You undoubtedly know how it goes. As soon as you mention to someone that you are a chess player, they typically stare at you with awe and start spewing all sorts of cliches about the game. If you are tired of explaining that what you see in chess movies or read in books is not necessarily true, this is the article you can always send to your friends to educate them a bit about the world of chess and to back up your statements in case they don't believe you. Stereotypes are hard to combat!

Myth #1: professional chess players are the most intelligent human beings on Earth.

I object to being called a chess genius, because I consider myself to be an all-around genius, who just happens to play chess, which is rather different. A piece of garbage like Kasparov might be called a chess genius, but he is like an idiot savant, outside of chess he knows nothing.

Columnists often compare politicians or successful businessmen to "chess masters" or claim that politician A "is playing chess", while politician B "is playing checkers" as a way of showing who has the superior intelligence and strategic thinking. Such metaphors are beneficial for the image of chess, but are chess players as intelligent as they are perceived to be by the public?

A typical example of a political caricature revolving around chess.

In fact, probably not. To become a strong chess player, you have to possess a specific talent for the game and to train/practice with dedication for years in a favorable environment. There are quite a few top chess players who are not particularly bright or knowledgeable about anything else in life apart from how to move the wooden pieces. Also, if the only prerequisite of being a strong chess player were high intelligence, then we would probably see world-class academics become Grandmasters left and right. In reality, most of them, even those who like chess and play it as a hobby in their free time, have very modest chess skills as compared to less intelligent guys who have been pursuing chess professionally for years.

Bill Gates, who was the #1 richest man on the planet for many years, is also known for having an exceptionally high IQ. Still, when he confronts a world-class pro such as Magnus Carlsen over the board, you can instantly feel the insurmountable difference in their chess skills.

If you check out any chess forum, you will stumble upon threads created by chess neophytes who perceive themselves smart and expect to reach master level in a month or two just by reading a couple of books and playing some games online. They are in for a disappointment because one day, they are all bound to realize that mastering chess is much more complicated than they think it is. Consequently, many of them sigh and bow out once you tell them that they will have to invest years of hard work, and no one can guarantee you that you will earn a title in the end. This time barrier is a good filter for those who are not particularly interested in the game and view the master title as just another shiny achievement that can be put on one's resume to impress the potential employer or be used as a bragging right when hanging out with friends.

That being said, chess is still widely believed to be good for your brain at any age, but please don't expect to become smarter than Albert Einstein just by playing the game.

Myth #2: Grandmasters calculate dozens of moves ahead all the time.

I see only one move ahead, but it is always the correct one.

I am pretty sure that you have been asked how far you calculate in chess. Non-specialists believe that the stronger you are as a player, the further you calculate in any position. Of course, in some wild and ultra-sharp positions, the outcome of the game indeed depends on accurately calculating several very long and complicated lines. However, there are also many positions where you had better think in terms of plans and short-term operations, such as improving your worst-placed piece or preventing counterplay by your opponent. It is often enough to look just 2-3 moves ahead in such situations while going further would be just a waste of time and energy.

Anyway, what do Grandmasters know about calculating that club players don't?
a) To what depth should one calculate in this particular position? Sometimes there is a need to look many moves ahead. In other cases, 2-3 would suffice.
b) What candidate moves to consider? In other words, a GM sees more opportunities for both sides than a weaker player and tends to eliminate the undesired options more efficiently. For instance, a GM can spot a tactical resource that a club player won't even consider. Conversely, the club player might squander time on a dubious line that leads to complications ("calculating for the sake of doing so"), while a GM will quickly dismiss it based on superior positional understanding.
c) How to evaluate the positions being analyzed? Often the problem is not to calculate a line accurately but to understand who benefits from this transformation - theoretically and practically. At top level, quite a few games are lost due to misevaluation of the resulting positions, not miscalculation.
d) Grandmasters calculate faster and have a large bank of well-known positions to which they can refer when analyzing. When a regular GM starts thinking about how to convert an advantage in the endgame, a titan like Magnus Carlsen says that it's pretty much over already since for him the rest is a matter of simple technique.

Also, you should keep in mind that humans can't calculate ALL the continuations. Saying that you calculate "5 moves ahead" means that you can visualize and evaluate correctly the positions 5 moves ahead that you find critical. There is no insurance against missing something important.

Myth #3: the older you are, the stronger you are as a chess player.

Age brings wisdom to some men, and to others chess.

The general public tends to expect chess players to accumulate game knowledge year by year in a linear fashion. Therefore, in their opinion, the most dangerous chess opponent in the world is probably an elder with grey hair sporting a long beard. Someone like Gandalf from Lord of the Rings! Conversely, if you lose to a boy, some ageists will start mocking you: "Wow, you are an adult, yet you lost to this kid!". Obviously, this is a silly and inappropriate thing to do. If we are talking about casual games, then a gifted 8-yeard old kid who attended a chess club for three years is quite likely to be better at chess than a 70-year old professor of Mathematics who plays from time to time casually with his friends and grandchildren. This topic we have already touched upon when discussing Myth #1.

Someone like Gandalf might not necessarily be the scariest chess opponent in the world!

So, if a guy who looks like a wizard is not the toughest opponent in the world, whom should you fear the most? The answer is that looks don't tell much. To assess the threat, you had better be aware of the opponent's rating and some other details, for example, against whom, where and how it was achieved; how often the person plays chess, etc.

On a more general note, if you are curious to know at what age chess players usually reach their peaks, you may also want to check out one of our previous posts.

Happy International Chess Day! Make sure to check out our special present for you – a time-limited 40% off summer sale on the Play Magnus Plus Membership!

What are your favorite chess myths? How about we debunk some of them today? 

Blindfold chess has been around for centuries. It has always been popular as a handicap tool, allowing the master to give odds to a less experienced player. Also, on some occasions, top GMs duel each other blindfolded on equal terms. The most famous regular event of this type was the Amber chess tournament. It was held from 1992 to 2011 and featured a combination of rapid and blindfold chess – a format that was unique and highly entertaining for the spectators.

