The two drew their last round of the match. The big showdown will now be chosen by the tiebreaks on Wednesday with a series of Rapid & Blitz games. The heat is still on and many fans are still anxious about who the next world champion is going to be! 

GM Magnus Carlsen won Round 10! With his chances to even out the match score decreasing, Carlsen assembled weight, then at last, his first full point. His win leveled the match 5-5. The aggregation of numerous great positions at last paid profits for the best on the planet. He wasn't flawless in the change.

In cycle eight of the 2016 big showdown, GM Sergey Karjakin had different opportunities to touch off the match against GM Magnus Carlsen. It was a story of three one-square moves:  Karjakin's win, the primary definitive session of the match, slung him into the lead, 4.5-3.5, with just four rounds to go.

We'd like to extend a big congratulations to one of our students - Samuel Mendonca for the 1st place in the Children's Chess Tournament U-9 Category, held on November 20. Samuel had joined ZugZwang Academy in the month of June (2016) to learn Chess. 

This position arises from the Roussaeu Gambit in an opening played by black. An early sacrifice of the f-pawn leads to an immediate attack on the e-file when white accepts. If white doesn't play correctly, it usually becomes disastrous. In this position, White has blundered with the move d3. Can you find the best move for Black?

I came across this wonderful video that portrays all the decisions people face in life showing how complicated the process of decision making really is. Unfortunately, this is not something that education prepares us. However, that can change for the next generation.

In a recent Match-up on chess.com, I played against a strong 2250+ player on chess.com in the time control 3 | 0.  I had some difficulty winning this game, and in fact, it was resignable for me when I blundered a piece early on. However, I continued to play and eventually went on to win the game because my opponent lost on time. 
 

Last night on Chess.com, I played a couple of blitz games and got paired against two very strong opponents. The time control for both games were 3-minutes each. I was able to beat both of my opponents and was pretty exited about that! I must point that I don't consider myself a better player, but I certainly did play a very decent game that made it difficult for these IM's to take me down :).