CALCULATE TILL MATE

by

GM Igor Smirnov
 Theoretical part

CONTENTS

Instruction
LESSON 1: Deepest and Most Fundamental Tactical Knowledge
LESSON 2 (part-1): Be a World-Class Calculator
LESSON 2 (part-2): Be a World-Class Calculator
LESSON 3: Within the Thickets Of Variations
LESSON 4: Practical Tips For Peak Performance
LESSON 5: Tactical Hurricane
LESSON 6: All the Main Combinations
LESSON 7: Training and Bringing Your Skills Into Practice
BONUS (task): A Special and Highly Instructive Task
BONUS (answer): Complete System at Work
 INSTRUCTION

The practical part of the course will help you to train the necessary skills for calculating and analyzing
like a PRO. Remember, you MUST train and automate them (especially your thought process)
before you can use them in real games.

Often, you’ll need to find the best move in a certain position. Your main goal, however, is NOT just to
detect the right answer. Your main goal is to train your correct system of thinking.

Moreover, there will be complicated positions, where there is no such thing as the “RIGHT or BEST
solution”. It’s a good chance for you to analyze DIFFERENT ways using your different facets of
calculation skills we talked about.

Some positions in the practical part are very hard. They will be difficult even for titled players. So,
please, don’t be upset if you can’t find solutions in all the tasks. “No pain, no gain!”  The
HARDER and SMARTER your train, the GREATER the progress!

If you experience any difficulties while performing a certain task – repeat the corresponding video
lesson again.

It’s highly recommended that you watch video lessons SEVERAL TIMES. This will help you digest
and automate the skills that separate the amateurs from the PROs.

The practical course contains 25 tasks (each one is in a separate folder). Each task comes with a
separate instruction. You should carry out all the tasks (from 1st to 25th), and more importantly,
follow the corresponding instructions.

SOME IMPORTANT NOTES:

 If the time restriction is not specified (in any task), it means you may think as long as
you need.

 Remember that you should focus on the quality of your training, not on the quantity of
 the performed work.

 Do not use the computer engines while performing any of the tasks. To train your skills,
you should think by yourself.

 You may use a computer engine only AFTER performing a task (primarily to check your
analysis).

 Even if a task seems simple for you, I strongly recommend that you execute it seriously.

 The chess games and positions are in *.pgn format. Any decent chess program can easily
open it.

That’s about everything! Now, you should start performing the practical tasks:

1. Read the instructions for a certain task (from the e-book).

2. Go to the folder that contains the database of games / positions and perform the task.
 Deepest And Most FUNDAMENTAL Tactical Knowledge

Lesson 1

Hi! It’s my great pleasure to welcome you into this BRAND new chess training course “Calculate Till
Mate”.

I am GM and chess coach Igor Smirnov, and in this training course, I’ll show and explain to you ALL
you need to know about chess tactics (and more importantly, how you can spot them), how to calculate
the RIGHT way, visualization, and everything in between.

In our first lesson I’ll show you the general idea behind chess tactics. We will analyze why most
amateurs and improving chess players suffer and have a VERY HARD time in applying their
knowledge of tactics, and of course, how you can remedy this situation.

I’ll explain the “WHY” part of the chess rules (allowing you to understand them better), and
moreover, we will implement all of these rules together in a realtime mode!

This will SIGNIFICANTLY improve your chess tactics as well as your overall understanding of a
chess game.

This knowledge is very fundamental and essential to your progress, and I strongly advice that you
study it very seriously. Armed with a firm background, you’ll TRULY UNDERSTAND all of the
rules and ideas in this course… making them EASIER to digest and apply in your games.

Let me bring up one more note. Perhaps, you have studied some of my previous courses already.
Moreover, I hope that you studied one of my base courses like “The Grandmaster's Secrets” or “The
Grandmaster's Positional Understanding”.

These courses expound on the FUNDAMENTAL principles of chess that you NEED to have a solid
understanding, which is necessary before you move on to any

other topics.

While I will give you a brief crash-course on these principles, it is HIGHLY recommended that you
check out my mentioned courses for a DEEPER and MORE

comprehensive explanation of these principles.

Going back to the contents of this course, I’ll reveal to you the ADVANCED techniques of calculation
that are used on the Grandmaster Level. I’m sure you have your own calculation techniques, and we
will also improve them and bring it to a DEEPER level.
OK, let’s move on and talk about chess tactics.

I’m sure you have read some books about it and solved thousands of tactical exercises.
HOWEVER,that knowledge of standard tactical devices and patterns is

not too much helpful in your results.

If you are thinking otherwise, ask yourself a simple question “How often do you really use
combinations in your games?”

And if you haven’t implemented them often, what is a real value of your knowledge, if you can’t put
them to practice and win games with them?

Here’s an example: I’m sure you are familiar with tactical motifs like “decoy” and “deflection”. How
many times did you use these motifs in your whole chess career? I guess not too often.

So How Come, After Training Your Tactical Skills (Through Exercises And Drills) Day-In And
Day-Out, You Still Cannot Put Them Into Practice?

To answer this question, let’s take a look at what chess books, tutorials, and other training materials
offer you. Usually they provide tons of rules, and after that you are reminded to “Go and train them
regularly”.

Most of them assume that you will carve it into your long-term memory and use it whenever the
opportunity arises.

Sounds good, however, this simply does NOT work. Nobody can really keep in mind 100 rules and
follow them REGULARLY. On the contrary, this rather confuses you.

My system is different and let me outline it quickly.

You can’t remember tons of unconnected rules. BUT, you can adopt a SYSTEM.

We are not computers, and we can’t remember things mechanically. BUT we have one advantage: We
can understand the LOGICAL flow of a process.

With that in mind, instead of trying to remember rules, it is INFINITELY better to have a LOGICAL
system and understanding of how a chess game flows.

All of the elements of such a system are inter-connected. All of the other rules are only logical
consequences of the MOST fundamental ones. Thus you do NOT need to keep in mind everything,
but only the PRIMARY principles and rules . Using those base principles, you can easily recognize
all the specific (secondary) rules when necessary.
In general your system of knowledge will look like this:

Such a system is natural for a human’s brain. Having studied psychology, I can tell you that this is
how the brain NATURALLY works. And if your chess knowledge and thinking complement that
NATURAL process, you’ll really be able to put it into practice with greater ease!

As a review, this is the 1st thing you need to have: a LOGICAL system of understanding of chess.

Moving forward, the second thing you should focus on is to put it into practice. You need to ask
yourself: “Just EXACTLY HOW I will put it to practice (in an actual chess game)?” By doing so, you
will have an EFFICIENT system of thinking during a chess game.

Such a system should be UNIVERSAL. It should help you in ANY chess position.

Many players don’t fully understand it. For instance, they solve tactical puzzles and combinative
drills. This creates an IMBALANCE and they forget about strategy. After that they decide to catch up
on strategic understanding… and forget about tactics.

The cycle of IMBALANCE goes on and on, and this makes their results unstable and brings a lot
of frustration.

Again, your system of thinking should be universal and simple. In a real game you only have a few
minutes to make a decision. Thus you don’t really have a time to think and try to remember all of the
HUNDREDS rules you are trying to learn, you need to ACT, and that requires that your system of
thinking to be AUTOMATED!

You need to CONSISTENTLY train it in advance, so that when you sit down at the board, you don’t
have to struggle and try to remember what you need to do.

This brings us to the 3rd MOST important thing: you need to have AN EFFICIENT training system
for your thought process.

To sum up things, you need to have:

 A LOGICAL system of understanding (of a chess game).

 A system of thinking (which will allow you to USE your understanding in your chess games).

 A system of training (which will AUTOMATE your thinking process).

The purpose of this course “Calculate Till Mate” is to provide you all these 3 elements for chess
TACTICS. This will guarantee that you not only get a certain set of knowledge, but you will be able to
put them to practice. And of course, this will IMPROVE your results right after a study of this course!

Maybe you are eager to get your hands on these game-changing chess rules right away. Please, take it
easy: little later we’ll delve deep into them. However, all those rules will be useless, and will only
confuse you, if you do not have a firm background.

Once again, I encourage you to take this 1st lesson very seriously. Now we come to the most
important things about a chess game.

The 1st step on our plan is to get a LOGICAL system of understanding, which should also explain
what chess tactics are ALL ABOUT.

Let’s start right from a beginning: How does one WIN in chess?

You need to destroy an opponent’s army: to capture his pawns, pieces, and to mate his King.

You may argue that it’s enough just to mate his king. Well, theoretically that is correct – the King is
the MOST valuable piece in chess. However, in practice, the opponent’s King is surrounded by his
forces.Thus, anyway, your goal is to demolish his forces.

Next question is: “HOW to demolish opponent’s army?”

The answer is straight forward: We need to attack and to capture opponent’s pieces. Again, in reality,
it’s not that simple to do it.Your opponent will oppose
his defenders to fend off our attackers.

For instance, let’s take a look at this simple position.

(After the first moves 1.e4-e5 2.Nf3-Nc6)

White wants to capture the e5-pawn, but Black’s defender neutralizes White’s attacker. White can’t
get any progress right now.

But if he plays 3.d4, then he has 2 attackers against 1 defender, and now white is really threatening the
e5-pawn.

We may conclude that in order to achieve our goal, we need to have advantage in attackers, have
GREATER activity.

How can we get such an advantage? This can easily happen if you have more pieces (ahead in
material). BUT, in a starting position both players have same

army, so it’s not the case.

HOWEVER, we also can get such advantage by placing our forces on better positions, which will give
us numeric superiority on a certain PART of the board (where we want to attack).

An Imaginary Position

Now, this is just an imaginary position, but it illustrates my idea. Although both players have same
quantity of forces, Black can’t prevent mate! Black’s pieces are inactive and badly placed. White has a
decisive advantage in activity and Black cannot stave off mate.

All in all, there are 2 factors that will give you a MORE active position:

 Material advantage (greater quantity of forces)

 Better position of your pieces.

To make things simple, let’s call the 1st factor “Material” and the 2nd one as “Activity”. This forms
our OVERALL strategic goal in chess:

You need to get advantage in activity and then use it to capture opponent’s material, and mate
his King.

There are several strategic principles which will help you to get that advantage in activity. I explained
them in my previous courses and I hope that you know them.

STRATEGY and understanding its core principles gives you a goal and a general direction to
achieve it.