Have you ever tried playing blindfold chess? What about your friends? For a club player who hasn't trained this skill, even one board may be too many. However, my conversation with a few 2700+ GMs revealed that for them, 8-10 boards is a normal workload that doesn't require any special preparation. For example, recently, Alexei Shirov, who just turned 49, gave a timed blindfold simul on eight boards against reasonably tough opposition and scored a respectable 6.5 points out of 8. According to him, it was only his second time giving a simul of this type.

Generally speaking, there is a positive correlation between the player's strength and his ability to play chess blindfold. However, it could be possible that some players are particularly gifted in this department. Or maybe the very top guys are not interested in such experiments?! Anyway, the current world record of most games played in a blindfold chess simul belongs not to Magnus Carlsen or some former World Chess Champion, but to GM Timur Gareyev from the US, whose FIDE rating peak was 2682 February 2013. On December 3, 2016, he played 48 opponents with a mask before his eyes and sitting on an exercise bike, resulting in 35 wins, 7 draws, and 6 losses. Can you even imagine how that could even be possible for a human?

Magnus Carlsen giving a blindfold simul in Vienna in 2015

What are some of the benefits of being able to play chess blindfolded?

• Impress your friends. Some people refer to themselves as "chess players" to reinforce their image of smart persons. The ability to play chess blindfolded takes it to a whole new level since amateurs believe that being capable of doing so is some magic. I am not sure it will work in a relationship, but there is a chance that your partner will be impressed if you mention this trick! The creators of the Queen's Gambit mini-series used this feature to their advantage, showing how Beth Harmon was able to play out entire games in her head by staring at the ceiling. From what I have heard, many viewers were mesmerized by the process.
• Improve your game. Such training can be particularly effective if you have trouble visualizing long lines during regular play or you often forget where the pieces are when calculating.
• Have fun. When Alexander Alekhine was in a hospital during World War I, he entertained himself and other patients by playing blindfolded chess against them. This was quite typical of chess players in the 20th century. Nowadays, most of us are so addicted to smartphones that it is hard for us to switch from a source of instant gratification to something more demanding, such as playing blindfold chess. Still, why not try?
• Keep studying in a tough environment. Once again, this is less relevant nowadays since you may read the book on an electronic device when traveling. Still, if you prefer the good old paper books, sometimes it is a nuisance not to be able to visualize long subvariations without having a board next to you. Also, even if you have one, setting it up and replaying each line can be a nuisance. Maybe this was why Magnus Carlsen learned how to read chess books blindfolded from a very young age.

You can find plenty of videos of Magnus Carlsen playing chess blindfolded on YouTube. In the one above, you can see him take on ten opponents at a time at Harvard.

Hopefully, I was able to persuade you to try out this spectacular chess variant. Let's move on to practice. Here are a few exercises that will help you master the art of playing chess blindfold:

When in public transport, perform the following routine in your head: try jumping with the knight across all the board or work out the shortest route from one square to another. For example, what is the best way to travel a knight from b1 to g8?

Check out the "Mind Mirage" mini-game in Magnus Trainer. The objective is to memorize where the chess pieces are placed and keep track of their movements in your head. As you progress through the levels, the difficulty gradually increases, providing a great training opportunity for players of different skills.



Read chess books without using a chessboard. Make sure you can visualize and evaluate reasonably accurately even the longest and most complicated variations. You can start with books where authors give very brief notes and eventually advance to the modern opening manuals where authors are not shy to offer a ton of computer-generated lines that are both long and mind-blowing for a human.

Play blindfolded chess against a friend. Start with a more accessible version, recording the moves and peeking into the scoresheet if you forget the position. The next step is to play the game without any notes (just make sure you don't start arguing over what happened!). If one board is not challenging, try more. Also, you can try to do this online.

Solve studies blindfolded. There are special books where you are given the notation of the initial position and must work out the best continuation in your head. Or you can take a look at a regular study, memorize it and then solve it sometime later throughout the day. Naturally, this exercise may greatly vary in terms of difficulty. For club players, the goal could be to visualize the position and give a simple mate in one or something similar. At the same time, top Grandmasters can take on sophisticated studies that are hard to tackle for untitled players even while looking at the board.

Warning: playing chess blindfolded is a very demanding pastime that is known for sapping your energy. Practicing it excessively can be dangerous for your psychological health and wellbeing! Doing some exercises could be beneficial, but trying to push yourself aggressively and set records, practicing it all day long, is probably not good.

Do you want to impress your friends with a feat worthy of Beth Harmon from the Queen's Gambit series? Learn how to play chess blindfolded then! 

When preparing for a game, we can choose between paying much attention to opening preparation and analyzing/memorizing variations or opting for the “fresh head” strategy.

Many Soviet chess experts blamed Boris Spassky’s loss to Bobby Fischer in 1972 on Boris falling for the “fresh head” approach, playing tennis or blitz instead of chess studies. However, it is more probable that Fischer, a hardcore chess fanatic, was simply a better player at that time. After all, he had a surreal rating of 2785, while Spassky was rated “only” 2660.

In the World Chess Championship match in 2000 between Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik, Garry failed to win a single game. Kramnik recalled that game after game, his opponent was looking more tired, and dark circles under his eyes kept becoming increasingly visible. It was clear that Garry and his team have spent an enormous amount of time on opening preparation, but they failed in destroying the Berlin wall.

So, which approach is better? There is no definite answer. However, there are a few tips worth mentioning. I hope they will make it easier for you to decide which strategy to adopt depending on the circumstances.

The higher the rating of the player, the more theory is typically required to memorize. If we go into extremes, novice players usually don’t prepare at all, while top Grandmasters can spend up to a few hours before the game.

Alexander Grischuk once wittily replied, “My whole life!” to the question about how long he had been preparing for the game against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov.

