kaspariano

 

Warning: Do not watch the videos on this profile one after another

 

 Lifetime chess fan, about 2000 rating, club level chess player

Trained by GM Simon Williams and GM Alexei Kornev on 1.d4 (22 lessons/killer 1.d4 DVDs by Williams, and books by Kornev)

 

I have similar opening repertoire as

Lajos Portisch, Miguel Najdorf, Larry Evans, Arnold S. Denker, Chris Ward, Peter k Wells, Mesgen Amanov, Kenny Solomon, Alexander Kotov, Julio Granda, Pavel Eljanov, Vidit Gujrathi, Pavel Tregubov, Radoslaw Wojtaszek, Alexander Moiseenko, Michal Krasenkow, Nikita Vitiugov, Konstantin Sakaev, Andrei Maksimenko, Boris Alterman, Dusan Rajkovic, Loek Van Wely, Boris Gelfand, amongst others, and also Vladimir Tukmakov, whose book I read "Modern chess preparation".

I make my chess moves based on previous preparation, experience, and intuition, not so much on calculation.  So sometimes I make funny moves which are tactically unsound.  I got started in chess as part of an sports program in my school in the 7th grade... all the way to 12th grade, that was long time ago, back in the 70s, at first I wanted a combat sport, but I could not get it.  So, here we are!.  If I had to pick who were my favorite chess players, I would say GM Efim Geller, and Dr Reuben Fine

I drew GM Larry Christiansen (simul), GM Tiger Hillarp, and IM Attila Turzo once,

IM Vojislav Milanovic three times,

beat IM, now GM Alex Lenderman, GM John Fedorowicz, IM Axel Smith, FM Igor Nikolayev, and FM Jovic Stanoje once.

I won individual games against other US National Masters, this include NM Ernest Colding,

and NM Tyrell Harriott of the marshall chess club, he was 1st place U2100 at The Manhattan Open in 2012.  I am not bragging, I am just letting you know that if you are good at chess, and I gave you a tough game, you are not the only case.  So don't go nuts!, or start pulling your hair out!

 

 

 Books by Kornev:

 

A Practical White Repertoire with 1.D4 and 2.C4: 1: The Complete Queen's Gambit

 

A Practical White Repertoire with 1.d4 and 2.c4: 3: The Nimzo-Indian and Other Defences

 

A Practical White Repertoire with 1.D4 and 2.C4: 2: The King's Fianchetto Defences

 

A Practical Black Repertoire with d5, c6. Volume 1 The Slav and Other Defences

 

I also read:

Frank Marshall, United States Chess Champion: A Biography with 220 Games by Andrew Soltis

Najdorf: Life and Games by Alexander Beliavsky, Adrian Mikhalchischin, Tomasz Lissowski

 

Play 1.d4! by Richard Palliser

 

Strategic Chess Opening Repertoire for White, A Complete Plan of Attack With 1.d4 and 2.c4 by Watson

 

Playing 1.d4: The Queen's Gambit by Lars Schandorff (2009) and (2012)

 

Grandmaster Repertoire 1.d4 - The Queen's Gambit 1B and 2B by Boris Avrukh

 

Playing 1.d4: The indian defenses by Lars Schandorff

 

Playing 1.d4 d5, A classical repertoire by Nikolaos Ntirlis

 

1.d4 – Beat the Guerrillas! A Powerful Repertoire Against Annoying Black Sidelines By Valeri Bronznik

 

A Complete Guide to Queen's Gambit Play by Alexander Raetsky, Maxim Chetverik, Neil McDonald, Glenn Flear

 

Play the Queen's Gambit 2006 by Chris Ward

 

The Double Queen’s Gambit: A Surprise Weapon for Black by Alexey Bezgodov

 

Lessons from my games by Reuben Fine

 

My Best Games of Chess, 1908-1937, 21st Century Edition 2013 by Alexander Alekhine

 

The Life & Games of Akiva Rubinstein by Nikolay Minev and William John Donaldson

 

Selected Games of Lajos Portisch by Egon Varnusz

The Games of Tigran Petrosian volumes 1 and 2 by Shekhtman

 

How Chess Games are Won by Samuel Reshevsky

 

Grandmaster Preparation by Lev Polugaevsky

 

I Play Against Pieces by Svetozar Gligoric

 

My Best Games: Volume 1: Games with White by Viktor Korchnoi

 

My Best Chess Games, 1929-76 by Arnold S. Denker

 

Uncompromising Chess by Alexander Beliavsky

 

Ivan Sokolov's Best Games, 1997 by Ivan Sokolov

 

Ivan's Chess Journey: Games and Stories - Ivan Sokolov

 

My One Hundred Best Games by Alexey Dreev

 

My Most Memorable Games by Boris Gelfand

 