In practice there will be many different concrete ways to achieve this goal. You need to find the most
direct, the most effective way. TACTICS bear responsibility for that.

TACTICS is about finding the best way to achieve your overall goal.

Sometimes we can detect the best way by using a logical reasoning.

For example, in this position White has many ways to develop his forces. But we know that 2.Nf3
move is the best as it follows the Principle Of Attack and Maximum Activity. For this simple
example, our general understanding helped clearly.

However, let’s not forget about our opponent. He will try to stop our plans and get his own plans
going. That said, we always need to consider our OPPONENT’S ideas while pushing as hard as
possible to realize our plan.
1.e4 e5 2.f4 d5

In this position White can capture one of the Black’s pawns and both moves (3.fe and 3.ed) are logical
(since they follow the Principle Of Material). However, 3.fe is a tactical mistake, because after 3…
Qh4 black is winning.

Let’s take a look at our general scheme again.

Strategy gives us a GENERAL GOAL:

To destroy opponent’s army by using our greater activity.

Tactics helps us to find the BEST WAY to achieve this goal

Finding the best way becomes much harder especially when we face an opponent who can and does try
to stop us in getting our plan into motion.

As much as we would like to focus on our plans solely, we CANNOT and SHOULD NOT ignore the
opponent and his own plans. Our opponent will do his best
to realize his plan as well, and will strive hard to increase his activity.

At some point our plans will collide and there will be a contact between our forces. Then we can’t just
orient on our general plan anymore.

We have to consider opponent’s ideas, our ideas and to calculate variations.

In Conclusion:

Tactics help us to find the BEST way to achieve our general goal.

This becomes especially important when there is a CONTACT between your opponent’s forces
and ours.

Such a contact happens when one player attacks another one. Thus tactics becomes especially
important in attack.

There is another similar rule also. It states that…

Positional Play Improves Our Position,

While Tactics Destroy Opponent’s Position

This is not 100 percent correct, but it’s still quite logical. Our general goal is to get an advantage in
activity. Thus we should activate our forces and worsen opponent’s ones.

In order to activate our forces, we need to place them on better positions. This is called a Positional
Play.

Deactivating opponent’s forces is harder, because he, for sure, will RESIST your advances. Thus we
should enforce an opponent to go back. We need to attack him. An attack creates contact between the
forces. When there is such a contact, tactics becomes highly important.

Thus we may agree to a rule that “positional play improves our position, while tactics – destroys
opponent’s position.”

Let me make another important note also. Usually chess players think that tactics is about
combinations (or sacrifices). This is incorrect. Tactics is about

finding the best way to achieve your goal.

An analysis of different ways is called “calculation” in chess. So tactics mainly implies a
calculation.

When we calculate different forcing variations, and see a line which contains a sacrifice followed by
an advantageous maneuver – we call it a combination.

Thus, combination is just A PART of calculation. There is nothing really special here. If you
understand it, everything becomes much simpler for you.

Well, maybe you don’t see any practical benefits from these generalities right now. Nevertheless, I
assure you that it’s an EXTREMELY important thing. In the following lessons I’ll be showing the
concrete and EVER-IMPORTANT chess rules. All those rules will only be a consequence of these
generalities. So you need to FULLY understand this 1st lesson, and then you will easily digest all
future information.

Ok. Let’s make a conclusion.

In order to play chess well, you need to have 3 things:

 A LOGICAL system of understanding (of a chess game).

 A system of thinking (which will allow you to USE your understanding in your chess
games).

 A system of training (which will AUTOMATE your thinking process).

In this 1st lesson we talked about understanding. Moreover, we were able to explain everything that a
chess game revolves around, which is not that bad for an introductory lesson.

Now we know that STRATEGY gives you a general goal:

To Struggle For Activity,

And Then To Use Your Greater Activity To Destroy Opponent’s Forces

TACTICS Is About Finding The Best Way To Achieve This Goal

Sometimes you can find the best way through logical reasoning. But often it’s impossible since your
opponent hampers this process. Thus TACTICS becomes

extremely important when there is a contact between the forces.

More specifically, such situation happens in attack, when you try to destroy opponent’s position.

TACTICS is primarily about CALCULATING variations.

In the 2nd lesson we will analyze calculation in great detail. I’ll be waiting for you there!
 Be a World-Class Calculator

Lesson 2

(Part-1)

Here’s the 1st question:

What do you need to have to calculate flawlessly and efficiently?

You need 3 IMPORTANT Skills:

1. Understanding

2. Proper Calculation Technique

3. Visualization Abilities

In the 1st lesson we’ve seen that strategy and tactics are intertwined. It’s a huge mistake to separate
them. Your general understanding helps you a lot during the calculation. It shows you:

1. The moves that are worth calculating.

2. It helps you to evaluate final positions.

3. It helps you to compare different moves.

… And the list goes on.

Many players make the common and HUGE mistake by trying to calculate variations mechanically.
They pick out random moves and start calculating right away without having any idea what they
should aim for.

We are not machines and we shouldn’t imitate them…unless you want to be like those players who
sink their heads on their hands and try to calculate all the lines until… smoke comes from their ears.

We will use a MUCH more efficient method.

We will use our general chess understanding to support our calculation and to bring it down to
MINIMUM. Strategic understanding is so important, even in variations that require tones of
calculation. In light of that, I won’t just give you the rules, but also explain them in so much detail.
This will simplify your calculation task a lot.

What Is Calculation Technique?

Moving forward to the second item on our list, calculation technique shows exactly how you should
calculate efficiently. That’s what we will analyze in this lesson.

In order to be able to perform a calculation, you also need to have visualization skills. Later in this
course, I’ll show you how you can develop your chess vision, which allows you to clearly see a
position that’s MANY moves ahead.

But for now, let’s focus on the calculation technique.

The only thing most players really know about a calculation is a concept of “Candidate Moves”. No
doubt, this is a useful idea. However, this is only a fraction of what it takes to efficiently calculate!

Matter of fact, everything is much more complex. You will also find that, in some positions, it’s
impossible to formulate a clear rule. It largely depends on a specific situation and its demands.

Although a lot of players know about “Candidate Moves”, they keep making tactical mistakes
constantly. This just goes to show that knowing about the concept of candidate moves is not enough.

In this lesson I’ll show you the best modern techniques, used by Grandmasters. As promised in the
previous lesson, we will FORMULATE and ANALYZE all the rules and techniques together. And of
course, I’ll show you exactly how you should apply them in your OWN games.

Ok, here we go.

In general, the calculation method looks quite simple. I hope you are already familiar with that from
my previous courses:

1. You find the candidate moves.

2. You calculate each line and evaluate the final position resulting from the candidate moves.

3. You compare these evaluations and choose the best line.

As a whole, it’s the correct approach, but in practice, there are MANY other things you need know:

 How do we find the APPROPRIATE candidate moves?

 How much time should we spend to calculate each line?

 How can you evaluate the final position PRECISELY?

 What if you don’t have a lot of time on the clock?

And tons of other questions!

Well, let’s not waste any moment and let’s answer them one by one.

Calculate Variations – WHEN?

First question: When should we calculate variations?

As I have mentioned in the previous lesson, generally, tactics are about finding the best way to
achieve your goal. Thus you need to calculate when there is such a choice.

As we already know, it becomes really crucial when…

 There is CONTACT between your and your opponent’s pieces.

Having said that, there can be 2 different situations when you need to calculate:

1. When there is no contact between the pieces.

2. When there is such a contact.

In both cases, first, we need to think about strategy (our OVERALL goal), and then find the tactics
that lead to our objective. First we need to understand our goal, and only after that we can think
about the ways to achieve it.

In other words first you use your general understanding to find the most appropriate moves, and after
that, you need to check concrete variations.

For both situations, this is how it should go. However, the accent or the emphasis is different.

Situation 1: When there is no contact or tension between the pieces, you should mainly think about
STRATEGY, and then quickly check variations.

Situation 2: When there is a contact – tactics becomes crucial. That said, you need to quickly review
your overall strategy, and spend most of your time CALCULATING.

Here’s a sample position to clear things up:

In this position there is a contact between the pieces, but it’s not so intense (not so many pieces attack
each other). Thus White should mainly use his positional understanding to pick out the best move, and
then quickly check variations to make sure it’s tactically sound.

According to the base strategic principles, 6.Be3 is the best move.

After that we should check variations quickly. There are 2 main things you should pay attention to.

First, we should check if there are other interesting options. While thinking about generalities, you
can miss some odd-looking and paradoxical ideas that could lead to an ADVANTAGE.

That’s why it’s important to check if there’s something you might miss. In this position, however,
White doesn’t have any odd or interesting move available. 6.Nxc6 doesn’t lead to anything substantial
for White, so we may finish this stage of our calculation. Now we are sure that the best move
SHOULD BE 6.Be3. We should play it right away, correct?

WRONG! Before playing a move, no matter how strategically motivated it is, you should check if it is
TACTICALLY SAFE. This means you should calculate the opponent’s aggressive replies. It’s very
important to perform such measures because it prevents blunders a lot.

Let’s run a blunder check through this position.

 We should quickly go through ALL of the opponent’s pieces, and think if he can move them
FORWARD and ATTACK us.

With a Queen, black can play 6…Qa5+, but it’s not dangerous: White can simply play 7.Nc3.

(What If Black Plays 6…Qa5+?)

Along with that, Black can play 6…Qb6, which might be unpleasant. So we need to look at that a little
deeper.
(Is 6…Qb6 a cause for alarm?)

Upon closer inspection, we can see that it’s not really dangerous for White. At least, he can play 7.Nb5
forcing the queen to go away, and then white will play 8.N1c3 and White is doing fine.

You see, there is no need for us to calculate everything. We just want to make sure that our move
6.Be3 works, and that it’s not losing or dropping something.

If Black is to play 6…Qb6 in a game, then we will perform all of the NECESSARY calculations: we
will check 7.Nf5, 7.Ne6 and other moves that take advantage of Black’s early Queen excursion. But
for now, it’s NOT necessary.

Ok let’s see if there’s anything else Black can play. Looking at his Rooks alone, Black has nothing. As
for his Bishop and Knight, he can take on d4, but we will simply recapture.

At last, we can conclude that our move 6.Be3 works well – it follows our FUNDAMENTAL principles
and it’s tactically sound. Let’s play it.

Black replies 6…Nf6

Now we can see a similar situation, there’s a contact between the pieces, but again, it’s not too much.
Once more, we will make a decision based on our general UNDERSTANDING, and after that we
will check the variations and the move’s soundness quickly.