Club players often make the mistake of trying to imitate the actions of top Grandmasters, even though at their level, games are more likely to be decided by tactical errors than by getting a slightly better position in the opening. Or, a polar case, some of them neglect preparation and play something random after rushing to the tournament from work. A golden middle is called for.

There is no need to feed yourself page after page of chess analysis if you can’t remember it all that well. You probably saw Magnus Carlsen, Vladimir Kramnik, Vasyl Ivanchuk, and other chess titans recall games of other players that took place decades ago. They even remember the player names, tournaments, years, and what happened next! However, there are also top GMs whose memories are less exceptional. And as you go down the rankings, you are starting to see people who can’t remember what they played yesterday!

Suppose you keep noting during the games that you can’t recall the analysis that you have been rehearsing before the game. In that case, it makes sense not only to work on improving your chess memory (this is a serious topic of its own!) but also to reduce the load of theory for now.

Vladimir Kramnik’s opening files are particularly notorious. From what I have heard, if you open a file for a specific variation and start pressing “Page down” in ChessBase, the scroller barely moves at all!

There are some exceptions to this rule, but cramming up theory before the game is not a particularly exciting process for most people. Some pros are getting so fed up that they start promoting Fischer Random, chess without castling (hello, Vladimir Kramnik!), and other variants of the game that cut down on the amount of preparation and memorization.

Therefore, if you are already feeling low for some reason, it is probably not a good idea to become even more depressed by going over theory hour after hour. It may be better to take a walk or relax in some other way that you enjoy.
Also, if you are burnt out and not hungry for chess anymore, you should probably avoid overloading yourself even further with chess theory.

This is very similar to the psychological state. Memorizing variations is tough work. If you are ill or tired, it often makes sense to preserve energy for the grueling game itself instead of extending your workday for another few hours.
Tournaments, where you have to play two or more games per day, are more exhausting than traditional ones, so for these events it also makes sense to cut down on the preparation.

If your opponent’s repertoire is very narrow, i.e., he keeps playing the same lines over and over again, then it makes a lot of sense to dedicate some time to preparation, allowing you to come up with an exciting novelty and to surprise your opponent.

However, if your opponent plays a huge number of different systems and seems to pick them at random, it is probably not a good idea to cram up all of them. This is just too much work, and you will still probably forget most of what you have learned (“chess memory” strikes again!). Still, experienced players trust their gut feelings. Sometimes there is no logic to this, but you somehow KNOW that the opponent will play exactly that. In such cases, you might as well grant the line some attention before the game.

When Vasyl Ivanchuk was in his prime, other players used to joke when discovering that they were paired against Chucky that they got “a free evening” – back in the day, it was close to impossible to predict what Ivanchuk may be interested in playing. Thanks to his phenomenal chess memory and passion for the game, he could choose pretty much any popular opening.

Vasyl Ivanchuk vs. Vladimir Kramnik in 2017. Two chess legends with exceptionally sharp chess memories. Image by Anastasia Karlovich.

As you can see, it is hard to give concrete recommendations. There are many factors involved. However, for a typical club player, rehearsing lines before the game should probably take between 15 to 60 minutes. If you never prepare at all, this probably means that you don’t work on openings seriously enough. If you imitate the top GMs and spend a few hours before the game to digest chess analysis, you are probably shooting yourself in the foot by spending precious energy that you could use during the actual chess duel.

To have something to rehearse, you should start by creating your openings files. How do you build an efficient opening repertoire based on your specific needs and abilities? What opening tiers are there, and how do you tell a sound opening from an unsound one? How do you study openings step by step? Magnus Trainer will help you navigate all these important topics and many more under the guidance of Magnus Carlsen. You will also get to master the openings of your choice, focusing on the plans and typical ideas for both sides, reviewing model games, solving instructive exercises, and familiarizing yourself with cutting-edge move orders.

How long do you prepare for a tournament chess game? And how long should you do it? 

Preparing for a Chess Game: A Fresh Head vs. Studying

Grandmasters Sergey Dolmatov and Artur Yusupov – friends and rivals.
Image from Mark Dvoretzky’s book “For Friends and Colleagues”, Vol. 1.

How do you prefer to study chess? On your own? With a coach? Or maybe you attend group classes in a chess club or online?

One efficient study method that often gets overlooked by chess aficionados is training with a sparring partner.

What makes a perfect training partner in chess?

• You should have a good relationship with the person. Especially nice if you are friends.
• Your ratings should be close, preferably within the 100 rating points range. Otherwise, the cooperation becomes one-sided, more of a teacher-student relationship.
• Living close to each other is a bonus, although, in the era of the global COVID pandemic, this is less important than before since you can always connect online.
• It is great if your styles and chess strengths are different. For instance, one of you is a solid positional player, while the other is a reckless attacker. Or, another example, one of you is an opening guru, while the other has a fantastic touch for the endgame. This way, you can efficiently share knowledge, becoming more well-rounded as a chess player.

If you are not convinced just yet, let me mention a few important advantages of having a training partner.

Harder to miss a training session & additional motivation

If one of you starts slacking, the other will likely remind his friend that you had a training session planned together. A chess partner is just like a gym buddy in this sense; if you have one, you are less likely to miss a training session/workout. Also, building upon the gym analogy, you could compete against each other, resulting in more rapid progress for both of you.

A classic example of this type was the tandem of GM Sergey Dolmatov and GM Artur Yusupov. Both of them were students of the famous coach IM Mark Dvoretzky. Initially, Dolmatov was more of a tactician, and Yusupov was a positional player. However, as a result of this cooperation, they both enhanced their strengths and eliminated some of the weaknesses. Namely, Yusupov became the World Junior Chess Champion in 1977, and Dolmatov succeeded him the following year. Eventually, both became world-class Grandmasters. Artur was rated #3 in the world behind Kasparov and Karpov in 1986/87, while Sergey peaked at #12 in 1990.

While in movies, chess pros are often presented as loners who prefer the company of a chessboard to interaction with other human beings, there are quite a few chess players out there who enjoy good company. Some are less willing to train, play an event, or travel somewhere if no one accompanies them.

