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Winning starts with what you know
The new version 18 offers completely new possibilities for chess training and analysis: playing style analysis, search for strategic themes, access to 6 billion Lichess games, player preparation by matching Lichess games, download Chess.com games with built-in API, built-in cloud engine and much more.
[Note that Jon Speelman also looks at the content of the article in video format, here embedded at the end of the article.]
This week’s column happens to be the two hundredth in a series stemming back to April 2016, when it originally started life as an Agony column (a vehicle for readers to send in their triumphs and disasters for possible publication).
Four years later, at the behest of ChessBase, it transmogrified into freestyle and that’s where we are today with free rein for any interesting topic that takes my fancy.
This time, in honour of the round number, I thought we might span the centuries with some games from round about 1823 — there were so few published games that I gave myself the whole decade to look at: 1922 where I found a couple of games I fancy or 1923. And this year.
Chess has changed utterly over the two centuries and indeed hugely over the last two decades, since chess engines rose to become not only our lords and masters but also ubiquitous. I’m no chess historian, so make no particular claim for the games I’ve chosen, but they do illustrate some aspects of how the game has developed.
I hope you enjoy them and will be back next in a fortnight on September 3rd.
Select an entry from the list to switch between games
Middlegame Secrets Vol.1 + Vol.2
Let us learn together how to find the best spot for the queen in the early middlegame, how to navigate this piece around the board, how to time the queen attack, how to decide whether to exchange it or not, and much more!
