How should parents and chess coaches respond to the triumphs and setbacks of their children and pupils when they compete in chess tournaments? In regard to this intricate matter, this is my point of view. My top priority is to ensure that my son takes pleasure in all aspects of the chess experience, including playing the game, studying it, and participating in tournaments. There have been far too many occasions in which I have witnessed parents and coaches yelling at their children because of a losing game. It’s a shame that some of these children were so terrified that they couldn’t hold back ..read more

Chess is a game of logic. It’s just you, your ideas, and your feelings when you’re at the board. For professional tournament players, possessing the proper psychology in such a situation is crucial. It doesn’t matter how much you practice your endgame, combinational, and opening knowledge—if you can’t get in the appropriate frame of mind, it will be very difficult to get better at the game. In light of this, renowned psychiatrist and counselor Dr. Shrirang Joshi offers us three suggestions that we can use before, during, and after the game. These are straightforward instructions that are simpl ..read more

It will take a lot of studying and practicing to become a chess champion. To get you started, consider the following 10 suggestions: KNOW THE MOVIES Each chess piece has a limited range of movement. For instance, a pawn can only attack one square at a time from an angle while moving straight forward. The movement of a knight is in the form of an L. The bishop can travel more than one square at once, but only at an angle. The rook (castle) can only move forward, backward, or to the side in a straight line. The most potent piece, the queen, can travel in any direction for any quantity of squares ..read more

We will continue to look at common unpleasant situations that arise when facing lower rated opponents and how to overcome them. In part I we examined what to do when your opponent plays for a draw — in this article we will look at how to beat your lower rated opponent when they play better than expected and when you shoot yourself in the foot. 2.Opponent Plays Better Than Expected We all know the feeling; you are playing down expecting an easy game, but to your surprise your opponent finds all the right moves and even finds strong ideas you didn’t  see yourself. You start getting nervous and ..read more

Introduction One often measures his or her chess improvement by results against stronger players; many players (I was a victim of this type of thinking myself) when they beat someone say 200 points higher rated feel like they are improving and not too far from reaching that rating themselves, but when they lose to someone 200 rating points lower feel like it was just a fluke and nothing to worry about. The more I think about it, the more convinced I become that consistency is the key to long-term improvement. Being able to consistently beat lower rated players can have as big of a positive eff ..read more

I’m back! The past couple months were pretty busy for me with school, an interesting machine learning project, and of course chess. After all, summer is the main chess season for Americans. Time to get back to where I left off! This year, I spent my Easter weekend at the Foxwoods Resort and Casino, playing in the Foxwoods Open. 5 rounds, 4 foreigners, and 3 GMs into the tournament, I had 4/5 and a 2600+ FIDE performance. Everything was simply going great! Then in round 6, I faced a setback by losing to GM Hovhannes Gabuzyan (2620 FIDE, 2711 USCF) with black. Out of a non-theoretical but equal ..read more

Welcome to the third and final part of my coverage on the Forni di Sopra in Italy last month where I scored my 4th GM norm. This will cover what happened after round 5. I’d just gotten past the double round day on Tuesday 6/18 (with a bit of mixed fortune). Was still doing well, with 3.5/5 and performing close to FIDE 2600, though bouncing back from losing with the white pieces can be tough. Sure enough I was “playing up again”. On 6/19 I got paired as black against a FIDE 25 hundred Italian GM. This happens to be someone who I’d played once and beaten, as white in a European tournament at the ..read more

Continuing, from my first part of this article a few days ago. Incidentally, in my Ivanchuk game I failed to put the game moves 40 and 41 in bold. You probably were still able to follow and in any case I just edited it. Sorry about the typo. Anyone is welcome to use my game against Ivanchuk and annotate it themselves (for a site, or whatever) if they wish, even borrow my notes as desired, as I bet there are more things to say about this crazy game! Before I proceed with my next games, think I left out something on a personal note. Remember the first article I wrote, for this site? htt ..read more

Italy has been like a rating haven for me. Can just about claim I’ve found my niche, in a chess tournament context. My first tournament in Italy was almost exactly a year ago: The Ad Gredine Open, in a beautiful area of the Dolomites. That tournament officially began my upward climb, after what was perhaps my longest slump. Finished strongly there, with 2 good wins against GMs. Since then, I’ve gone back to play in Italy 4 more times, including this most recent one. My relatively worst of the bunch was Rome last December, where I gained 3 points and still played a few strong games! Not qu ..read more

Hi everyone!  This post will be different from most of my others.  I’m not exactly going over any games.  Frankly, the title probably tells you enough. In contrast to the other three original Chess^Summit authors, I’m only now able to say this:  I’m officially done with high school! Starting next fall, I’ll be attending the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, GA, USA. My plans in terms of writing for Chess^Summit will not change – I still plan on writing articles for the Chess^Summit community.  The biggest difference will probably be in terms of over-the-board play.  In all honesty, I ..read more