A chess player could benefit from sharing his joy, fear, concerns, and other feelings with someone who understands and can give valuable feedback if requested. Sometimes it is hard for us to evaluate what is going on objectively, so occasionally, you may get a fantastic improvement tip from a training partner who knows your chess personality quite well.

Most of the benefits described above can also be obtained by having a chess coach. However, it is quite costly to work with professional chess coaches on a regular basis. If you have a training partner, you don’t have to pay each other anything. Also, a common occurrence among chess players is sharing a hotel room with your training partner during tournaments, which can also potentially save you a substantial amount of money.

Here are some recommended activities that are typical of such cooperation:

• Analyze games together. As I have mentioned before, this is a particularly efficient technique if your styles are quite different. Such training allows one to expand one’s horizons and to understand chess much deeper than before.
• Play sparring games. For example, when you need to practice a specific opening, it is vital to have the option to jump right into the game against an evenly matched opponent. Conversely, if you simply play on the Internet, it might take quite some time to find someone who opts for the line that you are interested in, not to mention that you often have no idea who you are playing against and thus have no guarantee that the game is going to be of any use to you.
• Play “hand and brain” (one person picks the piece, the other decides on the actual move) or other forms of chess suited for two players. You can also try regular chess when you discuss the moves as you play. The latter scenario, however, may be regarded by chess purists as a mild form of cheating!
• Serve as seconds/coaches for each other. Since you will probably not be playing ALL the tournaments together, if your training partner stays at home, he might as well help you prepare for the games.

Logically, the next step is creating a small team. This way, you have replacement options if your training partner is unavailable for some reason, not knowledgeable about the openings you are planning to study, feeling burned out from chess, and so on. However, it is probably a good idea to move step by step, first creating a bond with one training partner and then deciding if there is a need for adding more people to the group.

The reigning World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen is known for having trained with most of the leading chess GMs in the world. According to some of the participants of such sessions, he holds nothing back, treating the training partners as more or less equals and working on a “win-win” basis. The guests get to improve immensely by collaborating with the chess legend, while Magnus is very good at pinpointing the strengths and weaknesses of his training partners and always eager to take his game forward even though he is the clear #1 on the circuit.

If you are wondering who may benefit from the tips given above, it can be pretty much anyone. I know both club players who practice this form of cooperation and quite a few top Grandmasters who work in pairs or small teams. This is understandable since, unless one is filthy rich or a member of the world top-10 who regularly gets invitations to super chess tournaments, it is not sustainable from a financial perspective to hire a team of seconds to work for you.

In a recent interview for Championat.com, the current World Chess Championship Challenger, Ian Nepomniachtchi, recalled how he told three-time World Chess Champion Vladimir Kramnik that he wanted to help him during one of the Candidate tournaments. According to Ian, Vladimir replied that his financial balance was already largely negative at that point, and hiring people “for free” is improper. Back then, Nepo considered this to be some sort of excuse, but now he knows the Math behind such tournaments himself and fully understands Kramnik’s decision.

I do hope that you will give this format of training a try! Or, if you already have a training partner, maybe this post will offer you additional ideas on how to make your cooperation more efficient and fun.

Are you dreaming about having Magnus Carlsen as your training partner? Well, one way to make it happen is to become a top chess Grandmaster! Alternatively, you can play sparring games against the World Champion in the Play Magnus app, study chess under his guidance in Magnus Trainer, and compete with him by solving chess puzzles in Tactics Frenzy! We realize it is not a one-for-one replacement, but it is still a great way of taking your chess game to the next level.

If you check out chess forums where people enjoy bitterly arguing over such topics as "who was the greatest player of all time?", you will often see arguments about modern chess ratings allegedly being inflated. For instance, you will encounter claims that Bobby Fischer's 2785 rating points in 1972 were worth more than Garry Kasparov's 2851 in 1999 or Magnus Carlsen's 2882 in 2014.

However, what we are witnessing in open tournaments right now is gradual rating deflation. Barring bright juniors shooting through the roof, most of my friends and acquaintances are shedding rating points despite feeling like they have improved their game. Of course, one should take the latter claims with a grain of salt: as players age, they seem to better grasp the game's intricacies, but their practical skills deteriorate. Also, chess keeps evolving very fast, so, quoting the Queen of Hearts from "Alice in the Wonderland":

It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!

Still, whereas a few years ago, I more or less knew how a 1700, 2000, 2300, and 2600 were supposed to play on average, now you have no idea what to expect regardless of the rating of your opponent. For example, in one of the rounds of the recent Nezhmetdinov Memorial, I was paired against a 12-year-old kid rated 1747. Typically, this should have been a piece of cake for me, but this guy dispatched me quite confidently. He played the opening well and fast, and all his remaining moves in the game matched the first line of Stockfish. I don't even think he was cheating! You see such "miracles" left and right these days, so they are not something extraordinary anymore.

Another participant of the event, a Grandmaster aged 29 and rated 2462 who usually is quite consistent, lost in the first two rounds to players rated 1985 and 1925, then bounced back in a couple of games, drew a 2011, won a couple more matches, lost to a 2265 and withdrew from the tournament after Round 8. Over these eight rounds, he shed 26.3 rating points, which is quite a lot for someone with a K of 10.

A 40-year-old player from my home city rated 2147, who is considered locally to be quite strong and recently had a rapid rating of 2350+, lost a whopping 81 rating points in this tournament.

On the board next to me I overheard an amusing dialogue between a small kid (1784) and an experienced man (2012). Before the game, they started comparing their Lichess ratings in blitz, and it turned out that both of them were rated between 2300 and 2400 there. These numbers were actually higher than I expected. Guess what? The underdog won the game rather effortlessly as if the ratings were reversed.

I could go on forever bringing up similar examples, but I guess you see my point already.

What are the main reasons for rating deflation in open events?

