece to an attack. Types Absolute pin An ''absolute pin'' is one where the piece shielded by the pinned piece is the king. In this case it is illegal to move the pinned piece out of the line of attack, as that would place one's king in check (see diagram). A piece pinned in this way can still give check or defend another piece fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