Art of Positional Play by Samuel Reshevsky

 

Secrets of Positional Chess by Drazen Marovic

 

The Complete Manual of Positional Chess volumes 1 and 2 by Sakaev

 

Lessons with a Grandmaster 1, 2, and 3 by Boris Gulko

 

Revolutionize Your Chess by Viktor Moskalenko

 

Advanced Chess Tactics, 2011 by Lev Psakhis

A Cunning Chess Opening Repertoire for White by Graham Burgess

 

 

  

 

GM Alexei Kornev

(Not really a 1.d4 player, but he is a good 1.d4 theoretician)

 

 

 

GM Simon Williams

(If you want to learn a fun and tactical way to play 1.d4, this is your guy!)

 

 

 

GM Krishnan Sasikiran

(One of the best 1.d4 players ever to be top 100 player in the world)

 

 

 

GM Konstantin Sakaev

(Very solid 1.d4 player)

 

 

 

GM Alexey Dreev

Very strong 1.d4 player

Years:  1984-2018

Games total:  2948

Wins:  1105

Draws:  1371

 

 

 

GM Vidit Santosh Gujrathi

(The youngest 1.d4 player above the 2700 rating mark)

 

  

 

GM Glenn Flear

(One of the most difficult GMs to beat or draw when he plays 1.d4)

Years 1977 - 2018
Total Games: 1845
Wins: 768 (41.63 %)
Draws: 718 (38.92 %)
Losses: 359 (19.46 %)

Score: (61.08 %)

 

  

 

 GM Chris Ward

(This guy wrote three 1.d4 books, all very good for club players, and above)

 

Play the Queen's Gambit 2006 by Chris Ward

The Queen's Gambit Accepted by Chris Ward

Unusual Queen's Gambit Declined by Chris Ward

 

 

 

GM Abhijeet Gupta

(Gupta is one of the 1.d4 young players in the world with most modern ideas in the opening)

 

 

  

 

I also play the sicilian loewenthal, kalashnikov, Sveshnikov 6.Ndb5 a6!?, O'Kelly, and Buecker variations against 1.e4.

GM Nadezhda Kosintseva has a 60 minutes video where she gives many variations to play against the loewenthal, I know most players I play against don't know these variations, so they are out of luck.  Beside that, I think I can improve on the options she gives for black.  Can she explain how is white going to get an advantage on the 9...h6 lines she gives in the video?  I play 7...Qe7, I wonder what else she knows about it.

 

 

   

 

GM Nadezhda Kosintseva

 

 

  I also play 1...d5 against 1.d4, so needless to say, I am ready for the Queen's gambit, and the Blackmar diemer gambit, as well as for any other tries (if I know you will pull a Karpov, and play the samisch against me, I will go Garry Kasparov/John Nunn on you, and play the king's indian).  Agaisnt other systems by white or black I always try several different ways of play.  I played 1.e4, and the dragon back in the days when I used to study GM Roman Dzindzichashvili DVDs.

 

 

GM Roman Dzindzichashvili

 

 

I also play my own secret sub-lines of the Winawer counter gambit, which I call the Winawer counter gambit anti-Kasparov variation 5...Bf5!? . and starts after 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 e5 4.dxe5 d4 5.Ne4 Bf5!? , I might be the only one in the world who plays this, and I have deeply analyzed it.  I got the idea for this line after realizing that black loses too many tempos getting the pawn back with 5...Qa5+ then taking the pawn, and having to move the Queen again after white plays Nf3.  There was also the issue of white playing lines where it castles long and harrasses the black Queen again on the d file (like in one of Kasparov's games back in the 90s)

 

 

 

The following video features a very interesting game in the king's indian samisch variation, GM John Nunn with the black pieces

 

 

 

Here I am playing with white against the grunfeld defense

 

 

Playing against the Benko gambit

 

 

One of my games in the dragon variation of the sicilian 

As you could see in the game above, I missed a tactical combination at move 12..,(12...Nxg5 followed by 13...a6 and 14...Qxb2 winning material) but that did not stop me from keeping my advantage, and finally winning the game. 

 

What is more important in chess - tactics or strategy?

chess expert Omkar Joshi, rated 1821 FIDE, explains:

 

Well in chess many aspects are important .

Openings , middle games , end games, every phase of the game has there own theory.

 

Now coming to the original question: let's just say you studied openings, and you played well in the opening, but your opponent is also a good player. So now in the middle game the position is locked, what to do now ? Here you need Strategy to open your position make some exchanges, sacrifices ,manuevers, or some moves so that you can play according to your strategy.

 

Now let's assume another condition: you played very well, you built a strategy that let's just say attack the queen side, now you have positional advantage or inititative, now you need Tactics to go exactly according to plan. You will have to make moves precisely to continue your attack, that is why you need Tactics.

