Falkbeer Counter-gambit



The Falkbeer Counter-Gambit is one of the most aggressive openings for black. It is a direct counter attack against the King's Gambit of white. One of the great things about this counter is that it destroys all the lines that a king's gambit player may have planned on using. There are also lots of traps that white will have to look out for as his king is very exposed even after the second move.

One of the key things to remember in the falkbeer counter-gambit is king safety. Many games do not last more than 30 moves as it becomes a slugfest, decided by whoever can get to the other king first. There is not any slow developing moves in the falkbeer counter-gambit. It is usually complete chaos. If you like chaos and you like to play very aggressive then this is a great defense if you find a player that favors the king's gambit.

Recommended Links

kosteniuk.com


Play Chess Online for FREE!

chessblog.com

chessdailynews.com

sofiapolgar.com

thechesswebsite.com

jrobichess.com


Make your own banner at MyBannerMaker.com!

Caro-Kann Defense

The Caro-Kann Defense is one of the most popular openings in response to the King's Pawn Opening of 1.e4. Black responds with 1....c6 with the idea of thrusting forward with d5 on the next move, attacking the white central pawn on e4. The Caro-Kann Defense is one of the few defenses in chess where black can reach equality in the main line and many people would consider black to have a better position, especially in the end game when the main line is played out. This is usually because black does not compromise his pawn structure and will usually have an easier end game.

There are many variations in the caro kann but the main line continues with 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Bf5. This is an important setup that all caro kann players should look at and understand. Many times a caro kann opening can transpose into a french defense but when the main line plays out, black usually has a pawn on c6. Black will then bring out his light squared bishop and eventually play e6 (usually played after the light square bishop is out so it is not blocked in). With the pawn on c6, black usually decides to bring his knight to d7 and support the future knight that is on f6. Black can bring his queen to c7 while his dark square bishop has many lines and is not blocked in by the pawns.

If the caro-kann does not follow the main lines it usually takes on a french defense so I would recommend studying up on the french defense if you want to play the caro-kann. The caro-kann is not a flashy opening and it's not super aggressive. The caro-kann is, however, a very sound defense that can lead to an advantage for black near the later stages of a chess match. For those players that have a firm foundation of pawn structure and end game strategies I definitely recommend employing this in your chess games.




Play Chess Online for FREE!

Budapest Gambit

The Budapest Gambit is one of the least common gambits but still offers black a lot of interesting play. In the main line for example, white can easily fall into a trap that ends in checkmate very early in the game.

In the second move, black looks to give up his pawn on e5 but then starts to develop of his pieces to add pressure on the e5 pawn. White will be unable to hold onto the extra pawn and therefore many times will just give back the pawn and continue to develop pieces and not worry about the pawn advantage.

In most gambits, the side giving up material will dictate how the game continues, in the budapest gambit it is usually white that decides how the game will continue. In the main line it is white that can decide whether to stay up in material and have doubled pawns or to give back the pawn and have a double bishop pair. This is not to say it is still not playable for black, but white does have more options in the budapest than in other gambits.


Play Chess Online for FREE!

G7 Drawn After Tough Fight

The seventh game of the World Championship match in Sofia, Bulgaria also ended in a draw. Challenger Veselin Topalov showed impressive opening preparation and put the World Champion under considerable pressure. However, Anand defended accurately and perhaps even missed a win after the time control.


Free online chess!

Former FIDE President Campomanes Dies At 83

Florencio Campomanes died today in the Philippines. This was confirmed to us by FIDE Treasurer Nigel Freeman. Campomanes was FIDE President from 1982 to 1995. He was 83.

Campomanes was born Manila, February 22, 1927. He earned his B.A. in Political Science from the University of the Philippines in 1948. Then, he studied at Brown University (Providence, Rhode Island), where he earned his M.A. in 1951. He undertook doctoral studies at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., from 1949-54.