Following the FUNDAMENTAL principles the move, 7.Nc3 should be the best. It keeps our e4-pawn
defended while developing an inactive piece.

Following that, we should calculate variations quickly.

First let’s check if there’s anything else, which can be interesting for white. We can see an idea -
8.Nc6 following with 9.e5. However, in this position it doesn’t work because Black will answer with
9…Qa5+ winning a pawn in the process.

Still, White should have checked this idea. In this position it doesn’t work, but who knows? In some
other positions it could work well.

Strategically, the move 8.Nxc6 is bad: it releases the tension. That’s why you might miss it while
looking for moves that are strategically sound. And that’s why you should make this quick check of
variations NOW.

As we can conclude, 8.Nc3 is the only logical move for white. But, as we have discussed earlier,
before playing this move, we should check if it works.

We must check eventual AGGRESSIVE REPLIES of our opponent!

With his Queen, Black can play 8…Qb6, but as we already know at least white can answer 9.Ndb5.

With his Rooks and Bishops, Black doesn’t have anything really threatening. With a Knight, Black can
take on d4, but we will simply recapture.

With another knight black can play 8…Ng4. However, it doesn’t look so much dangerous because at
least white can simply take 9.Qg4. Black will play 9…Nd4 threatening fork on c2, but white has many
ways to cover it. White can play 10.Bd3, castle away to safety, or at the very least, play 10.Qd1.

Once more, there’s no need for White to calculate all these lines now. We only want to ensure that
our move 8.Nc3 doesn’t drop material. Now that we are sure about it, we should play 8.Nc3.
Now, let’s say Black indeed plays 8…Ng4 in reply to 8.Nc3. This really creates a tactical position
where there’s A LOT of contact and tension between the pieces: many pieces are attacking each
other.

It means that here we will mainly rely on a CALCULATION.

First, we should briefly look at the general features of the position and our overall strategy, and after
that, we should focus on a calculation.

Generally speaking, 8…Ng4 should not be too dangerous for White. White didn’t make any mistake
and his position shouldn’t be bad. Along with that, White doesn’t want to allow Black to capture the
Bishop. That said, probably, White needs to take on g4.

And that’s about it – our examination of the generalities was very quick. Next, we should calculate
CONCRETE variations.

The candidate moves are 9.Nc6 and 9.Qg4. In both lines, Black has a few possible replies. For
instance, after 9.Nc6, Black can take on e3, or re-capture on c6 with his “b” or “d” pawn. White needs
to calculate this whole “tree of variations”.

After calculating all of the resulting variations, White can compare the end positions and pick the best
one. Once more, let me emphasize, when there’s a LOT of contact between the pieces – we MUST
mainly rely on a calculation.

Now let’s make a quick summary of what we have discussed:

There are 2 possible situations:

1. When there is NO contact between the pieces.

2. When there is such a contact or tension.

When There’s NO CONTACT, You Should…

- Apply your general understanding to FIND the best move.

- Quickly check the resulting variations. This implies 2 things:

1. Check if you have any other interesting candidate moves.

2. Check if your move is SOUND by looking at the possible aggressive replies of your opponent.

To put it briefly, your system of thinking for strategic positions (when there’s no contact between the
pieces) should be:
1. Apply your general understanding to FIND the best move.

2. Check if you have any other interesting candidate moves.

3. Check if your following move works well.

If you don’t have much time on the clock, you may skip the 2nd step. The 1st and 3rd steps,
HOWEVER, are obligatory even in blitz. They ensure that you make good moves, and you don’t
make blunders.

Remember, it only takes ONE BAD MOVE… one blunder

to ruin a game that’s been well-played for 40 moves!

Moving forward, let’s now summarize the IDEAL chess thought process in tactical positions (when
there’s a contact between the pieces):

1. Just like before, you need to look at the generalities of the position.

Do the first step QUICKLY. Evaluate opponent’s move and think what you want to do in general.

2. After that you should calculate variations.

Find ALL the candidate moves FIRST and calculate them one after another.

Perhaps this sounds a bit complex and long-winded to you. But in fact, everything is very simple.
With consistent practice, this should, eventually, be as EASY

as BREATHING!

Remember the sequence:

 First, we use our strategic understanding

 Secondly, we calculate the variations.

In tactical positions we put stress on the 2nd step. In calm positions we focus on the 1st step.

Candidate Moves – HOW To Find Them?

Ok. So far, we analyzed WHEN to start calculating variations. Now let’s move on to the next question.
HOW to find the Candidate Moves?

In other words: How do we find the moves that worth calculating?

As we have discussed, tactics help us find the best way to achieve our general goal. Of course, we
should not calculate everything, but only the moves that take us in the appropriate direction.

Let your opponent to calculate everything.

Once more, strategic understanding will HELP us bring our calculation work down to a minimum.
You should calculate only the logical moves, those which lead to your strategic goal.

And what should be your goal?

Your main goal is to: GAIN Activity!

And there are several important strategic principles that will guide you to achieve it.

First, you should try to attack. Doing so pushes the opponent’s pieces back, while we improve our
pieces’ activity.

If there are no attacking possibilities for us, then we should aim to increase our activity or decrease
opponent’s. I examined these principles in GREAT detail

in my previous courses.

That said, first, you should calculate ATTACKING moves . They are the most powerful. A well-
played attacking move could lead to a quick knockout, so it makes sense to invest time in finding and
calculating such moves.

Furthermore, it’s SIMPLER to calculate forcing moves practically. If you make an ordinary move,
your opponent can answer with any move, and it’ll be hard

for you to calculate all of these lines.

If you make an attacking move – you force an opponent to defend. Thus you’ll need to calculate only 1
line. This explains why it’s so convenient to calculate forcing moves.

The forcing moves are:

 Checks

 Captures

 And attacking moves

The CHECK is the most forcing move – your opponent is obliged to do something about it (defend
his King or move it away, etc.).

CAPTURES are also quite forcing. In most cases your opponent has to recapture in reply. However,
when the situation calls for it, he may ignore it (sacrifice a pawn or piece). That’s why a check is more
forcing… and needs to be calculated FIRST.

Attacking moves usually force an opponent to defend. However, there are situations where an
opponent may sacrifice material, or stir up counter-threats.

That’s why it’s the last in the list of forcing moves.

As a little conclusion – first you should consider FORCING moves.

If you can’t attack, then you need to increase your activity or decrease opponent’s. Here you need to
consider the moves that follow base FUNDAMENTAL principles of chess (maximum activity,
neutralization etc).

Now we let’s sum-up a conclusion about candidate moves:

We should calculate ONLY the logical moves. More precisely it means:

1. Forcing moves (check, capture, and attack)

2. Moves that follow base strategic principles (Maximum Activity, Neutralization etc)

Take a look at the following position:

What are the candidate moves for White here? Please, think about it on your own first.

First, we should consider forcing moves: 1.Nf6 check and capture, 1.Ne5, and 1.Nb6. Lastly, there’s a
logical move that follows the base principles is 1.Rc1, because it saves material – the pawn-c6.

All in all, we have 4 candidate moves to calculate and evaluate. First we will calculate forcing moves.
If one of them works – we’ll play it. If NONE of them work, we’ll make a normal move – 1.Rc1.

As you can see our system of chess thought process is UNIVERSAL!

It helps us to find combinations as well as normal, logical moves.

In the current position, the sudden attacking move 1.Nb6! works. After 1…cxb6 2.Rd8 White will
promote his c-pawn soon. 2…Re8 3.Re8-Re8 4.c7 followed by Rd8.
Here’s another example and it’s White’s turn in this position. Once again, I want you to perform a
little task: Please, stop now and FIND all candidate moves for White.

First we should think about forcing moves. There are no checks at the moment. As for the capture,
there’s a move 1.Be6, but it obviously doesn’t give anything. After 1…fxe6 nothing really changes in
the position except that White lost a bishop. Therefore, there are no logical captures in this position.

HOWEVER, we have several attacking moves: 1.Qe3 (attacking the rook), 1.e5, 1.f5 and 1.Ne5 (using
a pin).

By the way, how can we find attacking moves? Here’s how to get the job done: Look at the
opponent’s half of the board, and think how you can move your pieces FORWARD onto that territory,
and take or attack something.

Once we are done finding the attacking moves, we should look at LOGICAL moves that follow
base chess principles. Here, there’s one such move: 1.Rhe1, which brings the least active piece into a
game.

In total, there are 5 candidate moves: 1.Qe3, 1.Ne5, 1.e5, 1.f5, and 1.Rhe1.

We will not analyze this game until the end, because now we are focusing on finding the candidate
moves solely.

I hope that you now UNDERSTAND how to FIND candidate moves. You need to consider forcing
moves, and after that, look for moves that follow FUNDAMENTAL chess principles.

I’d like to make one additional CLARIFICATION about forcing moves. At this stage of thinking, it’s
very important to TURN OFF your human bias. Let’s take a look at one of our previous examples
again.
Here we looked at the candidate moves 1.Nf6, 1.Ne5 and 1.Nb6. Of course they all look very bad…
they seem to drop material for no apparent compensation. HOWEVER, this is a typical situation and
it’s completely normal!

When looking at attacking moves, you try to do something on opponent’s territory. This territory is
controlled by opponent’s forces, and most of your moves towards that area will simply lose a material.
However, sometimes such an attacking move will work well, and if it does, it SHATTERS your
opponent’s position. This is why it’s so important to consider forcing moves, even if they look bad!

You just need to admit that most of your forcing candidate moves will NOT work. And it’s fine. At
this stage of thinking, we only want to discover ALL interesting possibilities. Later you will
calculate them, and will detect which moves work and which not.

Again, do NOT allow your prejudice to restrict your calculation. Turn off your human bias for a
moment. Consider ALL of the forcing moves, including those that ‘look’ terrible. Most of them
will not work, but when they do, they have the POWER to bring you an IMMEDIATE win!

This happened in the current position, where one of the white’s sudden forcing moves (1.Nb6) brought
him an immediate win.

Contact And Tension – To Break Or NOT To Break?

If you studied my previous chess courses and free lessons, you may have noticed an odd situation.

On one hand, I encourage you to calculate forcing moves first of all. BUT on the contrary, I’ve told
you that “To Take Is A Mistake”, and you need to keep the tension.