 

So, you need strategy when there is "nothing" to do in the chess position, and tactics when "there is something to do", but you have to do precisely, or you can simply lose the game.

 

Hence, both are important in the chess game, and there is requirements of both in the game.

 

Thanks Joshi !!

 

more on the issue from chess.com member Bur_Oak

 

There is a distinction, though this eludes many because tactics are often a part of, though not exclusive to, strategy.

 

Strategy tends to be a long term plan of operations. It is not merely "checkmating the opponent," as that is the goal. If your opponent has a strong center and is securely castled kingside, your strategy may be to undermine his center, open things up, remove a key guard and attack a particular square which may be made vulnerable. The tactics are the individual short term methods of implementing such a plan. It generally requires a number of tactics, well timed and effective, to bring a strategic plan to a successful conclusion.

 

There are often situations which arise which may not be a part of an overall long term plan, but which offer a short term opportunity to exploit a mistake or newly created weakness. This falls into the realm of tactics, as it was completely unpredictable within the strategic considerations. However, if successful, it could subsequently cause one to change the long term strategy. In the example in the previous paragraph, perhaps your opponent made a mistake elsewhere on the board allowing you to gain a significant material edge. The strategy may now shift from a complicated focused attack which might be difficult to calculate, to a simple game of attrition, forcing trades until you can reach an easy endgame. The strategy in this case is "trade down while preserving the material advantage." The tactics are the methods used to accomplish each individual trade.

 

Essentially, tactics are short term methods; strategy is a long term plan requiring a number of tactics to achieve.

 

Or another way of looking at it: Strategy is the blueprint; tactics are the tools.

 

Thanks Bur_Oak

 

Note: 

Studying tactics only means you are studying WON positions, meaning there is a tactical resource for a clear win.

 

Most positions in chess however, are not winning positions, and you need to learn the quieter 'strategic' that don't win material or mate, but improve your position through small things like improved scope for pieces, minor piece advantages, better pawn structure, etc.

 

Tactics are always important, but you need to learn how to set up conditions that generate winning tactical chances.

 

Even Tal had to play good positional chess in his games before finding tactical opportunities.

 

 

Amazing lines possible in a single chess game

 

 

 

 

The November 2017 FIDE rating list includes 1594 grandmasters, of which 1559 are male and 35 are female.

  Are chess titles important? I don't really know the answer to that, but these are some chess players who you might have wanted to ask that question to. They for sure were beating hundreds of title-players before they became so themselves, and they might have had an interesting answer to that question.

 Isaac Kashdan, Genrikh Chepukaitis, Rashid Nezhmetdinov, Efim Geller, Samuel Reshevsky, John W. Collins, William Lombardy, Bobby Fischer, Garry Kasparov, Vladimir Kramnik, Sergey Karjakin, Magnus Carlsen, Jorge Sammour-Hasbun, Yaacov Norowitz

 Also consider all the great chess players before 1950 who only got a FIDE title in 1950, or never got a title at all, among whom were greats like Emanuel Lasker, Jose Raul Capablanca, Mikhail Botvinnik , Max Euwe, Paul Keres, Alexander Alekhine, Reuben Fine, Salo Flohr, Samuel Reshevsky, Igor Bondarevsky, Andor Lilienthal, Issac Boleslavsky, Alexander Kotov, etc

 

  By some accounts, in the St. Petersburg 1914 chess tournament, the title "Grandmaster" was formally conferred by Russian Tsar Nicholas II, who had partially funded the tournament. The Tsar reportedly awarded the title to the five finalists: Emanuel Lasker, José Raúl Capablanca, Alexander Alekhine, Siegbert Tarrasch, and Frank Marshall. (chess historians has written that this was not true at all) 

 

  

 

  

 Below is My freind: NM Sherman B Cunningham, 63 years old (right front), playing at Rochester chess center (close to Monroe avenue) in Rochester, New York.  He participated in the Pan American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship back in 1991 in Chicago...  He earned his NM title back in the early 80s when he was able to reach a national rating above 2200

 

 

 

Throughout the years there have been many beautiful chess games, but these following ones played by Anand, Kasparov, and Timman, sure are not too far behind the best of them...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some chess material you should know about:

 

 

