In the first poll, which have been running here on ELO2000.com, I have asked readers this question: “Which part of the chess game do you study mostly?”. The results are not surprising – majority of chess players seem to study the opening phase mainly.

72% of readers have voted for the opening phase. 14% have voted for the middlegame and the same amount has voted for the endings.

There were 7 people participating in the poll. Not big number, but keep in your mind that this blog is quite fresh one.

I was expecting similar result as it seems to be natural for many chess players – to study openings at first and hoping for “catching” opponents in some traps.

But on the other side – I am not sure whether it is effectively spent time as usually we know all the opening principles, the importance of development of pieces and the most known opening tactical patterns. Would not be more useful to study another stages of a chess game?

For example – how many games did you win in the opening and how many other games did you lose in the ending which seemed to be equal?

Last week I played another game in the tournament organized by my local chess club. In that round I played against the strongest player of the tournament.

At the beginning of the game I felt like “I would be happy for one half of a point” and the game looked like that. It was in direct opposition of my older article “How to set up your mind when playing with stronger opponent“… I should learn from my articles at least…

But during a course of the game I found some tactical opportunities (around 30th move) and decided to sell my skin more expensively. So I finally started to fight.

And even being a pawn down, I was manage to overplay my opponent in rook ending. Maybe I even start to love this kind of chess endings?! The move 48.Ke5 was decisive and white equalized the game.

Black has an advantage, it is clear. The move, which leads to the win, is 1…. Bc5+. But there is one which is even stronger. Would you find it?

Black to move:

If you like the games of women’s world chess champion Alexandra Kosteniuk, you should not miss her new book called “Diary of a Chess Queen”.

The game described Alexandra’s way to the top and it is full of her games. The book will be released on December 1st, 2009, but if you order it now you will get the author’s autograph.

You can preorder the book here: http://chessqueen.com/index.php?productID=35

BTW: Alexanadra Kosteniuk has prepared a video ad for the book. You can watch it here: http://chessmovies.com/index.php?id=151

White is to move. How would you proceed to win?