When playing classical tournaments, do you keep track of the amount of time you spend per move? Or, alternatively, do you analyze your online chess games, paying special attention to how long it took you to make a certain decision? 

For a time-trouble addict who always ends up playing on increment, writing down the time spent on each of the moves is crucial for eliminating the shortcoming. Prestigious events have electronic boards which do it for you, while online sites are also quite convenient in this sense. However, most of us have to resort to the good old “pen and paper” method. The “chess poor” have no servants!

In one of the books, I encountered an amusing advice: if you notice that the opponent is keeping track of his time distribution, then he is probably prone to getting in time trouble, so it makes sense to try to exploit it. This statement is only partially true, because many great players keep track of the timing for different reasons. For example, when going through Garry Kasparov’s junior games and Judit Polgar’s books, one may notice that they often refer to the time spent on a move by them or their opponents, viewing it as an important factor. Even as an outsider, I found these notes quite illuminating since they give you a sneak peak into the thought processes of top players, allowing you to understand better how they manage their time during the game. 

Recently, someone contacted our support department and inquired if we have a database of Carlsen’s games with timestamps for every move. I believe such a database doesn’t exist, unfortunately, but it would be instructive to have access to such information for every player. 

Anyway, how can you use this data to your advantage? After the game, you can analyze not only the quality of the moves, but also how long it took you to make them.

Feel free to come up with a list of typical time-wasters for yourself and classify the situations that occurred during the game into the appropriate categories:

·       Not deciding in advance what opening to play.

·       Thinking whether to deviate from a well-known opening line. 

·       Forgetting your home preparation.

·       Not being familiar with the opening or the corresponding middlegame plans.

·       Failing to make the only move right away.

·       Being afraid to intuitively sacrifice a piece, but still doing it after burning a lot of time on the decision.

·       Losing focus due to thinking about other matters, such as your personal relationship, work problems, etc.

·       Going to the WC at the wrong moment and returning 10 minutes after the opponent has pressed the clock.

·       Being a perfectionist and choosing for a long time between two continuations of roughly the same strength.

·       Calculating for the sake of doing so even though it was not necessary. For instance, some people have a soft spot for imagining outrageous attacks for themselves and spending a lion’s share of their time bank on their fantasies which never materialize on the board since the position doesn’t justify such play. 

Obviously, the list is by no means exhaustive. When analyzing the game, think carefully what exactly was the cause for spending too much time on a move. 

Alexander Grischuk is notorious for being a time-trouble addict despite having three World Blitz Chess Champion titles to his name! 

Another curious situation is when you believe you have spared a reasonable amount of time on your move, yet you made a mistake. The basic questions you should ask yourself in such cases are the following:

·       Am I lacking some theoretical knowledge? For instance, there is a sophisticated opening setup that is well-known to experts which you failed to find over the board. Or maybe you should have found a combination, but never seen the pattern before? Or you may have not known the theory of the endgame you ended up in. If so, try to learn from your mistakes and cover the gap. 

·       Did my skills let me down? Maybe your tactical vision was not good enough, or you miscalculated something. Obviously, you can focus on eliminating these weaknesses once you discover them.

·       Was it what they call an “inexplicable blunder”? For example, you are far more proficient and knowledgeable than what it takes not to make a mistake. Still, even super GMs sometimes hang pieces or blunder a mate in one. Make sure you understand what happened. Were you stressed out? Did you get distracted? Were you having some health issues? Did you feel tired? How good was your sleep before the round? Were you on some sort of meds or under the weather? For professionals who are merciless in their self-analysis, there is no such thing as “I was unlucky today and made a bad move.” Each mistake has its own prerequisite. 

Finally, playing too fast and superficially is a common shortcoming among chess players of any level. Let’s review some of the typical reasons why this happens:

·       Blitzing out moves in the opening on autopilot and recalling something wrong. In classical tournaments, make sure to spend a few seconds to check what you are doing even if you believe you remember the line well.

·       «Racing» your opponent, such as trying to intimidate him by playing quickly or keep up with him if he makes his moves swiftly. For some players, it seems to be a matter of prestige to prove they can play as quickly as their opponents. This is a bad idea since what you should be doing instead is taking your time properly and punishing them for their hastiness. 

·       Losing your head over an alluring combination and playing it out right away, only to discover that it was flawed! 