So you may be wondering: Should I break the tension or not? Should I take or not? Well, let me
clarify it.

In general, you should keep the tension, that’s right. A release of tension usually helps your opponent
to increase his activity. HOWEVER, sometimes capturing can give you a concrete tactical advantage:
for instance you can win material.

If that is the case, if capturing brings you a concrete tactical benefit –

THEN you should do it.

Otherwise, you should keep the tension.

Take a look at the following position…

We have seen it before. Should white take on c6 here or not?

In general, we should keep the tension. Releasing of tension usually helps your opponent to become
more active.

In this position the exchange 7.Nxc6 bxc6 will only open a b-file for Black and will strengthen his
center. Therefore, 7.Nxc6 is a strategic mistake.

Nevertheless, White should calculate this move, because it’s a forcing move. Potentially, it can
give White a certain tactical benefit. So we need to check it.

In the current position, Black gains something from the release of tension, and White has NOTHING
to show for it. The follow-up 8.e5 is refuted by 8…Qa5. Indeed, 7.Nxc6 is a mistake here.

Let’s move on to another position:

Here we have another theoretical position. Again, 7.Nxc6 is in the cards and, matter of fact, it makes
sense! After 7…bxc6 8.e5 Black either has to go back 8…Ng8 or give up a pawn after 8…Nd5. In both
cases, White gets a concrete tactical benefit.

To conclude this section…

- First of all we need to calculate ALL of the FORCING moves we have: checks, captures
and attacking moves.

- Releasing the tension is good IF you have a forcing continuation that leads to a concrete
advantage. If it doesn’t, it’s bad, and you should keep thetension instead.

Calculation – How It’s Done EFFICIENTLY?

So far, we discussed how to find those candidate moves and what are they. Now I’ll show you exactly
how you should do it IN PRACTICE!
White To Move

Ok, as we have discussed before, we should identify ALL of our FORCING moves, as well as
moves that follow fundamental chess PRINCIPLES.

At first glance, it’s not that simple to detect all of the candidate moves that fit into our criteria. It
looks really COMPLEX. As far as forcing moves and moves that follow the fundamentals are
concerned, White has plenty options and almost ANY move is possible. How do we deal with this
situation?

That’s EXACTLY what I will show you. What follows is how you should think when playing a
game. Please pay careful attention to this – as this is PRECISELY the calculation and thinking method
you should use in practice.

Here’s an EXTREMELY IMPORTANT point: you should focus your attention on every single piece
and pawn you have ONE-by-ONE: starting from the piece with the HIGHEST value, the next one in
the sequence, etc.
Look at the possible moves of your King, then have a look at your Queen, Rooks, Bishops, Knights
and pawns.

Trying to find ALL of the candidate moves, right off the bat, in a complex position like this is
DIFFICULT. However, when you partition this task into bit-sized portions – looking at the candidate
moves for one piece, then the next – it becomes WAY EASIER!

This Is How You Can Split One Massive And Hard Task Into Several Easy-To-Do
Tasks!

Now let’s see the method in action. I’ve told you that, first, you should consider the moves of your
King. However, that usually happens in the endgame positions. In the opening and middle-game stages
we simply keep our King in a safe and sound position. With that in mind, most often, you’ll start
thinking of the Queen moves.

Ok, what candidate moves has White for his Queen? We are looking for FORCING and LOGICAL
moves only. It usually means that we should go forward or, at least, move around the same rank. As
much as possible, we don’t want to move back as that will reduce our activity.

In the diagonal (c4-a6), she has no logical moves. The same can be said with the other diagonal (c4-
c6). True, White can take on e6. This looks silly, but we, AGAIN, should still consider it for several
seconds.

Remember we need to consider ALL forcing moves, including those which look bad . In this position
1.Qe6-Ne6 obviously doesn’t lead to anything so we can dismiss it. In conclusion, with the Queen, we
don’t have any candidate moves.

Next we should take a look at our Rooks. The f1-Rook can’t go forward really, and there are NO
logical moves it can play.

The e1-Rook, on the other hand, can take on e4. It looks like a bad idea, but again, we should think
about it since it’s a forcing move. After 1.Re4-Ne4 White can recapture by the knight (2.Ne4) but it
doesn’t create any threats, and White ends up an exchange-down.

If White takes by the pawn instead (2.fe) – he creates some sort of attack against the f7-square. BUT
at least Black can take with 2…Be5 and stop White’s f7- assault. Therefore, it should be dismissed
and this means there are no candidate moves for the e1-Rook.

Moving down the ladder, we should focus our attention on the Bishop. What forward and forcing
moves it can play? 1.Bh4 looks interesting. It creates a pin, increases the pressures. It’s a candidate
move. Ok, now we should look at our other options.
1.Bh4 – An INTERESTING Candidate Move

What can white do with the c3-knight? It can take the e4-pawn (1.Ne4). It’s a forcing and logical
move, so this is an option.
1.Nxe4 – Captures A Stray Pawn

And Puts The Knight On A MORE Active Position

What about another Knight on e5? What forcing and logical moves can it play? It has 3 forcing moves
and we should quickly consider them all. 1.Nxc6-bxc6 only loses a knight. Not good! However, 1.Nf7
is interesting. After 1...Kf7 the rook is pinned, White can use the f-file to attack black’s king. This is
worth looking at.
Position After 1.Nxf7 Kxf7

1.Nxg6 fxg6 also creates a pin and opens the Black’s King position. Again, we have a move worth
considering.

Position After 1.Nxg6 fxg6 – The Rook Is Pinned

Finally, we come to the pawn moves. Which forcing and logical moves does White have with his
pawns?

1.d5 is an attacking move, but at least, Black can take the knight (1…Re5) in reply, getting 2 minor
pieces for the Rook. I don’t think it’s good for White. 1.fxe4 is a candidate-move. And with the g-
pawn, White can play 1.g5 or take on h5 (1.gxh5).

Finally, we have listed ALL of the candidate moves that White has in this complex position. There are
quite a lot of them: 1.Bh4, 1.Nxf7, 1.Nxg6, 1.Nxe4, 1.fxe4, 1.g5 and 1.gxh5 - 7 moves in total.

Although the position is very complicated, we were able to find ALL candidate moves and, more
importantly, we did NOT miss anything! It happened because we FOCUSED our ATTENTION on
every single piece…ONE-by-ONE.
This is how we should split one hard task to several simple tasks.

Of course, the idea of moving your pieces FORWARD in search for forcing and logical moves is
also very helpful! First of all, we should consider the moves that go forward the ‘most’. If you are
White, then look and consider moves towards the 8th rank, then on the 7th rank, 6th rank and so on.

White To Move With His Queen ATTACKED!

Let’s find the candidate moves here for White in this position. The Queen is attacked and Black is
threatening Qg4. This narrows down White’s options. The White’s king, Queen and Rook on f1 have
no logical moves. The f6-Rook can check with 1.Rg6+. Also White can capture the rook (1.de). These
are 2 moves white has here.

First we should consider the most forcing one – a check. 1.Rg6-fxg6 (Black must take with his f-pawn
to cover the g7 square). Here White needs to find candidate moves again. First, focus your attention on
the Queen and think what forward and forcing moves it can play. We should look at the most
forward squares first- h8, then g7, f6, e5. If you follow this way, you’ll easily find 2.Qh8 move,
which mates Black on the next move (2…Kh8 3.Rf8#).
In the same manner, if you are considering Rook moves, then first think about the moves that go
forward the most - Rf8, then Rf7, f6 and so on. That’s how this process should be MENTALLY
performed.

OK. You’ve just received a lot of new information. It’ll be useful to take a short break. After that I’ll
be waiting for you in the 2nd part of this lesson.
 Be A World-Class Calculator

Lesson 2

(Part-2)

Mentally Listing Down ALL The Candidate Moves –

WHY It’s So IMPORTANT?

Through the 1st part of this lesson, we have analyzed WHAT moves you should calculate. In other
words, HOW to find candidate moves.

Now, let me you also tell you WHY it’s so important to find the candidate moves before you
calculate.

We are humans and we have emotions. When you see an attractive move, you can be carried away by
this variation. It’s so easily forget about other possibilities. Bottom line: you can miss EASILY
another, more powerful idea.

Let’s have a look at one of the positions we analyzed earlier…

We took a look at this position earlier, and here White has an attractive move 1.e5.It’s one of the
candidate moves we found and it looks very powerful.

It attacks the Queen, the d6-pawn, exploits the pin! What more could you ask for from 1 move?

You may find this idea nice, and you’ll start calculating this line. You’ll spend A LOT of time going
deeper into this line, which is NOT necessary.

You see, White has more powerful move 1.Ne5 with threats Nd7, Nc4 or Ng4. However, you can
easily miss this possibility if you stick to 1.e5 right from the beginning.

That explains why it’s so important to find and mentally take note of ALL the possibilities and
candidate moves FIRST, and only after that to start calculating them.
Here’s another example of why it’s important to find ALL the candidate moves first. The Black’s
Rook is attacked so probably he should take the bishop (1…Ne4) or save his Rook (play 1…Rc8).

Should Black calculate these lines? NO! He has much more powerful move 1…d3! But in order to
notice this move, you need to detect ALL candidate moves. Black really played 1…d3 and won this
game afterwards.

You may notice another useful idea also: When you know ALL candidate moves you can then decide
in what ORDER it’s better to calculate them.

This brings us to the next important stage of thinking. We already know how to find candidate moves.
After that you need to decide in what order it’s better to calculate them.

Well, of course, you can just calculate all of them mechanically. In this case the order of calculation
doesn’t matter. However, this is a quite dull method. Plus, it’s not time-efficient

In a real game, we need to find the best moves in a LIMITED amount of time. Thus, it’s important
NOT only to calculate accurately. Doing so QUICKLY is just as crucial for our results. That’s why we
should optimize our thinking process, make it the most efficient.

In practice, this means that we should MINIMIZE our calculation. We want to find to the best move
as fast as possible. From this point of view, the order of which move to calculate first becomes very
important.
I can’t give you a single solution since it depends on the concrete board situation. BUT, I will show
you several useful techniques. From these techniques, you can find the most suitable method for any
situation.

The 1st method should be familiar to you by now.

We should calculate the most forcing moves first:

1. Checks

2. Captures

3. Attacking Moves

They are the most powerful. Attack is, OVERALL, the most powerful thing you can do in chess. Along
with that, it’s easier to calculate forcing lines, since the opponent’s possible replies are greatly limited
and can be easily predicted.

