White to move! How should white proceed?
UNDERSTANDING CHESS WITH GM NYZHNYK: ATTACKING THE KING! (3)
Hello everybody, and welcome to a third article of the โUnderstanding Chess with Grandmaster Illia Nyzhnyk” series. In the last article, I talked about king safety, and what one should be looking for when making a decision on how to defend their king. This time, I would like to โreverse the rolesโ and discuss what […]
Understanding Chess with GM Nyzhnyk: King Safety (2)
Hello everybody, and welcome to a second article of the โUnderstanding Chess with Grandmaster Illia Nyzhnykโ series. I would like to pick up where the previous article left off โ how to hide your king properly and avoid getting checkmated. Please consider the following position: The only way to save the white king is to […]
Understanding Chess with GM Nyzhnyk – Introduction (1)
Hello everybody, and welcome to the โUnderstanding Chess with Grandmaster Illia Nyzhnykโ, a series of short chess articles. My goal for these articles is to show you fundamental chess principles with simple examples, something you can use as a reference while learning the game and becoming a better player. To start things off, I would […]
Highest Rated 15 Year Old
Another excerpt from my upcoming autobiography (March 11, 2025) If anything, the hostile treatment I was getting from the authorities was the best motivator I could have hoped for, because my chess improved by leaps and bounds during that period. By January of 1983, I had become among the top ten female players in […]
Up Against the Big Guns
๐ ๐๐๐๐๐พ๐ ๐๐๐พ๐ฝ๐๐๐พ๐ฝ ๐พ๐๐ผ๐พ๐๐๐ ๐ฟ๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐ผ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐บ๐๐๐๐ป๐๐๐๐๐บ๐๐๐ (๐พ๐๐๐พ๐ผ๐๐พ๐ฝ ๐๐ ๐ป๐พ ๐๐พ๐ ๐พ๐บ๐๐พ๐ฝ ๐ฟ๐๐ ๐ถ๐๐๐พ๐’๐ ๐ง๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ฌ๐๐๐๐ ๐ค๐ข๐ค๐ง) …the classical chess tournaments that had defined my career up until that point started to feel unsatisfying, repetitive even. So I began to seek out different formats and new challenges. Maybe this was Bobby’s influence (๐ธ๐ฆ ๐ธ๐ฐ๐ณ๐ฌ๐ฆ๐ฅ ๐ต๐ฐ๐จ๐ฆ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ณ ๐ต๐ฐ […]
Locked Behind the Iron Curtain
Another unedited excerpt from my upcoming autobiography (expected to be out on March 11, 2025): For the next few years, I became a prisoner of sorts, locked behind the Iron Curtain, not sure if I would ever be allowed to leave again to compete. At first, it seemed inconceivable to me that my own government […]
The Final Hurdle To History!
Another unedited excerpt of my upcoming autobiography: The final hurdle to making history! We ended the year (1990) back in Spain, for a tournament in Pamplona, the city best known for its famous “running of the bulls.” Locally, it’s just as famous for its New Year’s Eve carnival, which just happened to be in full […]
โWhy is there a need for Girlโs or Womenโs Tournaments?โ
โWhy is there a need for Girlโs or Womenโs tournaments?โ This is probably one of the top 5 questions I have most often been asked over the past 15 years, since creating the Susan Polgar Foundation in 2002. I would like to walk you through some history and then explain to you some challenges girls […]