Improve Your Chess!

The following are links to articles, videos, and books that will help you improve your chess.  If you come across any interesting videos, sites, books, .... (new or old), please let Bob Flanagan know, bobflanagan1@gmail.com, so they can be added to this page.

Queen Pawn Openings

• What is the Slav Defense? Explore IM Tom Bartell's "The Practical Slav Defense"
• A strong reply to the Queen Pawn Opening - Derieque Kelley
• Chess traps in the queen pawn gambit opening
• The Semi-Slav
• Part 1 - The classical Meran
• Part 2  - The modern Meran
• Part 3 - The Reynolds Attack
• Part 4 - The Anti-Merans
• there are many more parts, up to part 9. You'll see the links
• Queen Pawn videos - Lichess.org listing

King Pawn Openings

• King Pawn Opening videos - Lichess.org listing
• Urusov Gambit response to Nf3
• 5 Best Chess Traps in the Italian Game by GM Nadya Kosintseva

Sicilian Defense

• Crush the Sicilian with 2.Nc3 | Games to Know by Heart - IM Eric Rosen
• Sicilian Defense videos - Lichess.org listing
• Interesting article on the Sicilian. The first image is not a video (buttons on it don't work on my PC). Scroll down to see the video.
• Accelerated Dragon - GM Yasser Seirawan
• Sicilian Najdorg / French  / Alekhine / Chigorin - GM Yasser Seirawan

English Opening

• English Opening videos - lichess.org listing
• The English Opening: A simple but strong opening to learn! - GM Roman Dzindzichashvili
• The English Opening - Chess Openings explained
• MSK Chess Videos on the English Opening from the Dynamic English book
• Introduction
• Botvinnik system
• Reversed Grandprix Attack - GM Tony Kosten
• Reverse Dragon
• Chess Openings : A system against the English Opening for Black
• Aggressive response to the English
• English Opening Trap

French Defense

• Effective Development | French Defense - GM Yasser Seirawan
• Mastering the French Defense - Critical Variations for Black (Chess Openings) - GM Susan Polgar
• French Defense videos- lichess.org listing
• The Killer French by GM Williams - Beating the advanced variation

King's Indian Attack and Defense

• King's Indian Attack and Defense videos - lichess.org listing
• The Classical King's Indian Defense - Chess Openings Explained

The London System

• Beat Good Players with the London - Games to Know by Heart - IM Eric Rosen

How to Think and Plan in Chess

• Chess Life article on how to reduce your blunders
  The article defaults to a easy to read text only page.  However, one doesn't get to see chess board examples.  To see boards, press on the open book like button in the very top right.  You can now see boards, but the text is too tiny!  To make the text larger, double click.  Then to scroll, click and hold and move the page around, Use the < and > buttons to go to different pages
• Strategic Ideas in the Opening | Seirawan vs. Miles - GM Yasser Seirawan
• Excellent summary of how to analyze
• Karpov's top 5 tactics
• Are You Ready for the Most Powerful Positional Play? - GM Maxim Dlugy 
• Advanced Chess Strategy
• Simplify into a Winning Endgame | Strategy Session with Jonathan Schrantz
• Trading: When Does it Benefit You? | Strategy Session with Jonathan Schrantz
• How to calculate variations efficiently
• Recognizing Combos - GM Yasser Seirawan - Always an excellent presenter.
• How to Think in Chess GM Simon Williams!
• 5 Chess Shortcuts to Improve FAST 🚀 with GM Eugene Perelshteyn
• Botvinnik's Winning Method - World champion for 8 years

Interesting Articles, Videos, and Sites

• Dan Heisman's "The Improving Chess Thinker".  A very interesting book.
• Two interesting games by  8th World Chess Champion, Mikhail Tal that illustrate attacking chess
• More YouTube videos by GM Yasser Seirawan
• Opening Problems | Scotch | French | King's Indian - GM Yasser Seirawan
• More YouTube videos by GM Simon Williams
• The Chess Web Site
• Chess Openings by Dereque Kelley
• chesspractice.com - An excellent site to practice your openings and analyze your games

Last, but Not Least:

• Ask yourself: what are all the things your opponent's move does? Look at checks, captures and threats, in that order.
• What are all the positive things you want to do? This includes potential tactics.  This is your plan!
• What are all the candidate moves which might accomplish on or more of your goals.
• Which of these moves can you reject immediately because they are not safe? (Find checks, captures and threats that defeat the move.)
• Of the final moves, which one is the best you can find in a reasonable amount of time?