1) Modern Chess Strategy by Ludek Pachman
2) The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played by Irving Chernev
3) Chess Training Pocket Book by Lev alburt
4) Chess Exam and Training Guide By Igor Khelmenitsky
5) Best Lessons of a Chess Coach by Weeramantry & Eusebi
6) Tips for young players - Mathew Sadler
7) 1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations, 21st Century Edition - Fred Reinfeld
8) The Amateur’s Mind by J. Silman
9) Alekhine’s My Best Games of Chess, 1908 - 1937
10) Practical Chess Exercises by Cheng
11) Capablanca’s Best Chess Endings
12) Chess Praxis by Nimozwitch
13) Liquidation on the Chess Board: Mastering the Transition into Pawn Ending by Joel Benjamin
14) Art of Attack in Chess by Victor Vukovic
15) My 60 Memorable Games by Bobby Fischer
16) One Hundred Selected Games by Botnnivik
17) Understanding Chess Endgames by John Nunn
18) Understanding Chess Move by Move by John Nunn
19) Understanding Chess Middlegames by John Nunn
20) How to Reassess Your Chess by J. Silman
21) Fire On Board by Alexei Shirov
22) Fundamental Chess Endings by Mueller
23) Improve your Chess Now By Johnathan Tisdall
24) Dvoretsky’s Analytical Manual by Dvoretsky
25) The Road to Chess Improvement by Yermolinsky
26) Zurich International Chess Tournament, 1953 by David Bronstein
27) Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual by Dvoretsky
28) My System by Nimzowitch
29) Think Like a Grandmaster by Kotov

 

others:
Back to basics: Tactics by Dan Heisman
Tactics- from basics to brilliance by Valeri Lilov
Chess- 5334 problems, combinations and games by Laslo Polgar
1001 winning chess sacrifices and combinations by Fred Reinfeld
CT Art 4.0 by ChessOK

 

Books recommended by masters:

 

Chess Fundamentals by Jose Raul Capablanca (GM Nigel Davies)
How to Think like a Grandmaster and Play Like a Grandmaster by Alexander Kotov (IM Levon Altounian)
Ideas Behind the Chess Openings by Reuben Fine (GM Nigel Davies)
Lasker’s Manual of Chess by Emanual Lasker (GM Nigel Davies)
My System by Aaron Nimzowitsch (FM Daniel Barrish)
Amateur to IM by Jonathon Hawkins (IM John Bartholomew)
Lessons with a Grandmaster by Boris Gulko and Joel Sneed (GM Rafael Leitão)
The Seven Deadly Chess Sins by Jonathon Rowson (GM Alex Colovic and IM John Bartholomew)
Baloven Kaissi (in Russian) by Max Euwe and Lodewijk Prins (GM Alex Colovic)
Chess Duels by Yasser Seirawan (IM Christof Sielecki)
My 60 Memorable Games by Bobby Fischer (GM Alex Colovic)
My Best Games by Anatoly Karpov (IM Levon Altounian)
My Great Predecessors (series) by Garry Kasparov (GM Rafael Leitão and IM Christof Sielecki)
My Life and Games by Mikhail Tal (IM Levon Altounian, IM John Bartholemew, and IM Christof Sielecki)
My Life, Games, and Compositions by Pal Benko and Jeremy Silman (WGM Jennifer Shahade)
Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual by Mark Dvoretsky (WGM Jennifer Shahade)
Endgame Strategy by Mikhail Shereshevsky (FM Daniel Barrish)
Grandmaster Preparation series by Jacob Aagaard (FM Daniel Barrish and FM Nate Solon)
School of Future Champions series by Mark Dvoretsky (IM Greg Shahade)
School of Chess Excellence series by Mark Dvoretsky (GM Rafael Leitão)
Secrets of Chess Tactics by Mark Dvoretsky (WGM Jennifer Shahade)

 

 

"Champions aren't made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them-a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have the skill, and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill." 
--Muhammad Ali 

 

The strongest USA chess team put together since the 7th chess olympiad in 1937, wins chess olympiad 2016 at Baku, the same team wins 2nd place at chess olympiad 2018

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GM Hikaru Nakamura wins Tata steel 2011 ahead of four world champions

 

 

 

 

GM Wesley So wins Tata steel 2017 ahead of GM Magnus Carlsen

 

 

 

 

 

GM Fabiano Caruana wins the london chess classic 2017 ahead of GM Magnus Carlsen

Update 3/27/2018:  GM Fabiano Caruana wins candidates tournament and becomes the new world champion challenger 

 Update 4/9/2018: GM Fabi wins Grenke chess classic ahead of Magnus

 

London chess classic final standing 

 

Candidates 2018 final standing

 

 

 

 

GM Sam Shankland wins Biel Masters 2016 ahead of some of the best GMs in the world rated 2600+

 4/29/2018 GM Sam Shankland wins the 2018 US Chess Championship

 

  

 

 

 

GM Shankland shows us some very interesting games

 

 

 

GM Ray Robson placed 2nd at the 2015 US Championship right behind GM Hikaru Nakamura, he is also member of the number one college chess team in the US (The Webster University Chess Team)

 

 

 

 

 

IM John Donaldson captain of USA chess teams in six Olympiads