The Problem of Growth
Macedonia's First Chess Blog
by Alex Colovic
3d ago
I don’t write on this blog often and the main reason is the problem of growth and reach. In this post I’d like to give you an idea what I do lately and tell you about my other outlets where I write today. This doesn’t mean that I will close this blog, no way, after all it was this blog that made me somewhat popular in the chess world. I started this blog in 2014 and my weekly newsletter some time after that. I wanted to reach as many people as possible with the hope that my thoughts on chess would be beneficial to them. Now, looking backwards, I see that these attempts were not very successful ..read more
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A Long-Overdue Update
Macedonia's First Chess Blog
by Alex Colovic
5M ago
It’s been very hectic several months since I last wrote. Here’s a recap of what I’ve been doing ever since. In August I played the Segunda Division (the second Spanish league) in the legendary town of Linares. It’s 7-round tournament where I played six games. There is one double-round day and I skip the morning game on that day. I played pretty well, though I have to say that the level of my opposition was unexpectedly high, especially taking into consideration their ratings, which weren’t. My shortest game in Linares was 41 moves long, the longest was 104 moves, with the average being 61 move ..read more
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Shankland’s Shockers
Macedonia's First Chess Blog
by Alex Colovic
8M ago
The World Cup in Baku is well under way and I have already shared my preview and analysis on my Youtube channel, which you can check here. There are many interesting games already, but I was drawn to one episode in particular, because it is something that I can connect to what has happened before. I don’t really know Sam Shankland, we have barely exchanged a few words the one or two times we’ve met. He gave me the impression of being very (in)tense, and I think that these two characteristics have something to do with what I will show you below. I realise that what follows may be entirely wrong ..read more
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Rating Is The Enemy
Macedonia's First Chess Blog
by Alex Colovic
10M ago
Some time ago, I remember a young and promising GM crying on social media, in all seriousness, how the public cannot possibly understand the agonising pain of losing 20 rating points and dropping below 2600. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry from such deification of the rating numbers. And yet, they control us. Everybody is an addict to those numbers, to a bigger or lesser extent. Even Carlsen, who recently said he would like to remain number one with a solid advantage over the rest. We are all trapped inside our own small circles, from the beginners who want to cross 1100 to the elite who ..read more
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Controversy in 1984
Macedonia's First Chess Blog
by Alex Colovic
1y ago
I grew up watching the Karpov-Kasparov matches in the 1980s. As a kid, I was rooting for Kasparov and I remember the joy I felt when I heard the news that he won the last game in Seville and kept his title. When I started playing opens around Europe in the 1990s I encountered several players who were part of Karpov and Kasparov’s camps. Being fascinated by those matches, I never tired of listening to their stories. It was inside information I was craving for and I couldn’t get enough of it. Some of that inside information was controversial. Over the years I picked up bits and pieces of in ..read more
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Grandmasters Misevaluations
Macedonia's First Chess Blog
by Alex Colovic
1y ago
In the past few months I was going over Nigel Short’s games from his book “Winning.” I always liked Nigel and rooted for him in the 80s and 90s as he was the “best from the West” and I was curious to see how far he could go. I find the games in the book very interesting and revealing. One aspect that I found surprising was how sometimes these great players could have bad days and how easily they could be affected by psychological factors.  The following two games are good examples of both of these factors. In the game Short-Timman from Reykjavik 1987, Black obtained a decent position in ..read more
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Carlsen’s Pressure
Macedonia's First Chess Blog
by Alex Colovic
1y ago
Several months passed since Carlsen announced that he will not defend his title next year. The chess public accepted the fact and life moved on. In this post I’d like to give my view on the possible reasons for Carlsen’s decision. When it comes to feeling the pressure and the fear of losing, I think the turning point was his match with Karjakin in 2016. That was the first time that he realistically felt that he could lose the match and the title. The scare was so big, that it left a mark on his psyche, a realisation that the title can depend on a single game and that he was, after all, not inv ..read more
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Fischer a-la Indian
Macedonia's First Chess Blog
by Alex Colovic
1y ago
You probably remember my post on one of Fischer’s original ideas, the move …g5 in the Sicilian/Hedgehog structures. While not completely original, as it most likely was inspired by Morphy’s game, I still think of it as one of his great positional ideas that expanded our knowledge of what is possible in chess. Nobody will be surprised by the move …g5 today, but the talented players still manage to come up with new packaging for the old ideas. Therefore, I was definitely surprised when I saw Fischer’s idea implemented in a typical Najdorf position from the 6.Be2 line. The following pos ..read more
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Why Larsen Lost
Macedonia's First Chess Blog
by Alex Colovic
1y ago
The following text is from my newsletter, to which you can subscribe using the yellow box on the right. The match Fischer-Larsen in Denver 1971 is one of the most famous ones in chess history. It had never happened before, and it will never happen again, that in a match between two top-3 players (Spassky, Fischer and Larsen were top three players in the world then) one beats the other six (!) times in a row and not just anywhere, but in a semi-final Candidates match. The reasons for such a result come from both sides – Fischer was playing almost perfect chess and Larsen had problems. Larsen wr ..read more
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Fischer’s Opening Strategy in Reykjavik
Macedonia's First Chess Blog
by Alex Colovic
1y ago
To mark the 50-year anniversary of Fischer’s triumph in Reykjavik, I am publishing the full text of my analysis of his openings in the “Match of the Century.” It was first published in the September issue of British Chess Magazine and it was based on my previous writing of my weekly newsletter. Let’s start with his openings with the black pieces. Fischer started the match with the Ragozin, a surprising choice as he dropped that opening in 1961, but I am convinced that he was counting on Spassky transposing to a Rubinstein Nimzo-Indian. I am also convinced that he was sure that Spassky, faced w ..read more
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