Have a look at the following position:

Torres-Sales, USA, 1963

White’s turn

White is attacking and he has 3 logical moves: 1.Bb7+ check, 1.Qxa7 capture, as well as the attacking
move 1.c6. What move should white calculate first? Of course, White should calculate the MOST
FORCING move – 1.Bb7+.

If you calculate 1.Qa7 move, you’ll have to consider different replies from Black: there’s 1…c6, 1…
Nd5, maybe 1…Kd7 or some other move – there are many options Black can potentially play.

HOWEVER, if you calculate 1.Bb7+, a check that severely limits Black’s options, then Black has only
2 obvious answers 1…Kb7 or 1…Qb7. In both cases White plays 2.c6 then and Black is defenseless
(white will play Qa6 or Qa7).

If you are familiar with an idea of calculation the MOST FORCING moves first, then you can
find the right solution within a FEW SECONDS in this position!

Let’s have a look at another example…

Vladimirov-Nesterov, USSR, 1988

White To Move

You know the drill: let’s find the candidate moves in this position. I suggest that you PAUSE the
video and try to find it on your own. Or if you want to push yourself further, you can try to calculate
the consequences of the candidate moves, evaluate them, and pick the best one based from your
analysis. Let’s see if we arrive to the same result.

With his Queen, White can take on f4 (1.Qf4).

White has no attacking or logical moves with his Rook or Bishop. The e4-Knight has few possible
moves forward. 1.Ng5 doesn’t work, Black simply takes it.

1.Nf6 also doesn’t look great in view of 1…ef 2.Qf6, which doesn’t lead to anything. If White plays
2.Ned6, Black can, at least, play 2…Qg5 – exchanging Queens and making sure his material edge
would count.

BUT, what about the c4-Knight, what attacking moves does it have? Well, as for that fella, he can go
to d6 and it’s an interesting option.

As for the pawns, White has an attacking pawn move with 1.g5.
All in all, White has 3 moves candidates: 1.Qf4, 1.Ncd6 and 1.g5. In what order should White
calculate them?

The most forcing move is 1.Ncd6 – Black has to answer the threat to his Queen after that. We should
calculate this first of all.

True, 1.g5 also forces Black to defend. However, Black has more options after this move. So this goes
to the second spot – we’ll calculate this after we have analyzed the consequences of 1.Ncd6.

The move 1.Qf4 is NOT really forcing. Well, earlier I’ve told you that captures are forcing moves, and
most often that’s right. But in this position, it’s NOT. Let me clear things up.

A forcing move should force or induce a certain specific reaction from your opponent. For
instance, if White plays 1.Ncd6 – then Black must move his Queen, he can’t just ignore it…
otherwise, he will lose A LOT of material. But when White plays 1.Qf4, Black can do whatever he
wants in reply. Bottom line: 1.Qf4 is not forcing.

Oh! And let me clear up one more thing. For quite some time, I have encouraged you to calculate
forcing lines. However, it does NOT mean that you should calculate the forcing lines only. It means
that you should calculate forcing moves FIRST. After that, if forcing moves don’t work, you MUST
calculate SIMPLE and LOGICAL moves that cater to the demands of the position.

Remember, you should calculate forcing moves as well as moves that follow the
FUNDAMENTAL chess principles . You MUST start with the most forcing option, and then go on to
calculate less forcing moves. This is a universal method of calculation, which helps you find
combinations, as well as logical positional moves.

Going back to our example, the most forcing move 1.Ncd6 is winning! Black can’t take the Knight
(White will play 2.Nf6 and 3.Qh7 mate). But Black doesn’t have a good option! If Black moves his
Queen somewhere, White will play 2.Nf5 and black can’t prevent 3.Qg7 mate.

Once again, if you have the correct mental approach and thinking method, and if you understand the
OPTIMAL order of calculating moves – you’ll find the solution here REALLY quickly. And you
should be able to apply the same techniques to your REAL games, too.

Now, let’s go to the 2nd technique:

Calculate The MOST POWERFUL Moves FIRST!

Our goal is to find the BEST MOVE as QUICKLY and as EFFICIENTLY as possible . If you can
find a winning continuation after calculating just one of the candidate moves – that’s GREAT.

So what can we do to find the WINNING continuations faster? Simple, calculate the most powerful
moves first.
But here’s the question: how do you know which candidate move is the most powerful?

This is where your intuition as well as your chess understanding comes to the scene. Your deep
understanding of fundamental strategic principles will allow you to judge a move’s merits… and its
possible impact in the game very quickly!

Tal – Radulov, Malta 1980

This is a position we checked out earlier and we are able to come up with ATTACKING and
LOGICAL candidate moves. Now we’ll define the most optimal order of their calculation. Our general
understanding will help us to decide which moves should be more powerful, and which move deserves
more attention.

For this example, the move 1.Rhe1 is an option. However, we certainly should calculate moves and
options that are MORE AGGRESSIVE. Attacking moves, if they work, are the BEST. That said
1.Rhe1 should be calculated LAST.

Here’s another candidate move: 1.Qe3. Now, you may be wondering why I didn’t mention 1.Qf2
(since it also attacks the rook). The reason is that it violates the Principle of Maximum Activity. We
should move pieces as forward as possible. While 1.Qe3 and 1.Qf2 have the same idea, 1.Qe3 is a bit
better. It makes no sense to calculate 1.Qf2!

HOWEVER, you may be asking: Why don’t we consider 1.Qd4? It’s the MOST ADVANCED Square
where the Queen attacks the Rook.

Again, our OVERALL strategic understanding prevents us from doing this. Being ahead in
development, White wants to open up the position and attack Black’s King in the center. Of course,
White doesn’t want to exchange Queens (significantly diminishing his attacking possibilities) and go
into an endgame, where Black’s 2 Bishops will give him a slight pull.

That’s why we don’t even need calculate 1.Qd4 to discard it. By the way, this is not even an attacking
move! Attacking moves force the opponent to go back and defend… this move clearly doesn’t
achieve any of those goals and only encourages Black to exchange Queens.

The same thing can be said with 1.f5 – it doesn’t force Black to defend. Black can ignore your
Kingside demonstration and play any move he wishes to. Thus the most forcing options are 1.e5 and
1.Ne5. Which one should we calculate first?

The FUNDAMENTAL strategic principles will help us to answer this question. Following the
Principle Of Maximum Activity we should move a piece.

From this, we can conclude that 1.Ne5 should be the BEST move from the candidates that we have.

As you can see, general strategic understanding and tactics are closely connected. That’s why we
don’t separate them, as some players do (by mistake!).

Ok, finally, we have mapped out the RIGHT order of calculation from this position: first we’ll
calculate 1.Ne5, then 1.e5, after that 1.Qe3 – these are the ATTACKING moves in this position. If
none of those work, we’ll analyze 1.f5 (trying to rip open the Kingside) and finally 1.Rhe1 (Principle
Of Least Active Piece).

See? We start from the MOST FORCING and the MOST POWERFUL move.

This is especially helpful if you do NOT have a lot of TIME on the clock.

Then you may calculate only 1 move. That one, which should be the most powerful generally.

In this example, it’s 1.Ne5. If this move works after calculating deep enough – play it. If it doesn’t
bring anything substantial, go to the 2nd move: 1.e5. If it

works, don’t hesitate to play it. Otherwise, you have to go to the 3rd move in your list of candidate
moves… and the cycle goes on and on until you come up with the STRONGEST move for the
position.

The next technique is quite similar to the previous one:

Calculate the most POWERFUL Opponent’s Reply FIRST

Well, maybe this sounds very obvious to you now… and I’m glad that it does. get this, however, many
players break this rule constantly. We will EXCITELY calculate our OWN strong moves, but we are
not so enthusiastic about calculating our opponent’s STRONG moves. Deep inside, we don’t want to
face unpleasant situations. That’s why we postpone our calculation of the most dangerous and most
testing lines.

When we finally have to calculate these dangerous rebuttals in our analysis, oftentimes, we realize
that it COMPLETELY refutes our idea. And that means the time and effort we invested in
calculating those ‘fantasy lines’ are simply WASTED.

Let’s have a look at the following position:

Abramovic – Dudukovic, Serbia, 2012

Black’s turn
Let’s say you are playing as Black and you decide to calculate the move 18…h6. White has quite a lot
of options in answer to that pawn move: 1.Bf6, 1.Rd6, 1.c5, 1.Ne4 or simply 1.Bh4. Which reply
SHOULD you calculate first?

You should calculate the MOST POWERFUL reply… the move that is MOST DANGEROUS for
you. In this example, the move 19.Ne4, which puts strong pressure on Black’s position looks quite
troubling.

Indeed, if you analyze this move closely, you’ll see that after 19…Rd1 20.Rd1 Qe7, White at least can
win a pawn after 21.Nf6 and 22.Bh6. And that’s not even the strongest sequence White has! He has a
tactical shot with 21.Bf6 Bf6 22.Rd7 winning immediately!

By looking at the most powerful and most dangerous replies of White in this position, you’ll quickly
see that 18…h6 doesn’t work, and that you’ll have to calculate other candidate moves.

This Is The CORRECT Mental Approach And Thinking Process

However, many players deviate from this method of calculation. Deep down, they don’t want to
analyze complex and dangerous variations… they postpone it. They will calculate simple replies like
19.Rd6 or 19.Bf6. This takes time. Sooner or later, they will come to the move 19.Ne4, calculate it,
and see that it refutes Black’s 18…h6. Bottom line, they will reject the move 18…h6 anyway, BUT
they have wasted A LOT of time in the process.

Once again, you should calculate the most powerful and dangerous opponent’s reply first.

This is especially important if your candidate move seems dubious. If you analyze opponent’s
most dangerous answer first, you’ll quickly find the refutation of your dubious idea. After realizing
the weakness in your idea, you’ll reject it IMMEDIATELY and will NOT waste A LOT of time on it.

We have analyzed 3 techniques for EFFICIENT calculation, and as you can see they are very closely
connected:

1. Calculate the MOST FORCING moves first.

2. Calculate the MOST POWERFUL moves first. (Using your strategic sense)

3. Calculate the most powerful opponent’s reply first.

We simply find the MOST LOGICAL and ATTACKING moves first and calculate them. And with the
help of the fundamental chess principles and our strategic understanding, we will be able to pinpoint
which moves we should check out.