He was a National Master strength player during his peak years, and was Philippine national champion on two occasions (1956, 1960). He represented his country at five Chess Olympiads: Moscow 1956, Munich 1958, Leipzig 1960, Varna 1962, and Havana 1966. He met some distinguished opposition as a result, losing games against Pal Benko and Ludek Pachman at Moscow 1956, Oscar Panno at Munich 1958, Mikhail Tal and Miguel Najdorf at Leipzig 1960, and Lev Polugaevsky at Havana 1966.

He became involved in FIDE as a national delegate, and worked his way into prominence in Asian chess organization. Campomanes helped to organize the World Championship match at Baguio, Philippines, in 1978, between Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi.

He is best remembered as the President of the international chess organization FIDE. He was elected to that post in 1982, and held it until 1995, through several controversies, most notably the abandonment of the 1984-85 World Championship between Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov without result, after 48 games, and the break-away from FIDE of the Professional Chess Association in 1993.

On the positive side, the membership of FIDE grew significantly, by about 50 member nations, during his tenure as FIDE president. Campomanes was succeeded as FIDE President in 1995 by Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. He was appointed FIDE Honorary President and was often present at significant international competitions such as Zonal and Continental Championships, Chess Olympiads and World Chess Championships.

In early February 2007, Florencio Campomanes suffered injuries from a car accident, at which time he was in intensive care. No details of his death are known at this point, but over the years he had suffered from “all sorts of things”, FIDE Treasurer Nigel Freeman told us.

Supported By Kosteniuk

Blackmar-Diemer Gambit

The Blackmar-Diemer Gambit is one of the most ambitious attempts for white to gain a developmental advantage.

From the second move white looks to give away his king's pawn. Although many top GM's find this to be unsound, many club level players have great success with it and if you are a very aggressive player I recommend playing it from time to time.

After white gives gambit's his pawn he then looks to develop his knight to c3, followed by playing f3. This move only shows that those players attempting to play this opening like to play outside standard theory. After black captures on f3, white can either capture with his knight or can instead play the aggressive line (Ryder Gambit) and capture with his queen, thus allowing the black queen to take an additional white pawn on d4.

If white does decide to play the Ryder Gambit, many times black can fall into the Halosar Trap. If you haven't checked out the video on the Halosar Trap you can watch it HERE.

It is also very important to remember that this opening can be transposed from other openings. One of the most common lines is white opening with e4 and black responding with the Scandinavian Defense d5. If you don't like playing against the Scandinavian Defense you can now play d4 and you will have the same position.

This opening is very fun for those players that don't mind giving up a pawn or two in the early part of a game in exchange for a large lead in development and the potential to chase the opponents king around the board all game long. If you however only like to play when you are up in material this is not the opening for you.


Play Chess Online for FREE!

Bird's Opening

The Bird's Opening is the 6th most popular opening and is a very aggressive opening. White starts out weaking his king side and starts a flank attack on the center with his f pawn. This opening is not used in lots of top level play but some of the most beautiful games in chess history have been played using the Bird's Opening.

After black defends with d5 the game will transpose into a reverse of the Dutch defense, where white opens with d4 and black responds with f5. White's main focus is on the dark squares in the game which is a big difference than the usual light squares that white usually focuses on.

While the light square bishop is usually the key minor piece for white, in this opening the dark square bishop actually gets the nod. White will usually fianchetto his bishop on the queen side to b2 and add more pressure on the dark squares.

Supported By Kosteniuk

Benoni Defense

The Benoni Defense is a very aggressive line that black can play to counter the very common open by white d4. While many defenses against the queen pawn opening are closed and drawish, the Benoni Defense gives black many opportunities to not only equalize the position, but also to gain an advantage and play for the win.

In the Modern Benoni Defense, the main focus of the game is white's center control of the light squares with it's key pawn on d5 and black's control of the center from the dark squares. Black will usually fianchetto his bishop on the kingside to g7 to add extra support to the dark squares.

For a white player you want to keep constant pressure on the d5 square and use it later on to set up outposts for your minor pieces and to apply pressure on black. For black players you want to keep white from applying pressure and keep them from getting any outposts on the e6 and c6 squares. The Benoni Defense usually opens up after the opening which means that bishops are more powerful than knights so be cautious about trading off your bishop.