·       Failing to realize that the position is critical and requires a careful assessment. 

·       General nervousness and inability to concentrate when you feel pressured by the necessity to take your time for each move. 

·       Dopamine addiction. Some people get hooked up on the thrill of having to play fast. They start off by spamming 5m games, then move on to 3m per game, 1m per game, 30s per game. Back in the day, one of the playing zones had a 1m/game and 1s/move DECREMENT, and I knew a guy who enjoyed playing with this time control! 

·       Neglecting the “do not rush” endgame principle and forcing the issue too early instead of preparing carefully and giving the opponent a chance to err. 

·       Rushing to close out the game as soon as possible when you have a large lead and not paying attention to your opponent’s resources. This is how you occasionally blunder pieces or end up stalemating the opponent! 

·       Trying to wrap up the game since you have other plans for the evening, such as a date, following an important match live, etc. This sounds rather amateurish, but sometimes even super GMs become anxious in such situations. 

I realize that some of the readers may be bored by the recommendations presented above. It’s OK; not everyone is so serious about chess! Some of us lose or win a game and press “rematch” or “new game” right away, not bothering to analyze much what happened. In such cases and in general, it is useful to have an outsider’s perspective. You could ask your coach or training partner look at some of your games and come up with a list of problems that seem to be haunting you game after game. 

For example, I have a training partner rated about 2200 FIDE and roughly 2450 in blitz on Lichess. He is more of a practical player who prefers action to burning the midnight oil. By following his games, I made these observations and shared them with him:

·       He had poor time management overall, trailing pretty much every opponent on the clock and playing on increment from the middlegame in most games. That being said, he was reasonably strong in time trouble and often managed to outplay opponents despite them having a considerable time advantage. 

·       His knowledge of openings was rather limited. In some cases, he was out of book by move 5 or 6, and by move 10 it was more of the norm for him. For a person of his rating, this is unacceptable. The conclusion was that he was to give his opening repertoire an overhaul and focus on creating the necessary opening trees and checking out model games to become familiar with the associated plans and not waste time on reinventing the wheel. 

·       He was scared to sacrifice material for initiative or unclear complications. Trying to always calculate the line to a clear win, sometimes he wasted lots of time and didn’t dare to make the move. Or he went for it but was so down on the clock that he couldn’t handle the tension later on. In his case, it is important to learn to trust your gut instincts in blitz and to go over annotations of games played by GMs who are good at gambling and sacrificing material for initiative. 

·       Sometimes he would think too deeply. Knowing that the position is probably not critical at all, he would spend a couple of minutes on a small nuance, such as whether to insert the move h6 or not. In such cases, I advised him to ask himself how critical the decision is. If the difference in the evaluation is expected to be small (e.g., 0.2 pawns), then you just make the move suggested by your instincts. This is unlikely to break your game, while wasting two minutes like that may lead to blundering away the entire house in time trouble. 

·       He often missed tactical opportunities or spent too much time calculating them. The obvious cure is to solve puzzles daily and to study more tactical games, as well as adding some sharper openings to the arsenal in order to feel more comfortable navigating complications. 

Of course, he didn’t fix everything at a time, but he has made quite some progress since I had first pointed these issues out to him. Also, the result greatly depends on the person’s willingness to improve, which requires regular study and practice. 

Overall, I hope that from now on you will be paying more attention to your time management in chess! Improving in this area that is often ignored by people can make you a much better player. 

Wondering where to find a one-stop solution for your chess routine? Check out Magnus Trainer, an app created by World Champion Magnus Carlsen and his team of world-class experts in education, IT, and chess!

Recording the time spent per every move can provide more information about your game than you might expect!

One of the evergreen and hotly debated topics in chess is whether you should pay more attention to studying the opening or the endgame. 

Over the last few decades, the late IM Mark Dvoretsky and other proponents of studying the endgame have made a leap forward in terms of changing public opinion on this topic. Nowadays, if you ask a dedicated chess fan what method is preferable, he might wink painfully and blurt out: “Yes, I know that endgames are more beneficial for your chess development in the long run!”. And having said that, he will run away from you, not waiting for other provocative questions, and purchase another online opening course or opening book. 

Numbers don’t lie: if you check out any chess bookstore, you will realize that books on openings are still vastly superior to endgame books both in terms of quantity and the number of copies sold. People are still obsessed with openings! 

