My second game of the 4NCL weekend was a tough battle against Andrew Lewis. As Black, I won a pawn in the opening but never quite managed to neutralise the compensation White enjoyed due to his 2 bishops and my awkwardly-placed queen.   As always a playable version of this article is available at http://cloudserver.chessbase.com/MTIyMTYx/replay.html …

Thanks to a tip from Allan Beardsworth (allanbeardsworth.com) , it is now possible to play through (some of) the material on this blog online. Just go to my Chessbase Cloud site at http://cloudserver.chessbase.com/MTIyMTYx/replay.html and you’ll find the .pgn files for my latest article presented via the Chessbase Viewer. Time permitting, I’ll gradually add some older articles …

December is a hectic time at work, but I always make time for a visit to the wonderful London Chess Classic. The Classic never disappoints. It’s a unique experience: a celebration of chess in all its forms based around a prestigious super-grandmaster tournament.   This year was particularly exciting as Natasha and I were presented …

November signals the start of the 4NCL season and I was in action on Board 1 for Guildford on the 19th & 20th November. I emerged with 2 wins from tough and fraught fights. The Saturday game featured an extremely sharp rook and knight ending which I analysed at some length with my friendly young …

A couple of months ago, I wrote a series of articles on King, Rook and Pawn vs King and Rook. In this article, I want to examine a couple of positions that show the practical application of the knowledge we learned. The practical value of building up a body of easily retrievable knowledge on K, …