Black should get lots of counter play and should have a very good game after things open up in the middle.

Supported By Kosteniuk

Benko Gambit

The Benko Gambit is one of the most well respected gambits in chess. For this reason it is one of the main lines stemming from the Benoni Defense.

White can either accept the gambit or decline this gambit with Nf3. Although some players may prefer to decline the gambit if they are unfamiliar you will amost always see white accept with cxb5.

Black's entire goal is to give up a pawn early on to give himself a big advantage on the queen side. Black will continue to try to give white another pawn with a6. Many players don't mind playing down a pawn as black because of the great attacking lines that stem from the queen side attack in the benko gambit.

If you play as white in the Benko Gambit and you don't want to get into the main line, defending your queen side all game, it is common practice to give back the pawn material advantage and focus on building up your central control.

This opening is not for the faint of heart. It's a very aggressive opening and should be played accordingly.

Supported By Kosteniuk

Alekhine's Defence

The Alekhine Defense is a hypermodern defense against the ever so popular e4 opening from white.

Black looks to allow white to chase his knight all over the board with tempo gaining pawn moves that will control the center of the board. In exchange for the center control, black will look to undermine the overextended pawns from white.

The one thing black must always remember is that after his knight has been chased around he no longer can play passively and instead needs to attack the center that white has built up or he will be crushed by the pressure white can build up.

White has three main lines that he can choose from but they all start out with 1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 3. d4 d6. From here things start to change and each variation takes on its on characteristics. White can choose from the very aggressive line of the four pawn attack where white will look to put his four central pawns in the center. He also might look to play the exchange variation that follows the four pawn attack but instead of the last pawn, instead opts to exchange with the d6 pawn. Black here can choose to play a sharp line capturing with his king pawn or play super aggressive and capture with his c pawn and really open things up.

Supported By Kosteniuk

Albin Counter Gambit

The Albin Counter-Gambit is a hyper aggressive defense for black against the ever so popular queens gambit from white. Black gives up his pawn on e5 so that his d pawn can be nicely placed on d4. This pawn is a huge thorn in the side of white and there are many trap that come from the Albin Counter-Gambit that white has to be on the lookout for. One of the most common traps in the Albin Counter-Gambit is the Lasker Trap which punishes white if he tries to attack the pawn on d4 with e3.

This opening will imediately take a queens gambit player out of his element and gives black many fighting chances. If you are a very aggressive player, especially with black, then you definitely need to learn this opening. For all those queen's gambit players, this is also good to know as your opponent may throw this at you at any time.