Now I’ll show you another USEFUL method called “COMPARISON”. Sometimes 2 different moves
have similar ideas or lead to similar positions.

In such cases, by using the method of comparison, we can see which move is better, allowing us to
discard the less favorable option without A LOT of calculation.

To help us illustrate the point better, let’s have a look at the following position, which we checked out
earlier:

White’s turn

We have already found the candidate moves here. From our list, there are the moves 1.Nf7 and 1.Ng6.
They lead to very similar positions. After 1.Ng6-fg the Black’s King is on g8, while in the line 1.Nf7-
Kf7 – it’s on f7.

The latter should be better for White because the King is more exposed in that square. White can rip
open the f-file (fxe4 is an idea) to increase the pressure against the Black King and, eventually,
conduct an ALL-OUT attack against it.

And one more thing, 1.Nf7 is a lot MORE FORCING as well. It attacks the Queen and Black must take
the Knight. On the other hand, 1.Ng6 doesn’t attack anything and Black can choose to take the
Knight… or play another move.

Bottom line, we can reject 1.Ng6 without any calculation. A simple comparison shows that while the
ideas and resulting positions are similar, it’s little worse than 1.Nf7.

Moving forward, let’s take a look at another position:

Ivanov – Tseshkovsky, USSR, 1977

Black’s turn

If you watched the video description of this course “Calculate Till Mate”, then I’m sure you are
already familiar with this position. Here Black has quite a lot of candidate moves. Right now let’s
focus on the options 22…Bd3 and 22…Ra4.
After 22…Bd3 white must take by the Rook 23.Rd3 (to keep the a4-Knight protected). Then after 23…
Ra4 24.Qa4 Nb2 Black takes back material on the next move with an approximately equal position.
Let’s remember this position.

Moving forward, what if Black starts from 22…Ra4? There follows 23.Qa4 Bd3 Now White can take
with the rook, which leads to position from the previous variation. Alternatively, White can take with
the Bishop. It makes NO sense for Black to calculate these lines. It’s similar to the previous
variation, but gives White an additional possibility.

Therefore Black may and should reject the line 22…Ra4. A simple comparison shows that it’s similar
BUT a little worse than 22…Bd3.

This is how the Comparison Method works.

The next technique I’m going to show you is quite similar to the previous one. It’s called
“ELIMINATION”.

If you are down to 2 candidate moves, and one of them is obviously losing – then you certainly should
make the 2nd move. You don’t even need to calculate it – you simply don’t have a choice.

Carlsen – Karjakin
Black’s turn

We already know that the attacking move 19…d3 is the best move for Black in this position.

Anyway, just for the training purpose, let’s imagine that it doesn’t work and Black needs to find
something else. Then we need to calculate the moves 19…Ne4 and 19…Rc8. Which one is better?

19…Rc8 looks unclear, while 19…Ne4 is probably bad. After that, Black probably loses the d-pawn.
Black may quickly check 19…Ne4, and if it doesn’t work – then Black should go 19…Rc8 without
a doubt. There’s no need to DEEPLY calculate that move – Black simply doesn’t have a choice.

Ok, let’s take a look at 19…Ne4. After 20.Re4 the pawn is attacked. Then 20…d3 21.Rc3-d2 22.Rc2
and Black loses a pawn.

Since this variation is NOT acceptable, Black should play 19…Rc8. This is the method of
ELIMINATION.

E. Lasker – W. Napier
White’s turn

What should White do now? If White makes a normal move, like 18.bxc3, then after 18…ef 19.Bd4
Re8 Black regains his piece and enjoys a stable advantage. Black is a pawn up, while the White’s
position is destroyed.

If White tries another forcing move 18.Nxc8, then 18…ef leads to similar situations. 19.Bf4 Rac8 and
White will be doomed to a long and painful defense.

Since these variations are not really bright for White, in the game he played 18.h5 instead. This is a
risky decision, which leads to a VERY UNCLEAR situation . White can’t be sure that it works well:
the position is too complex to calculate all the lines. However, White is CERTAIN that ALL of the
other options are terrible, and if he plays any of them, he’d be on the brink of losing. That’s why
he should play 18.h5 even if it looks very dangerous. That’s the Principle Of Elimination at work.

Matter of fact, White played 18.h5 and won after a long and highly tactical struggle!

We analyzed all MAIN techniques for the EFFICIENT and OPTIMAL order of calculation. You
shouldn’t try to remember them mechanically. Rather, you need to UNDERSTAND them very well.
All these techniques are based on overall strategic understanding of chess. And all of them are closely
connected. I’m sure you can see it by now: strategic understanding helps a lot in the calculation as
well.
Now I’ll show you 2 MORE tips and methods for Practical Play. They may NOT work ALL the time,
HOWEVER, it’s always nice to prepare you as much as possible for your up-and-coming competitive
games.

Here’s the 1st one:

If there’s a main line –

QUICKLY check sidelines FIRST, and FOCUS on the main line afterwards.
White’s turn

Imagine that you are playing as White in this position. Here you have a typical sacrifice 11.Bxh7+.
Probably, it works, but of course you can’t be completely sure – you need to calculate variations first.

So you calculate 11.Bh7-Kh7 12.Ng5, and now Black has several options. Usually, 12…Kg6 is the
only move that results to unclear situations in such positions. Otherwise, White usually plays Qh5 and
mate Black soon.

Earlier, I’ve told you to calculate the most powerful opponent’s reply first. Let’s put that at work in
this example. You begin calculating 12…Kg6. After that White can play 13.Qd3, 13.Qg4 or maybe
even 13.h4. If you play 13.Qg4, Black can take on e5 (13…Nde5) or play 13…f5.

The position is complicated and these calculations will require some time. When you really spend 5-
10 minutes for calculations, you’ll start feeling worry inside. You know that you have already spent a
lot of time, and you remember that you still have some other options to calculate (12…Kg8, 12…
Kh6). And that can REALLY shake your confidence!

In such positions, you MUST use another method. If you have a clear main line and few and short side
variations – then you should quickly check sidelines,

and after that, focus COMPLETELY on the main line. Let’s do it for this position. We want to quickly
check and dismiss side variations.

By doing so, we will be able to focus on the main line calmly and confidently.

12…Kh8 is obviously losing after 13.Qh5 and Qh7.

12…Kh6 allows a very dangerous discovered check. At the very least, White can play 13.Ne6 and take
the Rook afterwards. After 13…Kh7, White can also play 14.Qd3 and then 14…Kg8 15.Ng5, 15.Nf8 or
Rfb1. This should be WINNING for White and we can stop calculating this line.

After 12…Kg8 13.Qh5 doesn’t work – Black can play 13…Qc2 covering h7. However, using that
information, we can find the POWERFUL move 13.Qd3 with dual threat of Qh7 or Rfb1 winning the
Black Queen!

Now you know that all sidelines are losing for Black. Thus you can focus on the main line 12…Kg6
solely. Psychologically, it’ll be easier for you to spend a lot of time on this line. You know that it’s the
only variation that you need to calculate. Furthermore, you are CONFIDENT that, if you find a
win here, the game is yours to win!

Let me repeat the tip…

If there’s a CLEAR main line – you MUST QUICKLY check sidelines FIRST,

and COMPLETELY FOCUS on the main line afterwards.

This method is especially suitable, when your move seems REALLY GOOD. On the other hand, if
your candidate move looks dubious, then you should not calculate sidelines. You need to analyze the
POTENTIAL refutation and the MOST THREATENING replies, as we discussed earlier.

Finally we come to the last technique I want to share with you. As you already know, after detecting
candidate moves, you should think about the best order of calculation. However, in extremely
complicated positions, it can be a daunting task.

Let’s say you have 10 Candidate Moves (!). It’s difficult to think about order of calculation.
Moreover, you may even find it difficult to keep these 10 moves in your head! If the position is
REALLY MESSY and you can't pinpoint which of your candidates is stronger and should come first,
here’s another method:
Calculate The Moves In The Same Order That You Found Them!

When looking for candidate moves, you consider potential moves of your King, Queen, Rooks,
Bishops, Knights and pawns. You may use the same order for your calculation (starting with Queen
moves then Rooks, etc.). It may not be the ideal order, but at least you will not simply forget ANY of
your candidate moves.

Kramnik – Ivanchuk

Black’s turn

The position is extremely complicated and black has plenty options: 20…Qe5, 20…Ra8, 20…Bf2,
20…Bd4, 20…Bb4, 20…Ne4 maybe something else. If you feel TOTALLY confused, if you can’t
even remember your candidate moves – then use the technique I gave you: calculate moves for each
piece ONE-by-ONE.

First, calculate moves of your Queen: 20…Qe5, then Rook moves, Bishop moves, and the list goes on.
This will HELP you calculate SYSTEMATICALLY.
However, at the same time, I’d like to warn you. This last method is just an additional, reserve
technique that you should use only when the position before you is TOTALLY MESSED UP.

We are not computers and we should not go over variations mechanically. It’s much better to use
previous techniques and strategic understanding to optimize your thinking, make it quick and bring
calculations down to minimum.

All in all, we analyzed 7 techniques and methods for EFFICIENT calculation and optimizing its
order:

1. Calculate the most forcing moves first.

2. Calculate the most powerful moves first.

3. Calculate the most powerful opponent’s reply first.

4. Comparison Method.

5. Elimination Method.

6. If there’s a main line – quickly check sidelines first, and focus on this main line then.

7. Calculate your candidate moves in the same order that you used to find them.

The first 3 methods, to sum it up, are all about finding the most LOGICAL moves first and calculating
them. Your general understanding and strategic sense

should help you find these logical moves.

The next 2 methods are based on simple COMPARISON of possibilities.

Last 2 methods are additional PRACTICAL techniques that could be of great use to you occasionally.

Whew! This is quite a lengthy lesson. We have taken a look at A LOT of useful ideas and methods for
calculation. You’ll need to review this lesson several times before you digest EVERYTHING!

More importantly, you need to train these skills and integrate them in your play. That’s it for now, and
see you on the next lesson!
 Within the Thickets Of Variations

Lesson 3

Hi and welcome into the 3rd lesson - “Within the Thickets Of Variations”.

In the previous lesson, we analyzed some introductory lessons about calculation and took a look at
some of the MOST reliable techniques to make your calculation A LOT more efficient:

 WHEN to start calculating variations

 How to find candidate moves

 The right ORDER of their calculation

In this lesson, we will analyze calculation itself.

