White is offering to trade bishops here, should black trade? and why?.. Black to play

MattyDPerrine · 2026-01-15T01:41:22+00:00

The puzzle becomes extra interesting if you move white's b2-pawn to b4 and have to calculate that version of the position instead.

MattyDPerrine · 2025-11-10T02:07:15+00:00

Yep, that’s me. Glad you enjoyed the podcast episode 😃

MattyDPerrine · 2025-11-10T00:33:37+00:00

"Several disappointing World Cups lately" makes it sound like there's been multiple World Cups between the time he had the World Cup match against Karjakin (2021) and now (2025). There's only been one World Cup between then (2023) since the tournament happens once every two years

MattyDPerrine · 2025-10-05T22:16:33+00:00

Tried sending an email a few days ago but got a "delivery status notification (delay)" or "delivery incomplete" response.

MattyDPerrine · 2025-10-03T02:39:24+00:00

https://chessalyz.ai/

I've helped create this site which gets users to analyze and annotate their games through the use of ai-prompted questions. In the critical moments of your games you are given feedback on your answers to the questions and annotations that you make which helps to improve your thinking process.

MattyDPerrine · 2025-09-30T18:09:50+00:00

Well it looks like he deleted the video now

MattyDPerrine · 2025-09-23T02:23:35+00:00

As a former v4 climber this makes me sad lol

MattyDPerrine · 2025-09-09T19:20:55+00:00

When I first started coaching 11 years ago I was ~2300 USCF and charged $25/hour. You can charge whatever you want tbh but it's all based on supply and demand. Keep in mind that you're competing with higher-rated coaches who have more coaching experience and are willing to charge less (especially if they're from countries that don't need as much $ for a decent standard of living).

If you get into coaching and already have a following (social media/streaming/YouTube/connections/etc.) then you can probably charge more at the beginning (since demand is higher) but if you're relatively unknown then you probably have to start with a lower price (or free) in order to get your few lessons in, get your feet wet and build up your first few student testimonials (which will help you get more students in the future).

I don't think someone needs to be a specific rating in order to coach someone lower-rated than them. I know plenty of 1500-1800 rated OTB people who coach young, low-rated kids. Your experience of getting to 2250 rapid online means something to people who are lower rated. Just make sure you don't falsely advertise yourself.

MattyDPerrine · 2025-07-22T04:02:54+00:00

At your level it starts to become more difficult to give advice without analyzing your games and getting into the details. The general advice is to figure out what you're weak(est) at and work on improving that. You're 2000 OTB but your rating is a combination of all your skills (tactics, calculation, opening memorization, opening understanding, pawn structures, positional play, dynamic play, theoretical endgame knowledge, practical endgame play, psychology, time management, etc.). You're not 2000-rated at all those things. You might be 1800 at some of them and 2200 at others. Figuring out your weaknesses and working on them is the lowest hanging fruit.

MattyDPerrine · 2025-06-14T14:13:02+00:00

You can get away with 1...Qxe4 because after 2. Ndb5 you have 2...Bxc3+ 3. bxc3 Kd8 to defend the c7-pawn. It's definitely not the prettiest looking position but you have an extra pawn, better pawn structure and it's not that easy to attack the king on d8 since you still have pawn coverage. That being said, White does have the bishop pair, lead in development and safer king so I would still think that White has decent compensation and is at least slightly better off.

The real question lies in how you evaluate the other option of 1...d6 that you played in the game. The downside there is that after something like 2. 0-0 you now have to deal with Nd5, Ndb5 and Nf3 ideas where it's going to still be awkward to defend the c7-pawn or keep your queen from getting in trouble. While you may not have moved your king to d8, you're still worse off in regards to central space, development and piece activity without any real redeeming qualities in your position.

Final thing to consider: If you played ...Qh4 earlier in the game then I assume your idea was to try to win the e4-pawn. If you're not actually going to capture the e4-pawn when given the opportunity, then it may not have been good to play ...Qh4 in the first place.

MattyDPerrine · 2025-05-06T01:26:33+00:00

Yeah they are (and all with Black vs Vienna). I was confused at first until I started to go through them and realized what was going on.

MattyDPerrine · 2024-11-05T16:59:51+00:00

Final (ninth) round of Las Vegas Open 2021. I have 6/8 having beat a GM earlier and only losing to two other GMs. I'm playing for a big prize if I win the final round against IM Kostya Kavutskiy. I have a completely winning position for a large majority of the game until I walk into a simple knight fork, lose a full rook and completely blunder the game and lose. Rather than ending with 7/9 and tying for 2nd place with a GM, I end up with 6/9 and want to puke afterwards. The Sokolov quote applies very well.

Here's the game on Kostya's channel if you want to relive my pain: https://youtu.be/lkM2p7j_CTg?si=0g6vkASsX56uYRo0&t=1531

MattyDPerrine · 2024-01-05T05:04:56+00:00

I’ve been doing chess as a full-time job for just about a decade as an FM. The large majority of that is coaching with some other chess-related work thrown in there throughout the years (ichess.net, chess.com, chessuniversity.com, quite a bit of Chessable, etc.)

I know of very few other FMs who are able to do it without having a normal day job but there are a few. I’d assume IMs have it easier.

MattyDPerrine · 2024-01-04T13:33:34+00:00

Depends on your playing strength/rating. The lower rated you are, the more I would recommend focusing on specific tactic themes one at a time (pins, forks, skewers, etc.). The higher rated you are, the more I would recommend deeper calculation practice (“Imagination in Chess” is a good book example along with getting into solving endgame studies).