Supported By Kosteniuk

May 2010 Fide Rating List

Rank Prev Name Nat Elo
1 1 Carlsen, Magnus NOR 2813
2 2 Topalov, Veselin BUL 2812
3 3 Kramnik, Vladimir RUS 2790
4 4 Anand, Viswanathan IND 2789
5 5 Aronian, Levon ARM 2783
6 6 Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar AZE 2763
7 7 Grischuk, Alexander RUS 2760
8 10 Wang, Yue CHN 2752
9 16 Eljanov, Pavel UKR 2751
10 14 Shirov, Alexei ESP 2742
11 9 Gelfand, Boris ISR 2741
12 11 Ivanchuk, Vassily UKR 2741
13 13 Radjabov, Teimour AZE 2740
14 21 Karjakin, Sergey RUS 2739
15 8 Svidler, Peter RUS 2735
16 18 Leko, Peter HUN 2735
17 12 Gashimov, Vugar AZE 2734
18 15 Ponomariov, Ruslan UKR 2733
19 17 Nakamura, Hikaru USA 2733
20 23 Almasi, Zoltan HUN 2725
21 20 Jakovenko, Dmitry RUS 2725
22 22 Malakhov, Vladimir RUS 2722
23 25 Wang, Hao CHN 2722
24 31 Navara, David CZE 2718
25 29 Movsesian, Sergei SVK 2717
26 40 Jobava, Baadur GEO 2715
27 24 Morozevich, Alexander RUS 2715
28 27 Dominguez Perez, Leinier CUB 2713
29 26 Bacrot, Etienne FRA 2710
30 19 Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime FRA 2710
31 36 Tomashevsky, Evgeny RUS 2708
32 28 Vitiugov, Nikita RUS 2707
33 32 Motylev, Alexander RUS 2704
34 38 Rublevsky, Sergei RUS 2704
35 30 Vallejo Pons, Francisco ESP 2703
36 34 Kamsky, Gata USA 2702
37 37 Alekseev, Evgeny RUS 2700
38 44 Onischuk, Alexander USA 2699
39 35 Kasimdzhanov, Rustam UZB 2699
40 39 Nielsen, Peter Heine DEN 2698
41 33 Adams, Michael ENG 2697
42 78 Nepomniachtchi, Ian RUS 2695
43 43 Akopian, Vladimir ARM 2694
44 46 Sasikiran, Krishnan IND 2690
45 56 Fressinet, Laurent FRA 2689
46 42 Le, Quang Liem VIE 2687
47 41 Naiditsch, Arkadij GER 2686
48 47 Short, Nigel D ENG 2685
49 48 Miroshnichenko, Evgenij UKR 2684
50 51 Polgar, Judit HUN 2682
51 50 Bu, Xiangzhi CHN 2681
52 54 Kurnosov, Igor RUS 2680
53 -- Efimenko, Zahar UKR 2677
54 80 Timofeev, Artyom RUS 2677
55 53 Sargissian, Gabriel ARM 2677
56 73 Berkes, Ferenc HUN 2676
57 52 Caruana, Fabiano ITA 2675
58 71 Riazantsev, Alexander RUS 2674
59 68 Nisipeanu, Liviu-Dieter ROU 2672
60 55 Ganguly, Surya Shekhar IND 2672
61 63 Inarkiev, Ernesto RUS 2669
62 59 Moiseenko, Alexander UKR 2669
63 -- Bruzon Batista, Lazaro CUB 2668
64 49 Bologan, Viktor MDA 2668
65 60 Grachev, Boris RUS 2667
66 62 Ni, Hua CHN 2667
67 64 So, Wesley PHI 2665
68 86 Roiz, Michael ISR 2664
69 45 Volokitin, Andrei UKR 2664
70 65 Najer, Evgeniy RUS 2663
71 57 Areshchenko, Alexander UKR 2663
72 61 Bareev, Evgeny RUS 2663
73 70 Wojtaszek, Radoslaw POL 2663
74 58 Georgiev, Kiril BUL 2662
75 89 Sutovsky, Emil ISR 2661
76 69 Harikrishna, P. IND 2660
77 87 Smeets, Jan NED 2659
78 76 Khismatullin, Denis RUS 2657
79 101 Zvjaginsev, Vadim RUS 2656
80 79 Avrukh, Boris ISR 2656
81 82 Dreev, Alexey RUS 2655
82 90 Fridman, Daniel GER 2654
83 -- Sokolov, Ivan BIH 2654
84 -- Van Wely, Loek NED 2653
85 -- Mamedov, Rauf AZE 2653
86 91 Zhou, Jianchao CHN 2652
87 66 Korobov, Anton UKR 2649
88 -- Kobalia, Mikhail RUS 2648
89 93 Zhigalko, Sergei BLR 2647
90 92 Fedorchuk, Sergey A. UKR 2646
91 77 Beliavsky, Alexander G SLO 2645
92 -- Socko, Bartosz POL 2644
93 88 Seirawan, Yasser USA 2644
94 98 Milov, Vadim SUI 2644
95 96 Andreikin, Dmitry RUS 2643
96 100 Lastin, Alexander RUS 2643
97 -- Giri, Anish NED 2642
98 83 Savchenko, Boris RUS 2642
99 -- Nguyen, Ngoc Truong Son VIE 2642
100 95 Gustafsson, Jan GER 2640
101 75 Cheparinov, Ivan BUL 2640
102 -- Vuckovic, Bojan SRB 2640
103 -- Sandipan, Chanda IND 2640


