George Zeigler

George Zeigler is a published writer, have a Masters Degree in Psychology, and have played chess for over 30 years with a current rating of USCF 2073, and peak rating of USCF 2199

Mastering Chess – Mysterious Powers of the Knight

It’s easy to master the powers of the knight once you understand the principles behind them. This is the first article in a 3 part series. Once you have read all 3 articles, you will have a Master Level Understanding of the mysterious powers of the knight. More 🡢

Mastering Chess – The Art of Heroic Defense

Chess is the most fun when we’re attacking and winning with brilliant and creative ideas. However, we all have to defend sometimes, and it’s important to get very tough-minded when we’re in that position. It’s not a lot of fun, but sometimes the situation is not as bad as it seems. By exercising care and patience, we can frequently exchange a few pieces, and reduce the position to equality. That’s what happened in this game: More 🡢

Mastering Chess – Why Grandmasters Love the Sicilian

It was the first time I played the Sicilian Defense in over 3 months. For a couple years, I’ve been playing a variation of the Modern Defense and I was never able to generate the kind of dynamic and fascinating play that I have constantly found in the Sicilian. More 🡢

Mastering Chess – Lines and Focal Points: The Heart and Soul of a Combination

Alexander Alekhine is universally regarded as a great attacking genius, and one of the most creative players of all time. White offers a pawn in order to open up attacking lines around Black’s king. Black accepts the sacrifice less than half the time at high level play, because White gets very dangerous play in return for the pawn. More 🡢

Mastering Chess – Choose Chess Openings that Fit Your Style

Today we’ll focus on playing openings that fit your style. If you’re a pretty new player, you might not be completely sure of what your style is quite yet, so here’s the most important piece of advice. More 🡢

Mastering Chess – Scotch Opening: Blumenfeld Variation

I know this opening extremely well. I’ve worked out many of the details using the chess computer, and I know many of the variations about 20 moves deep. More 🡢

Mastering Chess – Psychology in the Opening Repertoire

In chess it’s important to make sure you’re comfortable with the positions that arise from the choices you make early in the game. One position may even be objectively better. But as long as they’re both playable, if the first position doesn’t fit your style, the other one is your best choice. We all play some positions better than others. It happened to me a couple years ago, and here’s why. More 🡢

Mastering Chess – Dark Square Domination

A large number of grandmaster games involve dominating squares of one color. In chess terminology, this is called “working a color complex” and you’ll often see grandmasters orchestrate numerous maneuvers through a color complex on their journey to victory. More 🡢