The Chess Angle

This episode is our Season 8 Finale! Neal will be taking an extended end-of-year break and will return with Season 9 in January 2025. This week, we continue our discussion on chess teaching with a focus on materials, resources, and essential concepts for developing players. Referenced Resources and Materials: Chess.com Chessable Practical Chess Exercises The Amateur's Mind Winning Chess Tactics Winning Chess Strategies Jeff Coakley books (red and green) Pandolfini's Endgame Course Openings: Starting Out series by Everyman Chess Referenced Chess Concepts for Developing Players: General board vision and not hanging pieces Address gross blunders Basic mates with the heavy pieces (but arguably, don’t worry about mate with the Bishop and Knight) Basic mating patterns: back rank mate, Anastasia’s mate, Epaulette’s mate, Smothered mate, etc. Lots of mate-in-1 and mate-in-2 exercises  Stalemate Basic tactical themes (pins, forks, skewers, overloaded piece, etc.) 3-move combinations Basic opening principles Basic middlegame & positional ideas (minor pieces, pawn structure, space, initiative, King safety, files and squares). Things like “rooks belong on open files,” “Knights prefer closed positions,” “Queen and Knight is a lethal attacking combination” Basic endgame ideas (King and pawn vs. King, the opposition, square of the pawn, triangulation, outflanking, rooks behind passed pawns, passed pawn tactics, rook and pawn endings, opposite colored bishop endings, Queen vs. pawn on the 7th, etc. 📧 If you have a question or topic idea for a future episode, e-mail us at [email protected]. 🎯 Our Links:  Website Twitter (X) YouTube Buy Me a Coffee

What are the qualities of a good chess coach? How can one become a chess teacher? How should lessons be organized and scheduled? This episode is Part One of Two about chess teaching from both the teacher and student point of view. This week we focus more on the former. We also cover the following topics: Annotating your own games Is there a "rating ceiling" no matter how hard one works to improve? Can you take notes during an OTB tournament game? How to find time to play OTB games as a busy adult Referenced: How to Reassess Your Chess, 4th Ed. (Amazon) Ep. #15: When It's Your Turn to Move Ep. #124: Are Amateur Players Qualified to Coach Chess? 📧 If you have a question or topic idea for a future episode, e-mail us at [email protected]. 🎯 Our Links:  Website Twitter (X) YouTube Buy Me a Coffee The Amazon link above is an affiliate link. Qualifying purchases help support the podcast at no additional cost to you.

This week, we share our thoughts about online chess cheating. We believe it is rampant, while the online servers seem to downplay the amount of cheating taking place. We hypothesize that cheaters are using specific methods in an attempt to avoid detection, and we created nicknames for these players. We discuss the following cheating personalities and more: Larry "Long Pause" Sal "Smooth Moves" Oliver "Obvious Recapture" Donald "Decoy Move" Peter "Perfect Attack" Orlando "Only When Needed" David "Deliberate Early Blunder" Referenced: Long Island Chess Club YouTube Channel (instructional videos for busy adult club players - still a work in progress...) 📧 If you have a question or topic idea for a future episode, e-mail us at [email protected]. 🎯 Our Links:  Website Twitter (X) YouTube Buy Me a Coffee  

This week, Neal discusses attacking play for the amateur player. Arguably, club players should approach attacks differently than titled players. This episode is divided into three segments: Listener Mailbag (elderly advice, withdrawing from tourneys, improvement realities) Does US Chess appreciate its local tournament directors? (opinion piece) 7 attacking tips for the club player Referenced: The Seven Deadly Chess Sins (Amazon) Chess for Tigers (Amazon) 📧 If you have a question or topic idea for a future episode, e-mail us at [email protected]. 🎯 Our Links:  Website Twitter (X) YouTube Buy Me a Coffee The Amazon links above are affiliate links. Qualifying purchases help support the podcast at no additional cost to you.