Top 50 women:
Rank Name Nat Elo
1 Polgar, Judit HUN 2682
2 Koneru, Humpy IND 2622
3 Hou, Yifan CHN 2589
4 Stefanova, Antoaneta BUL 2560
5 Kosintseva, Nadezhda RUS 2553
6 Cramling, Pia SWE 2536
7 Kosintseva, Tatiana RUS 2534
8 Muzychuk, Anna SLO 2529
9 Lahno, Kateryna UKR 2527
10 Sebag, Marie FRA 2524
11 Kosteniuk, Alexandra RUS 2519
12 Cmilyte, Viktorija LTU 2514
13 Chiburdanidze, Maia GEO 2514
14 Pogonina, Natalija RUS 2501
15 Ju, Wenjun CHN 2500
16 Zhukova, Natalia UKR 2499
17 Zhao, Xue CHN 2493
18 Harika, Dronavalli IND 2491
19 Galliamova, Alisa RUS 2487
20 Paehtz, Elisabeth GER 2485
21 Socko, Monika POL 2485
22 Xu, Yuhua CHN 2484
23 Hoang Thanh Trang HUN 2482
24 Javakhishvili, Lela GEO 2482
25 Dzagnidze, Nana GEO 2478
26 Mkrtchian, Lilit ARM 2477
27 Zhu, Chen QAT 2476
28 Ruan, Lufei CHN 2474
29 Danielian, Elina ARM 2473
30 Zatonskih, Anna USA 2470
31 Dembo, Yelena GRE 2470
32 Ushenina, Anna UKR 2468
33 Melia, Salome GEO 2466
34 Vijayalakshmi, Subbaraman IND 2466
35 Gaponenko, Inna UKR 2465
36 Skripchenko, Almira FRA 2464
37 Tan, Zhongyi CHN 2464
38 Rajlich, Iweta POL 2460
39 Gunina, Valentina RUS 2457
40 Polgar, Sofia HUN 2457
41 Krush, Irina USA 2455
42 Tairova, Elena RUS 2455
43 Muzychuk, Mariya UKR 2452
44 Shen, Yang CHN 2452
45 Hunt, Harriet V ENG 2452
46 Arakhamia-Grant, Ketevan SCO 2449
47 Khurtsidze, Nino GEO 2448
48 Kovalevskaya, Ekaterina RUS 2447
49 Atalik, Ekaterina TUR 2444
50 Moser, Eva AUT 2440

Supported By Kosteniuk

Tactic #1

Chess Tactic #1 Made By Jrobichess, Youtube

Supported By Kosteniuk

Anand Vs Topalov G5

Supported By Kosteniuk

Analyzing Your Games

According to Mark Dvoretsky the analysis of one’s own games is the main means of self-improvement. In Secrets of Chess Training Dvoretsky offers the following guidelines:

1. Find the turning points – Decide where mistakes were made, where the evaluation of the position changed or an opportunity was missed.
2. Seek the reasons for your own mistakes – The objective realization of your own weaknesses is a necessary first step in the work of correcting them.
3. Seek new possibilities, which you did not notice during the game.
4. Ponder over the opening stage – Approach the problems you faced during the opening to increase your knowledge and outline new plans.



Supported By Kosteniuk

The Three Things That Have Improved My Chess

1. Practising tactics – I cannot under-emphasize the importance of tactics at the sub 1800 level. If your time is limited, tactics training would be the one thing that would give you the greatest return on investment.

2. Playing and reviewing my games – This allows you to learn from your mistakes, and to prevent you from repeating your mistakes over and over again. This important training tool provides you with the appropriate feedback loop, so that your chess training is focused on those areas that you need to improve the most.

3. Revisiting my thought process – Learning more about how other chess players think, and then taking an inventory of my own chess thought process. I documented a process that made sense to me, and then reviewing it while going over positions and / or annotated games.

Feel free to add a comment of your own list of things that have improved your game.