In 2020, we conducted a survey among Magnus Trainer users. One of the questions was about their preferences when it comes to lessons. Somewhat surprisingly for me, “Strategy” turned out to be a clear winner with 29.9%. The second and third places were shared by “Openings” and “Can’t make up my mind” with 17.9% each. “Endgame” shared the last place with “Highlights”, scoring a meager 4.5% each. So, is the least tasty food the best for you? 

Now let’s briefly go over the arguments for each side and decide whether they look convincing enough.  

“It feels nice to get an edge and a comfortable position out of the opening; in contrast, if you play the opening badly, you might lose quickly and have no chance to demonstrate your endgame skills at all” – valid. We have all seen such knockouts, even at the very top level. No one wants to feel like a punching bag, getting blown off the board in 15 moves or so. And winning an excellent game and saving quite some time and energy is much appreciated. 

“That’s what the top players are mainly focused on, so everyone should adopt this approach” – an argument from authority. In this situation, it is a manipulation made possible by the fact that many people don’t understand that it makes no sense for a relatively weak player to copy the training routine of a super GM. At each level, different skills should be acquired, and the workload should be different. Mr. Olympia and an office worker who hits the gym two times a week for an hour should not have the same training program. 

“Knowing openings is helpful for being a commentator, author or second” – true. I recall one eminent Grandmaster settling his scores by comparing the careers of two fellow strong Grandmasters. At some point, he venomously stated that the first GM, who was more of an endgame specialist, basically became of no interest to the chess community after falling off his rating peak. The second guy, who was portrayed as a case of success, joined a team of a more promising Grandmaster. Hence the conclusion was that opening knowledge is more valuable than endgame knowledge. Still, this narrative applies to a tiny sample of professional players and is not something a chess improver should be concerned about.  

“Unlike opening theory, endgame theory is rarely revised, so it is more efficient to study it” – partially valid. If you review old endgame books carefully enough, you may notice that they are riddled with mistakes. Indeed, for positions with seven pieces on the board or fewer, we currently know the outcome of the game for sure if both sides play perfectly. The evaluations will NEVER change. But this wasn’t the case 20 years ago, not to mention older sources of information. Also, for many other popular endgames, most current evaluations are likely to stand the test of time. Nevertheless, there is still room for improvement. We are not omniscient when it comes to the endgame and not even close to being so. 

“Most people play the endgame badly, so if you invest some time into studying it, your results are likely to improve drastically” – true for people who do play the endgame relatively badly. In the “develop your strengths vs. eliminate your weaknesses” argument, I am a big believer that you should focus on your strengths but also not forget to make “quick and dirty” fixes when it comes to glaring holes in your preparation. Let’s take an extreme example. If you have never studied openings and don’t know your lines for at least 5-8 moves, you will hugely benefit from learning this within a day. Or, endgame-wise, if you don’t know how to give basic mates, such as king and queen vs. king and king and rook vs. king, you will increase your rating tremendously if you master these techniques, spending a tiny amount of time compared to how much you generally allocate to chess. The same principle applies to more sophisticated concepts. 

“Endgame theory doesn’t require as much memorization as opening theory” – partially valid. Endgame theory is also quite extensive, and even top GMs regularly forget what they have learned earlier. For example, at the training sessions of the Russian Olympic chess teams, they often practice rook and bishop vs. rook and rook and knight vs. rook endgames that are prevalent in modern chess. Guess what? People still make blunders when these endgames occur in tournament games! 

This is something that really pisses me off in Dvoretsky’s “Endgame Manual”. Typically, for each endgame type, the author says there are just a few positions you should know by heart and assumes that they are easy to memorize once and forever. Well, alas, for most of us, it is hard to remember a few hundred chess positions and what exactly to do in them, even though I must agree that this is a modest amount of work as compared to the chunks of opening information stored by the minds of top GMs. 

Also, when Dvoretsky sadistically bashes players in the “Tragicomedies” section for allegedly being lazy and not studying this or that endgame, I shake my head, realizing that they have almost certainly looked at this endgame at some point…but forgotten the conclusions! Our memories are not perfect. Also, mistakes happen, particularly when you are low on time and under pressure. 

“By studying endgames, one understands better the abilities of each chess piece and learns how they can cooperate efficiently with each other” – true. This is the main reason why Jose Raul Capablanca advocated that one should start studying chess from the endgame. 