First and foremost, FIDE has been gradually decreasing the rating floor. Initially, it was 2200. In 1993, the floor was reduced to 2000, then to 1600 in 2004, to 1400 in 2006, to 1200 in 2009, and to 1000 in 2012. On paper, this looks like a great idea: why not allow people of all skill levels to obtain ratings and see how they compare against the world's top players? Also, this is beneficial for FIDE, as they can report a larger player pool to potential sponsors and earn some money from the players themselves. However, in practice, this system has negatively affected both the newcomers and, particularly, the already established players. Here is how it works in a nutshell:

Josh is a 5-year old kid who diligently studies chess in a club and has a great personal coach. To start gaining tournament experience as early as possible, the boy plays a local event against other kids and gets an initial rating of 1038. Since Josh works hard and smart, he keeps improving rapidly and should have been rated about 1500 by age 6. However, his actual rating is, in fact, only 1176 since he keeps mainly playing against his peers, who are also improving quite quickly. By age 8, he is rated 1500+ and starts playing open tournaments, while his real playing strength is more like 1700-1800. As the adults facing him acknowledge quickly, he is much better than the rating suggests, so for them, it is by no means possible to score close to 100% against him, as the rating difference implies. The result is that the grown-ups keep losing rating points against the bright chess prodigy, while he is not gaining them fast enough to obtain an "adequate" rating.

To compensate for this phenomenon, junior players and newcomers in general rated below 2300 have a K of 40 (compared to 20 for most players and to 10 for players who were rated 2400+ at some point in their careers). Still, most of them don't play enough games to close the gap between their real playing strength and the official Elo.

This leads us to point #2: the COVID pandemic made things much, much worse. Right now, there are armies of promising juniors out there who are hungry for progress and who haven't had a chance to play live rated tournaments for the last year. By training hard and smart and playing online, they improved by a few hundred rating points, which is not reflected in their Elos. If you get sucked into facing such guys, getting only a couple of points for a hard-earned victory, and squandering close to 20 (10 for 2400+ players) in case of a loss, be prepared to kiss your rating goodbye.

Let's say we have 25-year old Jessica (2025) playing against 8-year old Mathias (1505). As the rating difference between them is 520, Jessica is expected to score 0.96 points against Mathias (see the table above). If she wins, she will gain (1-0.96) * 20=0.8 rating points. If Mathias wins, he will net 0.96 * 40=38.4 rating points. As you can see, Jessica is not motivated to face such an opponent because she will probably have to work very hard to earn that meager 0.8 points. And in the long run, she will lose a lot of rating points by taking on such opposition.

Of course, I am not the first person to raise this concern publicly. There have been other cries for help before. For example, in 2019, before the pandemic, Walter Wolf wrote a column for ChessBase, addressing this issue and advocating for a tricky mechanism:

To better account for the increasing playing strength of young players one could slightly raise the K-factor of the winner and slightly lower the K-factor of the loser in a game between two juniors. The winner then would gain more rating than the loser would lose.

A similar plus is necessary when adults play against juniors because the overall Elo level of junior players can only rise in games against adults.

In his recent FB post, GM Alexander Moiseenko estimated the average rating deflation to be somewhere around 200 points and suggested the following measures:

Assign the initial rating according to the player's performance. According to him, right now, FIDE uses a weird formula that takes into account the average rating of the opposition, so "even if you score 9/9 against 1200-rated players, you will receive a rating of around 1500."

Bring back the "350 points difference" rule and award 1.1 rating points (for K=10) to the winner if s/he is rated 350+ points above the loser.

Introduce the "350 points difference" rule in rapid and blitz.

One can come up with many other suggestions. It is a matter of acknowledging the problem and initiating an expert discussion within FIDE.

Since FIDE is unlikely to mitigate this issue in the nearest future, here are some of the possible options that my friends and I came up with during internal discussions:

• Play only events with a relatively high rating floor. For instance, 2000+. In such tournaments, the percentage of underrated kids is smaller than in open tournaments where, let's say, everyone, is allowed to participate.
• Stay out of live tournaments for a while and focus on playing online (a questionable decision since these are two very different formats).
• Find "chess reserves" where the players are relatively old. This is what some norm hunters do, by the way: prey on the overrated opponents in round robins instead of dueling underrated kids in open events.
• Quit competitive chess (haha…or not?!).
• Ignore your rating entirely for now and focus on chess improvement if you genuinely love the game.

Anyway, if you are frustrated about youngsters chipping your hard-earned rating points away, I want to let you know that you are not alone!

Are you tired of endlessly facing cheaters online and of getting shortchanged by underrated juniors in live events? Check out the Play Magnus app, where you can challenge such top players as Magnus Carlsen, Judit Polgar, Wesley So at a fixed age and playing strength. Isn't it a pleasure to get a fair fight and to know what to expect from your opponent?

Wondering why chess players are losing rating points left and right? Rustiness, old age, and poor physical shape might not be the key reasons! 

Anatoly Karpov, who was the undisputed World Chess Champion for a decade (1975 – 1985), not to mention the subsequent FIDE titles, turned 70 on May 23.

When it comes to public perception, Karpov seems to be somewhat underrated. Some people argue that there is a chance that he wouldn’t have beaten Bobby Fischer if the latter agreed to defend his title. Others point out that Karpov lost four out of five World Chess Championship matches against Garry Kasparov. Nevertheless, Chess24 acknowledged the arguments of Karpov’s fans and gave the legendary champion some credit, placing him at the #6 spot on the rankings of the greatest chess players of all time.

Anatoly Karpov holds himself in higher esteem. Here is what he recently replied to Sport-Express when former FIDE World Chess Champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov questioned him what his top-5 greatest chess players list looks like (translation by Colin McGourty for Chess24.com):

It’s hard to single out five - we’ve got a lot of great champions. But, as you ask, I’ll name Capablanca, Alekhine, Fischer, Karpov and Kasparov. I haven’t ranked them, but put them in chronological order. Perhaps someone will be surprised by the absence of Lasker, who held the chess crown over the course of 27 years. That record still hasn’t been beaten, but due to World War I no matches were held for nine years, and in 1921 he lost to Capablanca - one of the most talented and mysterious chess players in history, from a country where chess wasn’t highly developed.