To be precise, I’ll show you how Grandmasters go through thickets

of variations quickly and easily… and ULTIMATELY find the BEST move!

Imagine this: you are in the middle of a chess game… before you is a balanced but messy position.
You have already found the candidate moves and have already decided the best order of their
calculation. What should you do after that?

Well, in theory, the answer is SIMPLE. In the previous lesson, we have talked about the 3 steps
NECESSARY for efficient calculation:

1. Find the candidate moves.

2. Calculate each line and evaluate the final position resulting from the candidate moves.

3. Compare these evaluations and choose the best line.

Once the 1st step is performed, you move to the next 2 steps: calculate each candidate move and
choose the best one. However, as you will see, it’s NOT that clear-cut. There are many factors that
muddle things, and that’s what we will analyze and discuss in this lesson.

Here’s the 1st important thing you want to remember:

If there’s a CHOICE or a BRANCHING POINT (within one of the lines),

you must look for Candidate Moves AGAIN!

And of course, you should be well aware of the possibilities available to YOU and YOUR
OPPONENT. Don’t make the mistake of omitting the latter part. Your opponent has an “equal say” in
the game. Let’s take a look at the following example:

Tal – Matanovic
Black’s turn

Let’s say you are playing Black. You need to determine the candidate moves for this position and
calculate them in turn. Let’s analyze the move 20…h6 for instance.

What should Black calculate within this line (20…h6)?

First, we can see that White has a choice of moves here. And that means we should determine the
candidate moves FOR WHITE after 20…h6.

With his Queen, he can play 21.Qf3. His Rooks, however, don’t have any logical moves.

If White moves his Bishop, Black can trade heavy pieces on the c1, capture the g5-Knight after that,
and emerge with a material advantage. Therefore, moving the Bishop to any square doesn’t work for
White.

The g5-Knight can take on f7, but it doesn’t lead to anything except material loss. On the other hand,
it can go back to f3 – another candidate move that we

have to consider.

We also need to quickly check the aggressive moves of the e3-Knight (Nd5, Nf5, Ng4), BUT upon
closer inspection, you’ll realize that they don’t lead to anything.

As for the pawns, White can take on e5 (21.de) – another candidate move that must be added on our
list. All in all, we have found 3 candidate moves for White: 21.Qf3, 21.Nf3 and 21.de.
I want you to pay attention to this IMPORTANT reminder: If there’s a choice or a branching point in
one of the variations – then we should find the candidate moves for both sides AGAIN!

DON’T FORGET: You Should Treat and Seek-Out

Your Opponent’s Possibilities As Carefully As Your Own!

From our list of candidate moves, the MOST FORCING candidate move for White is 21.de so let’s
calculate it first. Now Black has a choice and we should consider it again. Black can capture the g5-
Knight or take on e5 with the Rook or with the pawn – 3 options in total. Capturing on g5 is obviously
bad: White can either take on f6 or d6 with BIG advantage.

Taking by the Rook (21…Re5) is possible, but that shatters Black’s pawn structure. White will play
22.Nf3 – saving his attacked Knight while pushing the Rook back followed by, possibly, 23.Qd4. This
looks promising for White.

The move - 21…de, seems to be the MOST LOGICAL option. Once again, White has a choice here,
and we’ll have to think about it again. White can play 22.Qf3, Nf3 or jump with his e3-Knight
forward. Here the attacking move 22.Nd5 works well, because after 22…Nd5 23.ed White is
threatening d6 - forking the Queen and Rook!

Queen can’t blockade the pawn (23…Qd6) because of 24.Ne4. White will push the pawn to d6 getting
a strong attacking position. This already shows that this whole variation is not good for Black.

From our calculations and final evaluation, we can see that 20…h6 can only be good for White!

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again:

If there’s a CHOICE or a BRANCHING POINT (within one of the lines),

you MUST look for Candidate Moves AGAIN!

How do you know whether there is a choice or not? You should ALWAYS think about available
options for both sides. It means that we’ll have to think about candidate moves at your EVERY turn
and EVERYTIME it’s our opponent’s turn.
This will create the so-called “Tree Of Variations”.

Let’s say, in a position, you have 4 candidate mov es and your opponent has few answers to each of
those moves. In some of the lines, there are a couple of branching points, too. You NEED to take note
of ALL these lines and calculate them!

Maybe this looks frightening.

Well, here’s something to pacify you: such a messy “Tree Of Variations” will only occur in
EXTREMELY complicated tactical positions. As we discussed in the previous lesson, when there’s no
contact between your pieces, your calculation will be extremely SHORT.

And remember, in the previous lesson, I have given you TRIED and TESTED techniques for
simplifying your task.
  You can use your general understanding to dismiss some moves without any calculation.

 You can use Comparison and Elimination Methods to minimize your calculation task even
more.

When you calculate forcing moves, your opponent, most of the time, has only ONE
possible answer.

Bottom line, with the MENTAL TOOLS we discussed, your calculation should NOT be really
hard.

If there’s a CHOICE or a BRANCHING POINT (within one of the lines),

you MUST look for Candidate Moves AGAIN!

Oftentimes, there will be no such branching points. Nevertheless, you should ALWAYS keep an eye
for both side’s possibilities when calculating variations.

Why do chess players BLUNDER? Simple, they miss some of the opponent’s possible opportunities.

A LOT of players know the concept of candidate moves. However, they use it only at the start of their
calculation. You should be aware that it’s important to use it during the WHOLE calculation process.

Anand – Adams
Black’s turn

Here’s a game between 2 famous Grandmasters Anand and Adams. Black played 14…Nd5. He
thought that 15.b5 doesn’t work – Black can simply trade the Knights (15…Nc3 16.Bc3) and capture
the pawn afterwards (16…Bb5).

However, Black forgot to consider candidate options at EVERY turn! Aside from 16.Bc3, White can
also play 16.Qd3, attacking h7 square, and after 16…g6 is played to prevent mate, White plays
17.Bc3. The pawn on b5 is now defended and Black is losing a piece. He resigned soon.

Back in lesson 2, we have analyzed how to find candidate moves and in what order to calculate them.
You should use the techniques I have outlined before, in the initial position of your calculation,
and in all further positions within a line that require it.

Here’s the NEXT question: “When to FINISH calculating a certain variation?”

Looking at our general scheme, we can see that we need to evaluate each line. From there, we’ll be
able to compare different lines and choose the best one:
 1. Find the candidate moves.

2. Calculate each line and evaluate the final position resulting from the candidate moves.

3. Compare these evaluations and choose the best line.

See the emphasis on step 2? We should calculate as long as it’s necessary to make a final judgment. In
calm positions, we can evaluate different moves without any calculation (with the help of our chess
understanding).

However, in tactical positions, we can’t rely on our logical reasoning alone. Such positions, with
tactical possibilities for both sides, rely on concrete variations. We HAVE to calculate until the end
of the forcing line. When the position becomes calm (static or clear) – we’ll be able to evaluate it.

Let’s remember this practical advice: We should calculate until the END of the FORCING
variation.

Grichkevitsch – Szekely
Black’s turn

It’s Black’s turn. Black has a few forcing moves here. Let’s calculate the move 1…Nd3 for example.
White will certainly recapture 2.Bd3. Should Black stop calculating? Of course not – he still has
forcing options: he can take on d3 with one of the Rooks, or play 2…Bh4.

Actually the move 2…R8d3 is winning. After 3.cd-Qb4 the White King is defenseless. Is this the end
of calculation? No! Because White has a forcing move

4.Qa8 CHECK!

If there’s one more FORCING move, for you, or for your opponent –

then you should keep calculating!

Now Black’s natural move 4…Kh7 doesn’t work – White has a forcing move - 5.Qe4, which trades
Queens and kills Black’s attack. However, Black is winning after 4…Bd8. After 5.Qd8-Kh7, White’s
checks are over, and after 6.b3-Qc3, Black will mate the White monarch.
Just to emphasize once more…

We should calculate until the end of the FORCING variation!

This rule doesn’t apply all the time and it may not work as clearly as it did in the example above.
However, you must use it as a GUIDELINE for your calculations.

Look for FORCING moves – that’s something you should get used to. If you see that a forcing
variation goes on, if one side can make one more forcing move – then you should keep calculating this
line.

On the contrary, if you see an ordinary (UN-forcing) reply of your opponent – then you can just
finish your calculation.

Tal – Matanovic

Black’s turn
We have already analyzed this position. Earlier, we calculated the move 20…h6 for Black. White has
3 candidate moves in reply to 20…h6: 21.Qf3, 21.Nf3 and 21.de.

The moves 21.de and 21.Qf3 are the more forcing options. And as I have said, we need to calculate
them until we arrive at a clear position. Little earlier we have analyzed 21.de line… and it was quite
lengthy.

The opposite occurs with 21.Nf3. This is an ordinary move – there’s nothing forcing about it… Black
can play any move in reply.

There you go! That’s already the end of the forcing variation, and you, as Black, can stop your
calculation of 21.Nf3 here. As a final judgment, Black has pushed the White Knight back, which
should be good for him.

Ok, we discussed when to finish your calculations. Now let’s jump to another IMPORTANT topic:
How to evaluate resulting positions.

In the 1st lesson we took a peek at 2 KEY FACTORS in chess. They are:

1. Material

2. Activity

We can evaluate any position using these 2 factors. Everything becomes simple when you have a solid
grasp and good understanding of the fundamentals.

Let’s discuss the first factor: MATERIAL. How can you evaluate the material situation on the
board?

Of course, you can calculate the number of pawns and pieces mechanically. That’s how most players
get the job done. However, it’s not the most efficient way to go about it. Remember, we should not
only find the BEST move, we should also find it QUICKLY!

Here, I’ll show some techniques that will allow you to evaluate the material situation on the board
QUICKLY and EFFICIENTLY. Here’s the 1st one:

Instead of calculating the quantity of pawns/pieces,

 notice the DIFFERENCE.

Torres – Sales

Can you evaluate a material situation here in 2 seconds?

The usual way of thinking can NOT do FAST enough. Usually people start calculating material
mechanically. They will count off the pawns – concluding that White has 6 pawns, Black has 7 pawns.
Therefore Black is a pawn up. Then they calculate that Black has 2 Rooks, while White has one. Thus
Black has an extra Rook. White has 2 Bishops, and Black has a Knight – White is a piece up. And
ONLY after that will they be able to make an accurate conclusion concerning the material standpoint
at the board. It can be a lengthy process!

