What are the ideas for Black in this position ?

Game found here .

Study after work. The squares covered by the pawn and bishop see the X's tell why this tactic works.

Lesson here: Clearly see and acknowledge what escape squares are covered. Good players think in terms of squares.

Calculate all Queen Deflections!

Game found here ,

Notes on Specific SYT Problems for further study

I've created this post as a spot to record tactic numbers of 1-2 stars that I feel bear future review.

For study in the future

Save this one to study once I'm better. Back to Circle 1.

Endgame Fundamentals: White to Play and Draw

This month's carnival is being run by LEP who has one of the more fun chess blogs to follow. Here is a short but hopefully instructive post.

Here is an example from the old school book " How to Win in the Chess Endings" by I.A.Horowitz. If you were to point me to this position and told me White to move draws I wouldn't believe you. As the arrows implies, once White takes the rook (forced), black pawn is on his fourth square looking like he can Queen easily.

I'll leave it to you to work out the draw from here

Gelfand Bishops in Control

game found here . Interesting Mating net for further study .

I'm still not very skilled

Here's one I missed though I clearly saw some of the factors......