If you neglect the endgame, remember that Capablanca is watching!

The list is by no means exhaustive, but we have to cut it at some point. Anyway, who won? 

A few years ago, I was clearly on the “Endgame” team. Firstly, the arguments above seemed to tip the balance in endgame’s favor. Secondly, I have met people rated Expert or below who knew sophisticated long lines and were helpless out of the opening, as well as experienced masters who could get away with playing all sorts of troll moves in the opening and outsmarting their opponents later on. Thirdly, reading chess books, I have often seen chess players state that studying the endgame took their playing strength to a whole new level. For instance, if there was one thing you were to take away from GM Jonathan Hawkins’ “Amateur to IM”, it is precisely the fact that focusing on the endgame was the main reason why he was able to progress from a club player to an IM. And I have never seen anyone claim something like: “I sat and studied openings all day, and then I became a GM all of a sudden!” 

These days, my view on the subject is somewhat more balanced. I believe it makes sense to treat each person individually and to prescribe adequate “medicine” based on the symptoms that can be found by analyzing the person’s games. Here are some examples:

·        If you can’t make it out of the opening or often leave it with a position that is already beyond salvation, then you indeed should consider working on your opening repertoire. 

·        If you get an excellent position out of the opening but have no clue what to do next, you should focus more on typical middlegame plans and positional play in general. Also, you might want to check if the opening you play suits your style at all.

·        If you get a good position and have no obvious trouble navigating it but somehow can’t convert your advantage or lose to unforeseen tactics from the opponent, then you should focus on dynamics & tactics. 

·        If you often draw winning or better endgames and lose drawish/slightly inferior ones, then probably the endgame knowledge & technique need improvement. 

Then, as you become more experienced and stronger, the training priorities change. The cycle goes on and on. 

Luckily enough, our chess apps cover all facets of the game! If you wish to improve in chess, you may as well see what the World Chess Champion and his team of world-class experts have in store for you.

What Should You Study More: Opening vs. Endgame

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.

Nona Gaprindashvili, five-time Women’s World Chess Champion, was the first woman to earn the FIDE Grandmaster title. At age 80, she is a remarkable example of longevity in chess, playing competitively as of this day. Nona was crowned the Women’s World Senior Chess Champion in 1995, 2009, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, and 2019. She was mentioned briefly in the recent award-winning Netflix mini-series “The Queen’s Gambit,” where she was erroneously presented as someone who never competed against men. In fact, one of Nona’s biggest tournament successes was tying for first in Lone Pine International in 1977 in the USA, where she placed ahead of many strong male Grandmasters.

Last week we touched upon the subject of longevity in chess, discussing at what age chess players usually reach their peak. However, as you may have noted, the narrative was somewhat one-sided since we only used the World Chess Champions as examples.

This time let’s take a look at women’s chess and see at what age the Women’s World Chess Champions peaked. Before we go on, please make an intelligent guess of how the numbers are going to compare. Do you think women reach their peak in chess earlier, at about the same age or later than men?

Here is the breakdown, listing all the Women’s World Chess Champions who had a FIDE rating, and Judit Polgar, the strongest female player ever by far:

Nona Gaprindashvili, 2495, July 1987, 46 years
Maia Chiburdanidze, 2560, January 1988, 27 years
Xie Jun, 2574, January 2008, 37 years
Susan Polgar, 2577, January 2005, 35 years
Zhu Chen, 2548, January 2008, 31 years
Antoaneta Stefanova, 2560, January 2003, 23 years
Xu Yuhua, 2517, April 2006, 29 years
Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2561, January 2018, 33 years
Hou Yifan, 2686, March 2015, 21 years
Anna Ushenina, 2502, July 2007, 21 years
Mariya Muzychuk, 2563, March 2016, 23 years
Tan Zhongyi, 2530, August 2018, 27 years
Ju Wenjun, 2604, March 2017, 26 years
Judit Polgar, 2735, July 2005, 29 years

As you may remember from our previous blog post, most World Chess Champions reached their rating peaks somewhere between 34 and 43. With women, the situation is different; they seem to be relatively early bloomers, usually peaking somewhere between 21 and 37. Of course, this is a very rough assessment for several reasons.

First of all, the sample sizes for each group are relatively small and limited to elite players.