Supported By Kosteniuk

Basic Strategy

There are four simple things that every chess player should know:
#1 Protect your king

Get your king to the corner of the board where he is usually safer. Don’t put off castling. You should usually castle as quickly as possible. Remember, it doesn’t matter how close you are to checkmating your opponent if your own king is checkmated first!

#2 Don’t give pieces away

Don’t carelessly lose your pieces! Each piece is valuable and you can’t win a game without pieces to checkmate. There is an easy system that most players use to keep track of the relative value of each chess piece:

* A pawn is worth 1
* A knight is worth 3
* A bishop is worth 3
* A rook is worth 5
* A queen is worth 9
* The king is infinitely valuable

At the end of the game these points don’t mean anything – it is simply a system you can use to make decisions while playing, helping you know when to capture, exchange, or make other moves.
#3 Control the center

You should try and control the center of the board with your pieces and pawns. If you control the center, you will have more room to move your pieces and will make it harder for your opponent to find good squares for his pieces. In the example below white makes good moves to control the center while black plays bad moves.

#4 Use all of your pieces

In the example above white got all of his pieces in the game! Your pieces don’t do any good when they are sitting back on the first row. Try and develop all of your pieces so that you have more to use when you attack the king. Using one or two pieces to attack will not work against any decent opponent.


Supported By Kosteniuk

Special Rule #6

Draws

Occasionally chess games do not end with a winner, but with a draw. There are 5 reasons why a chess game may end in a draw:

1. The position reaches a stalemate where it is one player’s turn to move, but his king is NOT in check and yet he does not have another legal move
2. The players may simply agree to a draw and stop playing
3. There are not enough pieces on the board to force a checkmate (example: a king and a bishop vs. a king)
4. A player declares a draw if the same exact position is repeated three times (though not necessarily three times in a row)
5. Fifty consecutive moves have been played where neither player has moved a pawn or captured a piece.


Supported By Kosteniuk

Special Rule #5

Check and Checkmate

As stated before, the purpose of the game is to checkmate the opponent’s king. This happens when the king is put into check and cannot get out of check. There are only three ways a king can get out of check: move out of the way (though he cannot castle!), block the check with another piece, or capture the piece threatening the king. If a king cannot escape checkmate then the game is over. Customarily the king is not captured or removed from the board, the game is simply declared over.

Supported By Kosteniuk

Special Rule #4

Castling

One other special rule is called castling. This move allows you to do two important things all in one move: get your king to safety (hopefully), and get your rook out of the corner and into the game. On a player’s turn he may move his king two squares over to one side and then move the rook from that side’s corner to right next to the king on the opposite side. (See the example below.) In order to castle, however, it must meet the following conditions:

* it must be that king’s very first move
* it must be that rook’s very first move
* there cannot be any pieces between the king and rook to move
* the king may not be in check or pass through check


Supported By Kosteniuk

Live Ratings

Live ratings - updated April 30, 2010
Rank Name Rating Change Games
01 Carlsen 2813,0 0 0
02 Topalov 2805,7 +0,7 15
03 Anand 2797,7 +10,7 8
04 Kramnik 2790,0 0 0
05 Aronian 2783,2 +1,2 10
06 Mamedyarov 2762,7 +2,7 4
07 Grischuk 2760,3 +4,3 18
08 Wang Yue 2751,7 +2,7 10
09 Eljanov 2751,0 +15 20
10 Shirov 2741,5 +4,5 10

Supported By Kosteniuk

G6 Another Draw

The sixth game of the World Championship match between Viswanathan Anand and Veselin Topalov ended in a draw today. For the third time a Catalan came on the board, and after an interesting fight between Anand’s knight pair and Topalov’s bishop pair a drawish ending was played out till move 58 where a move repetition again brought a silent end to the game.

Supported By Kosteniuk

G5 Another Draw

Veselin Topalov and Viswanathan Anand drew the fifth game of their World Championship match in Sofia, Bulgaria. The two repeated the varation of the Slav that appeared in game 3, and again challenger Topalov couldn’t prove a clear advantage with the white pieces.

Supported By Kosteniuk