Alekhine’s great achievements speak for themselves. They include the record for the number of international tournaments won - 76. I overtook him - I have 185 wins. That’s from the moment I became a Master of Sport, not counting children’s and junior tournaments. In general, I hold almost all the chess records. Kasparov also has no lack of brilliant victories.

Now on Fischer. His path to the World Championship title was impressive. To win 6:0 against Taimanov and Larsen, one of the strongest grandmasters of the 70s, is a fantastic result. And then his confident victory over Spassky. And the Capablanca Memorial in Havana in 1965? Due to sanctions the US State Department prevented Fischer from travelling to Cuba, but he found a way. He played his games by telegraph from New York and he performed brilliantly, only finishing half a point behind Smyslov. Fischer also led at the Sousse Interzonal, though due to a conflict with the organisers he didn’t finish the tournament…

Recently Magnus Carlsen ranked some of the World Chess Champions on genius, entertainment, influence, and sanity. Here is what he had to say about Anatoly Karpov:

And what does the 12th World Chess Champion think about Magnus Carlsen’s and Ian Nepomniachtchi’s upcoming World Chess Championship match?

Here is what Anatoly Karpov told RT on his birthday eve:

— Have you ever worked as a coach on other chess players’ teams?
— No, I have never been a coach. This is a different occupation. Although I have consulted some of the players.
— What if Magnus Carlsen requested your help? Would you accept the offer?
— No. I simply have no time for this.
— Is public and political work more interesting for you than a chance to, in a certain sense, return to your youth?
— I have a broad range of interests in life and wouldn’t sacrifice them for the sake of working with a single person. I don’t want to restrict myself. Nevertheless, I like Carlsen. He is a very strong player who plays in a similar fashion and style as I did. Very safe; exploiting even a minimal advantage. Magnus is confident in his powers and knows how to fight till the very end. In other words, he has many positive qualities. It is no accident that he has been keeping the World Chess Champion title for a relatively long time already.
— Do you think he is going to remain up there for long?
— If he doesn’t lose his head, he will last for some time. I think Ian Nepomniachtchi has chances to dethrone the Norwegian, but Ian is emotionally unstable. And for a World Chess Championship match, this is one of the key factors. One must have a stable, strong nervous system.

Are you interested in learning more Anatoly Karpov and other World Chess Champions mentioned in the article? Download Magnus Trainer, where you will find interactive lessons about all the World Chess Champions and their challengers, allowing you to see whether you can play as well as them or even improve on their game!

Play Magnus would like to congratulate Anatoly Karpov on his 70th anniversary and to offer you an opportunity to learn more about this outstanding Grandmaster by taking a special quiz. Twelve questions in honor of the 12th World Chess Champion!

Take our special anniversary quiz and learn more about the renowned 12th World Chess Champion! 

Photo by Even Emberland, Norway Chess, 2014

Do you know how to study openings efficiently? From my experience, most club players face many difficulties along the way and end up shooting themselves in the foot.

John heard from a friend that the Najdorf Sicilian is a fascinating weapon for Black, leading to sharp positions. As someone who takes chess seriously, he bought a 500-page book on this opening and promised himself that he would study it from cover to cover. He also praised himself on the purchase: so much value for its price!

At first, he was very enthusiastic, but when he realized that processing 500 pages of sophisticated analysis primarily generated by chess engines is killing all his joy and love for chess, he gave up on the book on page 50. Well, at least he still has the book in his library, and it gives him a warm, fuzzy feeling when he looks at it and dreams that one day he will somehow know all of its contents! This anecdote is similar to the story about people buying gym passes and giving up on their workout routine after just a few sessions.

Let’s give John a helping hand and develop tips on how he could do better next time.

First of all, John probably took on a book that is beyond his current playing strength. Chances are, his main weakness is not that he doesn’t remember 20+ moves of cutting-edge theory in the lines he plays, but something more prosaic, such as not knowing what to aim for in the opening, overlooking tactical shots, or not being familiar with basic endgame positions. The opening encyclopedia could come in handy later, especially if John is not well-versed in working with chess databases. Still, it is counterproductive to delve into it at the early stages of learning a new opening at the club level.

Secondly, to familiarize yourself with an opening, you typically start by looking at a few model games illustrating the key ideas of the opening, followed up by choosing your role model for this particular opening.

Let’s talk in more detail about what makes a good chess role model:
• He should be a proficient player who plays the opening a lot and knows the ins and outs, including standard plans, tricky move orders, and even has his trademark ideas and novelties in it.
• Pay attention to the performance. Does the potential role model score well in this opening? If he plays it a lot only to suffer there, it is probably not a good idea to follow in his footsteps! Also, if he keeps landing in terrible positions out of the opening and then gets away with it due to middlegame and endgame prowess, he is a questionable candidate for the role model spot.
• If we are talking about the initial stages of mastering an opening, there is nothing wrong about learning from the legends of the past. For example, Anatoly Karpov’s style was largely influenced by reading a book with Jose Raul Capablanca’s best games in his childhood. Similarly, Vladimir Kramnik diligently studied Karpov’s games as a kid. One of Magnus Carlsen’s favorite books was a collection of Vladimir Kramnik’s selected games. It is no coincidence that all of them are known as exceptional masters of positional play.

That being said, if you include a certain opening into your repertoire, you will have to keep updating your files and enhancing them. For this reason, it is much better to choose a contemporary player who is still working on his openings.

You may point out that the tips mentioned above look good on paper, but how does one know, for instance, who is a good role model for someone who wants to master the London System? Or any other opening, for that matter? There are many ways, including the following:
• You may check out your chess database, perform an opening search there, review the stats and choose a top player who meets the criteria mentioned above.
• If you don’t enjoy working with chess databases or have no such experience yet, you may ask your chess coach. However, if you have a great coach already, he will probably teach you all this before you stumble upon this blog post.
• You can search online who the experts in a particular line are, but product reviews can be biased, purchased, or written by people who are not qualified to judge.