Secondly, quite a few female players on the list are still young and active. Therefore, there is a chance that some of them will come into full bloom later than the list suggests. Still, for some of them, this will be quite a challenge since they are far away from their rating peaks.

Also, it is far from clear why such a discrepancy between male and female chess players occurs. One of the common arguments that pop up regularly in interviews with top female players is that, at some point, family life, particularly kids, becomes a high priority for them, resulting in a decline in chess performance.

For example, here is what Judit Polgar told the Italian chess magazine Torre & Cavallo in 2011:

It is not easy with a child. I thought I would be back soon after my first child was born. It was strange to be off the list for a year, during which time my sister took my place. When the second child came, I felt that if I would continue playing, it would be impossible to reach the level I want – either as a mother or as a chess player. So I decided to take a break from chess. I am coming back now. The results are not the best. In the last year and a half, I realized I can play again but not at the highest level. After my kids, going to a tournament feels like having a vacation, having a full night sleep.

Moreover, in addition to family reasons, there are many other factors that can potentially hinder the chess career of any person, such as illnesses, focusing on education or migrating to a different profession, burnout, loss of motivation to play on, etc.

Image (C) wgp2019.fide.com
Kateryna Lagno earned her first Grandmaster norm when she was only 13 and went on to obtain the title at age 17.

In case you are wondering if it is even possible to strike the right balance between family life and chess, 31-year-old Kateryna Lagno, 2546, is currently rated #5 on the women’s list while being a mother of four! In 2010 she won the World Women’s Blitz Chess Championship shortly after giving birth to a son, while in 2018, she reached the Finals of the Women’s World Chess Championship just a month after giving birth to a daughter. That being said, she won the Women’s Rapid Chess Championship (2014) and three Women’s Blitz Chess Championships (2010, 2018, 2019). Curiously enough, her spouse is Alexander Grischuk, who is also a three-time World Blitz Chess Champion. So, as you may guess, they both have a very hectic schedule and have to travel a lot around the world, making it even more challenging for them to bring up kids.

To summarize, the range when female players reach their rating peak varies vastly when it comes to the world’s top players. It can be anything from 21 years (Hou Yifan, Anna Ushenina) to 46 (Nona Gaprindashvili). As long as you enjoy playing chess, you may as well hope for the best and try to make the most of your current form regardless of your age!

Are you curious to get a feel how powerful Judit Polgar, the strongest female chess player ever, was at her prime? Or maybe you want to have a more balanced match, challenging her at a time when she was much, much younger? Download Play Magnus to duel the Judit character and have Polgar herself tell you about her life and spectacular chess career.

Let’s take a look at women’s chess and see at what age the Women’s World Chess Champions peaked. 

At What Age Do Chess Players Peak? Part 2

One of the most famous examples of longevity in top-level chess is Vassily Smyslov reaching the Final of the Candidates matches against Garry Kasparov in 1984. Smyslov turned 63 during the match, while Kasparov celebrated his 21st birthday on the last day of the confrontation – three to one age odds!

Nowadays, when you're not a Grandmaster at 14, you can forget about it.

If you like following live top chess events, such as the Champions Chess Tour or other high-profile tournaments, you have probably noticed that the commentators often mention how old the competitors are. They draw parallels between the players' ages and FIDE ratings and make some conclusions on the participants' prospects. Professional chess is a tough race: you have to stand out from the crowd as early as possible to make it into the elite circuit of regulars who frequent all the most prestigious events in the world.

Having access to modern technologies, especially the top engines that are getting closer and closer to playing perfect chess, allows kids to progress more quickly than ever. Currently, the record for being the youngest Grandmaster is held by ex-challenger Sergey Karjakin, who obtained the highest chess title at the age of 12 years and 7 months. When the feat was achieved back in 2003, it seemed like it will hold forever. Now we can't be so sure. In May 2021, 12-year old American chess prodigy IM Abhimanyu Mishra earned his second GM norm. He still needs one more GM norm and a few dozen rating points to break Karjakin's achievement, but he is dangerously close, hinting that there will be other contenders for overtaking the record in the nearest future.

