The theme of this site is chess and the main focus of this site is
analysis of the games of Mike Serovey (that's me), with diagrams. Most of the
stuff that I cover is pretty basic and includes general theory as well as
specific analysis of certain positions and move orders.
This is one of my personal hobby sites. The games will be from 1983 on
and one game is from 1976. I will be adding more games from the 1970's as I
find them. Some of these games are good examples of how not to play
chess.
What's in this site for YOU? If you are a master then you probably won't
find much here other than chess blogs and
links to other great sites. Use
this site as a portal to other great chess sites.
If you are a beginner you will find tips on general strategy and links to
chess books that will help you improve your game. If you are an intermediate
player you will find ideas on how to handle certain openings and types of
positions. YOU may not agree with some of my analysis and that is OK with
me. If YOU wish to send me analysis to include on this site YOU may
certainly do so be sending an email to me at
I got to thinking about something recently and decided to post it here.
If you were to look up my current USCF over-the-board (OTB) rating you will
see that I'm only rated 1500. My latest USCF correspondence rating is 1893.
So, I'm clearly not a master at chess! When I joined the US Army back in
1977 I wasn't taught how to be a soldier by a general or senior NCO. I was
taught by one buck sergeant (E-5) and a bunch of staff sergeants (E-6). I
rarely saw the company commander or first sergeant. Mid-level NCOs could
teach me how to be a soldier, to include how to march, shoot a rifle, polish
my boots, make my bunk, etc. When I got to AIT (Advanced Individual
Training) it was again mid-level NCOs that taught me how to read a map and
compute fire data for canons. My point here is that chess beginners
and chess novices do not need a chess master, and certainly not a
chess GM, to teach them the rules of the game and some basic strategy. They
can learn from someone at my level. Someone who is already at my level needs
to learn from a chess master or above.
Another thing to consider is this, practice against someone whose chess
rating is about 200 points above where you are rated. If you go too much
above that you will lose every chess game and become discouraged. If you go
much below that level you will not learn anything new. Easy wins at chess
may be fun for a while, but improvement comes with studying chess and
practicing chess against better players than where you are currently rated.
I somehow got signed up for Google Alerts (I don't remember how) and I
got an alert recently that told me about this site being indexed by Alexa.
I have added a screenshot of Alexa that shows that this site is now
ranked in the top 10 chess sites at Alexa for the "People" category.
Click this link to see my site on Alexa.
For best viewing you may have to save the bitmap to your hard drive and then
use Windows Explorer (or equivalent) to enlarge the picture and then scroll
to the lower right corner to see this site listed as number 9.
If you find the content of this site useful please help me cover the
costs of keeping this site on the web by making a donation. Any amount would
be helpful Thanks!
If you want to be notified whenever I make updates to this site then get
my new Chess Site Notifier. It lets you know when I update this site without
you having to give me your email address.
Get the Chess Site Notifier by clicking here.
What's New?
February 10, 2008 - I just
uploaded a small application that you can get for free. This application
needs to be installed on your computer in order to work. Once installed it
will check this site once a day for updates. If it finds that this page has
changed it will notify you so that you can check it out. With this
application you can be notified of new content without having to give me
your email address. You need to save this application to your desktop and
then click on it whenever you want to check this site for updates. Get the Chess Site
Notifier by clicking here.
February 23, 2007 - I have
added my win against James the II
played at
Stan's Net Chess.
This game was a Sicilian: Alapin's variation (3.c3) that got kind of wild
quickly. My Opponent was down material from move 14 on. In the final
position he was down a Bishop, Knight and two pawns.
March 21, 2008 - I have added
my win against richcavalier. This
game was
played at
Stan's Net Chess.
During part of this game my opponent's rating was over 2400. This is one of
my games where I played the White side of the English opening.
April 19, 2008 - I have added
my win against joblack. This game was played at
Stan's Net Chess.
This was my second attempt at the Dutch defense and m first win with it. As
a result of this game my rating at
Stan's Net Chess
went up to 2203.
February 10, 2008 - I just
uploaded a small application that you can get for free. This application
needs to be installed on your computer in order to work. Once installed it
will check this site once a day for updates. If it finds that this page has
changed it will notify you so that you can check it out. With this
application you can be notified of new content without having to give me
your email address. You need to save this application to your desktop and
then click on it whenever you want to check this site for updates. 