An efficient solution to this issue is picking the reigning World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen as your role model.
He:
• Is exceptionally strong and has been rated #1 in the world for over ten years.
• Works a lot on theory and has a team of Grandmaster seconds who analyze chess openings on powerful servers.
• Is a contemporary player, so you can expect him to keep polishing his openings, thus saving you time and energy, as you can use his findings as food for thought.
• Is very versatile even as compared to the other top pros. If you look at Carlsen’s games, you will realize that he plays pretty much everything as White and has faced pretty much everything as Black.

And here comes the concluding part where we get to shamelessly praise our beloved chess apps! 😊

We do practice what we preach though and believe that standing on the shoulder of giants is a great idea.

If you are thrilled about learning from the World Chess Champion and adopting his opening repertoire that has been specifically tailored towards club players’ needs, you may want to check out Magnus Trainer. In the app, you will find explanations of the key ideas, plans, setups, traps, refutations of common mistakes, and, importantly, numerous interactive training exercises! If you want to become a strong player, it is essential to learn by doing instead of merely digesting what others have written.

Finally, everything looks easy before you try it yourself. Once you complete the theory lessons and the practical exercises, you should start playing training games in the opening, putting your newly acquired knowledge to good use. By analyzing your games, you will enhance your understanding of the lines and have a chance to update your opening files accordingly. You can challenge your friends, compete in tournaments, take on Magnus Carlsen and other top Grandmasters in the Play Magnus app, or check out one of the chess servers, such as Chess24.com! The choice you end up making is just a matter of personal taste.

There are so many fantastic openings waiting for you to meet them! Now go ahead and give them a hug! 🤗

You can sharpen your chess puzzle-solving skills by downloading our Tactics Frenzy app.

On his way to the top, Magnus Carlsen’s style was strongly influenced by studying Vladimir Kramnik’s games. 

Chess Openings: Who are Your Role Models?

Ian Nepomniachtchi’s first Instagram post in 2014 included this uplifting image. It was published on November 23. Please make a mental note of the date and read on to realize what a sign of things to come it turned out to be!

Ian Nepomniachtchi won the Candidates Tournament with a round to spare, thus qualifying for a World Chess Championship match against Magnus Carlsen. The main chess event of the year is scheduled to take place in Dubai, UAE, from November 24 to December 16, 2021. Even though Magnus and Ian have been friends for a long time and trained together, you can expect an exciting clash of styles in their duel for the chess crown!

Make sure to check Magnus Trainer on April 29th for a new lesson featuring a report about the Candidates Tournament and Carlsen’s review of Nepo as a player, pinpointing his strengths and weaknesses. Who do you think is the favorite to win?

Meanwhile, let’s see how well you know the biographies of these two outstanding chess Grandmasters. Take the quiz and see whether you can tell Carlsen from Nepo!

12th World Chess Champion Anatoly Karpov, who turns 70 this May, made a lucky first move on behalf of Caruana. Image courtesy of Lennart Ootes from the official site.

The second half of the Candidates Tournament resumed in Yekaterinburg, Russia, on April 19. Eight world-class Grandmasters are battling it out over the board to determine who will challenge Magnus Carlsen's reign. Chess fans had to wait for over a year for this spectacular event…and they weren't disappointed by the very start!

In Round 8, ex-Challenger Fabiano Caruana had White against the co-leader of the tournament, French #1 Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. Fabi unleashed mind-blowing opening preparation on his opponent in the ultra-sharp Poisoned Pawn variation of the Sicilian Najdorf, sacrificing three pawns and a piece and stirring wild complications.

Up to a certain point, Maxime was fighting back like a lion, receiving well-deserved praise from Magnus Carlsen himself, who referred to his play as a "superhuman defense." Undoubtedly, the masterpiece will receive multiple "best game of the month" awards. Analysts will be busy commentating its sidelines for years and years to come, proposing improvements and practical ideas for both sides. However, I would like to focus your attention specifically on the endgame part where MVL collapsed under the pressure, leaving no player in the tournament undefeated.

Let me start from afar. A long, long time ago, when COVID-19, the Internet, and 6-men endgame tablebases were not around yet, a study was published in a book by chess composers Bernhard Horwitz and Josef Kling.

If you are a strong player or a big fan of chess puzzles, you may want to give this position some thought and look for a way how not to allow Black to convert an extra exchange.

Or you can skip the rather challenging exercise and check out the solution:

One may argue that the line is not particularly flashy, but please keep in mind that the composers had to think of this position and work out all the intricacies on their own! Back in 1851, people knew much less about fortresses and defensive techniques in chess in general than we do now.

You might as well ask: "How is this ancient study that was published 170 years ago relevant for our post?" Now please look at the following position with Black to move:

Fascinating, isn't it!? The endgame that Caruana ended up having against MVL is the same study, but with reversed colors! Fabi had roughly 14 minutes left at this point, while Maxime had saved up about half an hour.

The first few moves were familiar to us, but then MVL made the fatal mistake, spending only a minute or so and sending his knight the wrong way. From this point on, Fabiano displayed perfect technique and forced resignation from his opponent on move 74. This game significantly impacted the tournament standings, as MVL was co-leading the Candidates Tournament at 4.5/7 with Ian Nepomniachtchi, while Fabiano was one point behind.

If you are an ardent reader of chess books, you know that this is the part where the public flagellation of the guy who lost usually begins. One could point out that Maxime should have studied the classics more and known this study and a million others. Or that he should have calculated better and found the saving resource since he still had plenty of time on the clock. Or that one should never relax prematurely until the game is over, squandering half a point in a theoretically drawn position. Or…

Instead, I would like to point out that chess is a challenging sport where it is easy to lose concentration for a moment and to go astray, especially after a grueling middlegame fight in a game where the stakes are so high. All I would like to do is congratulate Fabiano Caruana on creating a true masterpiece on the board and wish Maxime Vachier-Lagrave to get over this soul-destroying loss and show his best form in the games to come!

