Category: Lessons from the Masters

February 21, 2016 Matthew Sadler No comments exist

Apart from analysing kingside attacks, my other favourite chess pastime is accumulating themes from the games of the great players. In my forthcoming book Chess for Life (co-authored with WIM Natasha Regan) I explain how I used the analysis of themes from Capablanca’s games to help me prepare for the games against Kramnik and Svidler…

February 21, 2016 Matthew Sadler No comments exist

One of Alekhine’s most famous and spectacular sacrificial victories is his win against the super-solid Hungarian player Geza Maroczy at the Bled 1931 tournament. Bled was a massive success for Alekhine as he scored 20,5/26 undefeated and finished 5,5 points clear of the rest of the world-class field! As always, there’s plenty new to discover even…

February 20, 2016 Matthew Sadler 1 comment

I’ve recently been going through Alekhine’s Collection of Best Games (in the Kindle edition otherwise known as the world’s most complete collection of chess misprints) and stopping whenever a game grabs my attention. I got caught up for a few days by the game Alekhine-Isakov played in 1919, It features a very interesting attack in…

February 20, 2016 Matthew Sadler 2 comments

When I retired from professional chess, one of the things I was looking forward to was playing for fun. Without the pressure of having to maintain my ELO rating, I was looking forward to playing attractively and creatively, and I was hoping I’d react calmly when the inevitable losses came along. That never quite happened…