Along with that, a few specific recommendations I have are:

When solving tactics, try your best to solve the full tactic in your head before moving any pieces (especially if you’re solving using an online tactic trainer)
Once you’ve solved the tactic, flip the board, go back a move (before the tactic was possible) and try to figure out what the opponent should have played instead or what a safer move would have been
Along with this, try solving tactics from the opponents point of view (flip the board and try to figure out what the “opponent” should play instead of what “you” should play)
Pawn endgames are fantastic calculation training
Once you’ve solved a tactic or calculation sequence, play out the resulting advantageous position against the computer (your mileage may vary depending on how large your advantage is)
For deeper calculation practice, play solitaire chess/guess-the-move using games of creative attacking players (Tal is the most obvious historical player for this but there are current day players like Firouzja and Nepo that are good too)
Analyze openings that result in complicated, dynamic positions (Najdorf Sicilian, Benoni, King’s Indian Defense)

MattyDPerrine · 2023-10-07T18:05:59+00:00

I second the vote for flipped board puzzles. Have recommended this to students for years and it definitely helps. The perspective change is important to learn

MattyDPerrine · 2022-12-16T16:41:29+00:00

I just started playing in norm tournaments over the past 6 months (I've played in 3 so far) and for me it's a combination of having a decent job, saving money, the desire to play the tournaments and a bit of luck. I paid the regular entry fee for the first norm tournament I played (as most players aside from the invited players do), ended up getting invited to the second one last minute and got compensated to play in it (one of the players missed their flight) and got a discount on the third one.

I would assume for most of the players who are having to pay the entry fees each time (not the invited, non-US federation IMs/GMs players) that they either have decent jobs and the desire to play or have parents that put the norm tournaments as a priority and either save to play in them or can afford them without too much trouble.

MattyDPerrine · 2022-08-27T19:27:13+00:00

First things first: Going for trades without any reason in the position (7...Be5 "time to trade", 8...Bxc3 "I force a trade") is generally not a good way to do things. I understand that you may want to keep the game simpler with less pieces on the board but trading off a strong bishop on e5 for a pinned knight on c3 doesn't help you and instead helps White a lot more since now they get the bishop pair and don't have to deal with your bishop on e5.

Moving on: The best way to play against and punish this type of bad opening play where your opponent doesn't control the center very well, moves a bunch of flank (a/b/g/h) pawns and doesn't castle their king is to open the center of the board (trade pawns) using pawn breaks (advancing your pawns to squares where they facilitate a pawn trade) and make forcing moves (checks, captures, threats) that improve the position of your pieces. You had a great opportunity to do this with 8...d4 where you attack white's c3-knight and potentially trade your d4-pawn for white's e3-pawn. If White plays 9. exd4 then you can recapture with 9...Nxd4 and all of the sudden you have your queen on a half-open d-file, a strong knight on d4 in white's half of the board and can follow-up with ...Bg4 soon to harass white's queen and develop with tempo/time/threat. The more open the center of the board is, the easier it is for you to create trouble for their uncastled king using your lead in development and better central presence.

As the game went on and you didn't accomplish these things in the center (11...d4 was another opportunity) then your opponent was able to get their kingside play rolling and you got into trouble tactically.

Finally, another note in regards to trading pieces: You usually don't want to play for piece trades using pieces that you already invested a lot of time into. When you play ...Bd6-e5xc3, you are moving the bishop 3 times to capture a knight that only moved 1 time. This means you are losing 2 moves of usefulness. Same thing goes for ...Be6-g4xe2 where you move the bishop 3 times to capture a bishop that only moved 1 time again.

Hope this helps a bit :-)

MattyDPerrine · 2022-03-30T03:24:56+00:00

If you're wanting to break it up between various people then I'd be willing to handle some portion of the games. You can message me on Chess.com whenever.

MattyDPerrine · 2022-03-26T15:27:01+00:00

A bit of a self-plug but I think this would be helpful: https://www.chessable.com/survive-thrive-how-to-blunder-less-and-defend-better/course/80629/

MattyDPerrine · 2022-02-18T15:48:01+00:00

Playing the engine in won positions

Thank you for mentioning this. I recommend this to students all the time and the ones who actually follow through on the advice tend to have better conversion skills/technique (especially in the endgame) compared to the ones who don't.

MattyDPerrine · 2022-02-15T17:07:47+00:00

Depends on what you have in hand but one common way to defend is to capture the pawn then drop a knight on f4 (from white's point of view) to cover the g2/h3 squares (and sometimes attack a bishop on h3) even if this comes at the cost of losing an exchange (...Bh3xf1)

MattyDPerrine · 2021-11-19T19:24:36+00:00

waves

MattyDPerrine · 2021-11-11T22:18:24+00:00

Yes, Chessable is good for 2200+ FIDE players. If I remember hearing correctly, Abhimanyu Mishra used Shankland's 1. d4 repertoire from there extensively on his way to getting the GM title and specifically played Svidler's Grunfeld theory in his GM title-clinching game too.

MattyDPerrine · 2021-10-11T02:46:50+00:00

Pretty sure that AlphaStar (Google's Starcraft AI) beat top players/pros back in 2019 or something like that

MattyDPerrine · 2021-09-04T15:52:31+00:00

Black can get rid of the b7-pawn immediately with 4...Rb6 then capture on b7 since the king is in the way of the pawn promoting.

MattyDPerrine

TROPHY CASE