Finally, please make sure to follow #FIDECandidates at Chess24 with commentary by World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen, the strongest female chess player of all time Judit Polgar and other esteemed hosts!

12th World Chess Champion Anatoly Karpov, who turns 70 this May, made a lucky first move on behalf of Caruana. Image courtesy of Lennart Ootes from 

Are you as happy about your tactics as Magnus is on this image?

What was the saying once again? “Solving tactics every day keeps the blunders away”? Chess is a challenging game, so mistakes are inevitable. Still, enhancing your tactical capabilities can drastically improve your performance over the board by reducing your blunder rate and allowing you to capitalize on your opponent’s oversights.

However, if you are serious about your chess training and keep following this advice day by day, at some point, you might get bored. Just like you need to surprise your body by changing the gym training routine after a certain period, you may want to try something new to get your brain excited and fresh.

Let’s go over several different ways you can train tactics.

Standard mode. Feel free to take as long as you want to solve the puzzle. What matters is that you get it right in the end. If you are using an app such as our beloved Tactics Frenzy, the process is straightforward. When it comes to books, make sure to write down your solutions and check them carefully. Otherwise, it is tempting to peek into the answer page and to say: “Yes, I saw that idea!” even if your move order was wrong or you weren’t sure which option to pick in the end.

Rated mode. When solving puzzles from books or newspapers, it is hard to keep track of your performance and see whether you are making any progress. Apps/online tools/software are better in the sense of allowing you to monitor such data, as well as other vital statistics, such as time spent, the number of puzzles solved, and so on. Just don’t be too hard on yourself rating-wise. Remember that things take time!

Timed mode. Depending on the difficulty of the puzzle, give yourself a fixed amount of time to tackle it. When the time runs out, you have to make the best move in the position as if it were a real game. The objective is to find the solution, but even if you don’t get it right, check how good your continuation was. Was it a neutral move, or did you blunder something? Analyze the position and realize what went wrong in your thinking process.

Cooperative mode. You can try this with a training partner or even as a group. Take on relatively complex puzzles, discuss them together, come up with surprising suggestions, refute each other’s analysis, or build upon it. It is always interesting to get to know how other people approach specific chess positions. Hopefully, eventually, you will arrive at the solution. Even if not, the way you all agreed to something dead stupid also provides for a lot of chess entertainment – trust us, we have been there many times!

Competition mode. Whereas the “cooperative mode” is better suited for developing teamwork skills, the “competition mode” was prevalent in the USSR, where the emphasis in school studies was on excelling individually. You can take on a series of puzzles with your training partner(s), all on your own, and see who performs better in the end! It will be interesting to discover whether your brain functions better or worse under such extreme conditions.

You don’t have to wear a blindfold for this mode, but you score extra style points for doing so!

Blindfold mode. This one is for advanced players. Take a careful look at the position, memorize it and then try to work out the solution in your head. For even more advanced players, you can combine it with the distraction mode (see below).

Distraction mode. If it is hard for you to focus during the game, you may want to make life even more challenging for yourself while training. Combine solving chess puzzles with other activities, such as doing squats, running, cooking, talking, etc. Just make sure your milk doesn’t boil over! Bonus points for streaming the process and getting new subscribers/donations this way.

Practice mode. This one can be done against a training partner or an engine. Approach the starting position of a puzzle as if it were a real game. Play it out and see what the outcome is going to be. Quite often, people focus purely on landing spectacular tactical strikes to realize they don’t have the technique to convert their advantage later on in the game. This method works particularly well for complex positions where both sides have tactical resources.

Test mode. Take on a series of puzzles to determine how sharp you are tactically. Usually, the author(s) of the test will let you know the conditions and goals, so you will be aware how to handle the task.

Woodpecker mode. The idea of this method is to automate your pattern recognition by solving a series of puzzles repetitively until you can cruise through them on autopilot. In a nutshell, you try to solve the exercises as well and quickly as you can. After a certain amount of time passes, you repeat the cycle, trying to improve your results both timewise and performance-wise. You can read about this approach in more detail in the book “The Woodpecker Method” by Grandmasters Axel Smith and Hans Tikkanen.

Do-it-yourself mode. One way of maturing into an even more sophisticated tactician involves creating your chess puzzles and making sure there are no loopholes in the solutions. You don’t necessarily have to become a chess composer and take part in chess composition contests (are you aware of their existence, by the way?), but devising some devious puzzles and sharing them with your friends can be very fulfilling. Make them sweat!

Bait (“Jebaited”) mode. A severe drawback of allocating too much time to traditional puzzle-solving is that you may start disrespecting the opponent’s resources and sacrificing pieces left and right, assuming that if there is a tactical motif in the position, then it will always work out in your favor. However, in real games, flashy combinations are quite often refuted by even more mind-blowing counterstrikes.

Therefore, it is helpful to takes on series of tactical exercises where some of the puzzles provoke you into falling for incorrect combinations and getting punished for doing so. This mode is a good reminder that real-life opponents are more than a punching bag that takes all your hits and never complains.

Feel free to experiment with the methods suggested above and see which ones you like most! Or, even better, come up with new tactics training ideas.

Solved a fantastic puzzle? Discovered a revolutionary training method? Don’t forget to share your passion with others on social networks using the hashtag #TacticsFrenzy!

Are you as happy about your tactics as Magnus is on this image? What was the saying once again? “Solving tactics every day keeps the blunders 

Most Popular Chess Myths: Part I

Can You Play Blindfold Chess?

Preparing for a Chess Game: A Fresh Head vs. Studying

Do You Have a Chess Training Partner?

On Rating Deflation in Modern Chess

Anatoly Karpov's 70th Anniversary Quiz

Chess Openings: Who are Your Role Models?

Take the Carlsen vs. Nepo Quiz!

The Candidates: An Unsolved Chess Puzzle

Twelve Fun Ways of Solving Chess Tactics