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Chess 
CheckMate Problems Mate in 1 2 3 & 4  
StaleMate Problems, Don't resign when you can force a stalemate! 
Tactics Learn powerful tactics. Featured tactics: The Knight Fork, The Skewer, Double Check, The Invincible Bishop
Square of the Pawn -  With this tactic, you will be able to determine very quickly whether a given pawn is stoppable or not. 
Pawn Charge ! As the name implies you can charge a pawn, right through a barrier of other pawns and promote to queen.
Play chess now on this site for free.
Greatest players of all time. Includes: Kasparov, Capablanca, Bobby Fischer, and Karpov.
Opening Moves Ruy lopez, fool's mate,  knight trap and 22 other openings.
Chess links 
Downloads Free computer chess software and chess engines.
Rating on the ELO. Where do you stand? 
Checkmate Problems | Tips | Famous Players | Links 50 links and growing
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 When all seems hopeless... Stalemate! Five Stalemate Problems

Zchess.com is devoted to both the novice and the International Master of chess. You will find on this site checkmate problems which range in mate in one to mate in four. Also, essential tactics  which are explained with diagrams. Take a look around, and if you like this site, you can book mark it by pressing Ctrl-D. 

Check Mate Puzzles!  

Mate in: 1 | 2 | 3&4 Sections

Improve your visualization skills and learn to find checkmates more easily.

If you like this site, then you can book mark it by pressing Ctrl- D.

Tactics ! Featured: The Knight Fork, The Skewer, Double Check, The Invincible Bishop. All with helpful diagrams.

 
Square of the Pawn
  The Square of the Pawn Learn to force a draw even when your opponent has a passed pawn. With this tactic, you will be able to determine very quickly whether a given pawn is stoppable or not. 

The Pawn Charge With this tactic, you can force a pawn through a barrier of other pawns and promote to Queen.

Want to become a GrandMaster at chess? Click here for some chess tips.
Recent Tournament: Kasparov Vs. Deep JR.

Opening Moves- Due to a large volume of requests I have added all of the opening moves that I know of. Putting together all of the opening moves for this website has been very educational for me, and I hope that if you review them it will be for you also. 

* I have ended the checkmate problem newsletter. It was great while it lasted. Feel free to send me an email via the form below.  
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"When you see a good move, look for a better one." Emanuel Lasker (When there is a good move there is almost always a much better move.) 

   Is there any wisdom that chess strategy can teach us for real life experiences (anticipation, aggression and offense over defense, or an active defense, etc.)? Would any such strategies work in real combat? What do you think.. 

So you want to  become a Grand Master? 

Here are some general tips that you might find useful. 

       There are several main chess strategies that you should always employ, unless you want to lose. First of all, never make a passive move! Doing so would be appeasing your opponent which would push you into an even more passive position while your enemy is free and can easily attack you. Offense is a great deal better than defense simply because you disable your opponent whereas in defense you must remain passive until your opponent finds a way to bypass your defense. There is such a thing as an active defense, however, which is strategically sound. Another important strategy to keep in mind: always be on the offense. Why does this work? When you  are constantly attacking your enemy, he or she must focus on dealing with your attack instead of attacking your king. Thus, in a way it creates a "buffer". If one of your attacks fails, you have only lost territory that was once the enemies (no loss really). "The best defense is a good offense." Old English Proverb. Most successful attacks on an enemy render him or her immobile. Yet another advantage to you. 

       There is a huge difference between tactics and strategy. Strategy can be applied to many things besides chess, and is usually learned in long (several hours) chess games. Tactics on the other hand are extremely specialized moves or processes of moves in chess. Tactics are most easily learned in bullet or blitz chess. One of the most basic, yet important strategies to keep in mind is that you should always try to control the center. There are higher priorities, however, for example you could sacrifice having superior position of the center of the board for a supreme attack against the enemies king; the king is worth more than every single piece on that board combined. One thing most amateur players overlook is the importance of protecting the king. Once the king is gone, all of the pieces on the board are completely worthless.  

       Tactics are moves or processes of moves that are usually completely forced. An example of a tactic is a Knight fork. This is a most basic tactic, yet powerful, that forks a King and a piece of high value (rook, queen). Want to learn more about some basic tactics? Visit my tactics section. Or I have recently written an article on the Square of the Pawn. This is also an important tactic, so if you are unfamiliar with the term, visit the Square of the pawn.

      Remember, strategy is most easily learned over long games, and has the most applications to life in general. Most people are mislead into thinking that playing chess is a 'waste of brains', however I have a view that is strongly opposed to that. Playing chess teaches you logic, visualization skills, strategy, creativity, improves your memory, priorities, essential planning skills, patience, determination, anticipation, and much more. 

Tips for improving your game. 

Blitz / bullet / lightning Chess

      Top players recommend playing blitz games daily. If you are playing against a human player, and you don't have a clock, you can play bullet/blitz chess with five seconds per turn. If you have any kind of timer, you can set it to one minute per player, with zero incremental seconds. It should be noted that playing blitz games can be very challenging and suspenseful, not to mention exhilarating. 

Blind-Folded 

     A very challenging thing to do, but rewarding. Play against others using only your mind. The most difficult things to visualize when playing blind-folded are the diagonals. If you have winboard you can choose to play 'blind-folded'. Literally, you are not blindfolded, but Winboard displays a blank chess board, and you have to keep track of where all of the pieces are. It is hard to do, but fun. Download winboard

Learn Powerful Opening moves

      Some opening moves give you more chances of employing innovative strategy and tactics. Using an opening that was developed by someone else does not mean that you are unoriginal. Check out the Ruy Lopez, and a Knight sacrifice here.   

Play Online

      Play against other humans online for free. Tens of thousands of chess players play online at any given moment. 

Did you know that there are over 169,518,829,100,544,000 different possible positions in the first ten moves of a chess game? (According to chess-poster.com)

Checkers VS. Chess Result: 0 - 1  

Why Chess is better than checkers- Click Here to read a long list.

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