That being said, the older generation is not giving up just yet. Of course, nowadays, it is not possible to be a World Chess Champion at age 58, like was the case with Wilhelm Steinitz. Nevertheless, in 2012 the chess crown was at stake in the World Chess Championship match between Viswanathan Anand (42) and Boris Gelfand (43). Moreover, 44-year old Anand won the Candidates Tournament in 2014. Such motivational stories prove that certain unique people are capable of performing brilliantly at age 40+. Still, if we look at the current top-10 of the FIDE list in classical chess, all the players there are either in their 20s or 30s. The youngest is Anish Giri (26), while the oldest is Levon Aronian (38).

Anyway, at what age are you supposed to reach your peak in chess? The answer to this question depends on such qualities of the person as physical and mental health, motivation, tournament experience, and numerous other factors. Many chess experts believe that most top chess players peak somewhere around age 35-40. For instance, this figure is given by GM, Dr. of Science in Psychology Nikolai Krogius. However, as usual, a lot depends on the definitions. If we mean relative strength, e.g., becoming the World Chess Champion, then quite a few people have achieved this feat in their 20s. Some of the names that come to mind are Garry Kasparov (22), Magnus Carlsen (22), Mikhail Tal (24), Anatoly Karpov (24), Vladimir Kramnik (25). However, in terms of absolute playing strength, all of them kept improving their play even after winning the World Chess Championship. Notably, Mikhail Tal, the youngest ex-WCC in the history of the game, used to say that he would have crushed "Misha Tal-1960" had he played the young version of himself at a later stage. In other words, he was getting better as a chess player, but the competition was progressing at an even faster rate.

In case you are interested, here are the ages at which some of the Classical World Chess Champions reached their rating peaks (let's leave rating inflation out of the discussion since this topic tends to cause holy wars):

Mikhail Botvinnik, 2690 (unofficial, April 1968, 56 years)
Vassily Smyslov, 2630 (unofficial, April 1968, 47 years)
Mikhail Tal, 2705 (January 1980, 43 years)
Tigran Petrosian, 2660 (unofficial, June 1967, 37 years)
Boris Spassky, 2690 (July 1971, 34 years)
Bobby Fischer, 2785 (July 1972, 29 years)
Anatoly Karpov, 2780 (July 1994, 43 years)
Garry Kasparov, 2851 (July 1999, 36 years)
Vladimir Kramnik, 2817 (October 2016, 41 years)
Viswanathan Anand, 2817 (March 2011, 41 years)
Magnus Carlsen, 2882 (May 2014, August 2019, 28 years)

FIDE World Chess Champions:
Alexander Khalifman, 2702 (October 2001, 35 years)
Ruslan Ponomariov, 2764 (July 2011, 27 years)
Rustam Kasimdzhanov, 2715 (May 2015, 35 years)
Veselin Topalov, 2816 (July 2015, 40 years)

As you can see, with a few exceptions, some of which will be explained below, pretty much all the World Chess Champions peaked rating-wise somewhere between 34 and 43.

Please note that Mikhail Botvinnik, Vassily Smyslov, and Tigran Petrosian were probably past their primes when the Elo system was introduced. Also, we don't know what heights Bobby Fischer could have reached had he not quit chess at a young age. And Magnus Carlsen is an active player who has all the chances to improve on his personal best in the future. The easiest way to track his progress (or regress!😅) is to take on the reigning World Chess Champion in the Play Magnus app, where you can play against his AI clone at any age you like.

It is common for professional players to retire somewhat prematurely due to burnout, loss of motivation, financial problems, failure to progress, and other similar reasons. For amateur and semi-pro players, age is less important because most of them have by far not exhausted their potential for improvement. Hence, if you are a bit older than 35 and haven't played chess professionally since early childhood, your age should not worry you too much chess-wise. For example, compared to pros, amateurs usually build up experience much slower since they don't play as many games per year. Consequently, it is not unheard-of for some people to take on chess seriously and improve their personal bests even in their late 40s and 50s.

Last but not least, you can let go of the Elo trap at any age and enjoy playing chess! It is such a great game, after all, so good luck and have fun!

Are you interested in learning more about the 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!

"Nowadays, when you're not a Grandmaster at 14, you can forget about it." Viswanathan Anand 

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?

Recording Your Time Distribution

What Should You Study More: Opening vs. Endgame

Can You Play Blindfold Chess?

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

Do You Have a Chess Training Partner?

At What Age Do Chess Players Peak? Part 2

At What Age Do Chess Players Peak?

Chess Openings: Who are Your Role Models?