To be quicker and more efficient, I recommend you to notice the DIFFERENCE instead. Compare
positions of both sides and notice the difference. For instance, both players have pawns on the same
lines, except the b-file. Thus Black is a pawn up. You can see the difference in a moment’s notice!
While counting pieces, compare pieces of both sides and set aside the same pieces.

For example: Both players have Queens, so we may set it aside. Both players have a Rook, but Black
also has an extra Rook. Both players have a minor piece, but White has an extra piece also. Therefore
Black is up an exchange.

Mentally set aside the same pieces…and you will quickly notice the difference (if it exists). This way
of thinking will help you to evaluate material within few seconds even in very complex positions.

Ok, moving forward, we discussed how to evaluate the material situation in different positions.
However, while calculating variations, you need to evaluate material in the IMAGINARY and
RESULTING position. Many players have problems visualizing the end position and the material
standpoint after that, but I’ll show you how to get it done without any hassle!

Black’s turn

We have seen this position several times already. Let’s say you are playing Black and you decide to
calculate the move 7…Ng4.
So you start calculating: 7…Ng4 8.Nc6-Ne3 9.Nd8-Nd1 then maybe 10.Nf7-Nc3 11.Nh8. What is a
material situation in that position? We can also continue the line: 11…Bh8 12.bc-Bc3 13.Kd1-Ba1.
Again, what is the material standpoint in that position?

Usually chess players try to visualize a final position and then calculate the quantity of pawns and
pieces manually. This is a hard and time-consuming method.

Instead I recommend that you keep track of material situation

DURING a calculation!

Let’s see how it works. Black plays 7…Ng4. White captures on c6 8.Nc6 – White is a piece up at the
moment. Black takes 8…Ne3 and material situation is even. White takes Queen-d8 9.Nd8 Black takes
Queen on d1 with 9…Nd1 and material is still at par.

You see it’s very helpful when you keep track of material situation ALL the time and when you do it
WHILE calculating instead of after. You clearly understand what’s happening on the board.

For example, if White takes on d1 (10.Rd1) and Black on d8 (10…Kd8) then material remains equal.

You’re updated RIGHT away! You don’t need to calculate how many pawns and pieces both sides
have.

Let’s take a move back. We already know that material is even at the moment.

BUT, what if White takes on f7 (10.Nf7)? Then White has won a pawn. If Black recaptures on b2
(10…Nb2) – then Black has equalized materially.

After 11.Nh8 White won a Rook, but Black will take 2 minor pieces in reply: 11…Bc3+ and 12…Bh8.
In conclusion, this variation is bad for White.

I moved the pieces on the board just to explain my idea. It’s very simple to apply this method when
you calculate variations in your head.

Just Keep Track Of Changes In Material Situation At Every Turn!

By the way, nearly all players use this method in simple and short lines. One can just as easily apply it
in longer and more complicated lines.
Tal – Portisch

White’s turn

Now the material situation is equal. White played 15.Bh6 in the game. 15…gh 16.Qh6.

What is a material situation now?

Obviously White has 2 pawns for a Bishop. You just keep track of changes in the position. It would be
silly to start calculating how many pawns Black and White has, compare it and do the same for pieces.

Instead, we simply notice the difference in a position.

I recommend that you use this simple and effective method not only in short lines, but ALWAYS.

Summing things up, there are 2 USEFUL techniques for evaluating the material situation in different
positions:

 Instead of calculating the quantity of pawns/pieces, notice the DIFFERENCE.

 Keep track of the material situation DURING your calculation. Do this NOT only in
 the final position, but at every turn.

This will significantly simplify your task, and make your calculation easier and more efficient. You
will always understand what is happening on the board.

Now, let’s move on to the next factor: How Can You Evaluate Activity?

You should do it quickly and INTUITIVELY. When you take a look at a certain position, it’s
usually quite obvious who is more active. Think about:

 Who has a more ADVANCED position?

 Who is ATTACKING?

 Whose pieces are more ACTIVE and have more scope?

Answer these questions and you will easily find which side is more active. If you can NOT pinpoint
which side is more active, that means that the position is approximately EQUAL. Believe me, if
one player really has serious advantage in activity, you will notice it FOR SURE.
Boleslavsky – Malisov

Which side is more active in this position? It’s easy to see that White is on top in the activity
department. He has a more advanced position; he is attacking; and Black still has some undeveloped
pieces. You can notice White’s greater activity INTUITIVELY within a couple of seconds.

Abramovic – Dudukovic
Black’s turn

Who has an advantage in activity here? Again, it’s White. He puts pressure on the d-file, pins the
Knight on a dark-squared diagonal (h4-d8), he can jump to d5 and those are just some of his trumps in
activity.

After 18…h6 19.Ne4-Rd1 20.Rd1, White’s advantage in activity becomes even GREATER.

Let’s analyze another candidate move. White can play 19.c5. Then after 19…Rd1 20.Rd1-Qa5 White
should attend to his Bishop 21.Bf6-Qc3 22.Bg7-Kg7. What about an activity of both sides here? It’s
about equal.

You see, we don’t need to make the most precise evaluation of activity in EVER. We quickly make an
approximate evaluation, which enables us to compare different lines.

Now you know how to evaluate resulting positions of each line in your calculation. You’ll evaluate a
material and an activity. If someone has an advantage – you’ll notice it for sure. Otherwise it means
that position is approximately equal.

After you have calculated each candidate move and evaluated resulting positions, you can then pick
the best move. Actually, that’s the WHOLE process: we have just analyzed the whole process of a
calculation!
Nevertheless, occasionally, you’ll be required to do one more thing. Sometimes, you are required to
calculate LONG and HARD. It requires serious concentration and TONS of mental efforts. You may
be tired and even feel like your brain starts to “boil”.

Also, accidents like concentrating too much on a certain idea, and simply forget about something
else, can happen too. That’s why sometimes people make silly mistakes after a LONG think. I can
show you one funny example from my practice.

Smirnov – Yagupov

Black’s turn
It’s Black’s turn and the position is quite complicated. The Black’s Bishop is attacked and he should
do something about it. He can take on d4 or go back to e7: 22…Be7. In reply, White can take on h6
(23.gh), or push g6, or f5, or e4. It requires serious calculation for Black.

My opponent was an experienced International Master. After about 20 minutes of thinking, he

suddenly played 22…hg?? And he had to resign after 23.Rh8.

Why did he make this blunder? Again, he is an International Master. And it was not an impulsive
decision. Quite the contrary: he thought too hard.

While calculating all those complex lines for 20 minutes, he simply forgot that the pawn is pinned.

In order to prevent such accidents, you should use ONE Special Technique.

After calculating long and complicated lines, and after you have decided what move you will
play, do NOT play it right away.

First look away from the board for several seconds. Don’t think about chess while looking away.
Check out your surroundings - people who’re walking around or something like that. After that look
back at the board and quickly check your following move.

Attempt to visualize the position directly after the move you plan to make. Check eventual aggressive
replies of your opponent.

Only after completing this check for blunders can you now go on and FINALLY make your move.

This technique helps you refresh your mind. With a fresh eye, you can see something you might have
missed earlier. This will GREATLY help you prevent blunders.

Of course you really need to use this technique only after a hard thinking. If you thought for 10
minutes or more, if you performed a long calculation – then you should use it. Otherwise, it’s not
necessary.

When your computer is lagging badly, you can reload or restart it. When your brain is having a hard
time coping up with the complicated calculations, you can refresh it too.

Some people call this technique “Blumenfeld’s Rule”. If you look at strong players during a game,
you’ll see that most of them use this method from time to

time.

And now, we analyzed the WHOLE process of calculation from the beginning ‘til end. Let’s sum up
the things.
While Thinking About A Move You Should:

1. Think in general (strategically). And after that…

2. Calculate variations.

First, you need to understand your general goal, what do you want to achieve. After that you can
search for the best way to achieve this goal.

While thinking strategically, you use your chess understanding, your knowledge of base and
fundamental principles (EX.: “Maximum Activity”, “Neutralization” etc).

While calculating variations, use the techniques from this course.

You always should perform these both steps, but the ACCENT depends on the position.

If there is NO contact between the pieces, then it’s a calm position. In such positions, you should
PRIMARILY think strategically, and then quickly check variations. You will check if there are any
other interesting options. And you will check if your following move is NOT a blunder.

On the contrary, if there’s CONTACT and TENSION between you and your opponent’s forces,
it’s a tactical position. Here you have to quickly think about the general situation, and then FOCUS
on CALCULATION. And if that is indeed the case, use the calculation method from this course.

GM Smirnov’s Calculation Method

1. Find ALL Of The Candidate Moves.

You should determine your forcing moves and logical moves (moves that follow the fundamental
chess principles).

2. Determine The Best Order Of Calculation.

First, you should calculate the most forcing and most powerful moves. You can use the methods of
“Comparison” and “Elimination” (and others) to simplify your task.
3. Calculate The Tree Of Variations That Follow.

Here you have to calculate the consequences of your candidate moves. If there’s a choice within one
of the lines – then you should find the candidate moves for that variation. You need to calculate each
line until the end of the forcing variation.

4. After That You Will Evaluate Resulting Positions Of Each Line And Choose The Best One.

Evaluate positions based on 2 factors: material and activity. You keep track of material situation
during a calculation, and assess activity quickly and intuitively.

In most cases, this should be the end of your thinking process and calculation task. However, if your
calculation was long and complicated, then you need to perform one more step:

5. Blumenfeld’s Rule.

Before playing your move on the board, you should look away from the board for several seconds.
Look at the position again, visualize your move on the board, and quickly check if you missed
something.

Maybe this method for calculation looks tedious to you, BUT that’s only temporary. In fact, it’s very
simple and logical. Each next element is based on the previous one. And all of the elements are based
on our overall strategic understanding of the game.

For making a smile you need to strain 17 muscles appropriately. Nevertheless, it’s very easy to smile.

When you train with this thinking system CONSISTENTLY, it’ll become as simple as smiling. And
just like smiling, it will also bring you positive emotions (after winning many games).

This system of thinking is universal. We don’t separate strategy and tactics, because they are very
closely connected. Tactics helps you to find the best way for achieving your strategic goal. While
calculating variations, you use your general understanding all the time:

1. To find what moves are worth calculating.

 2. To determine the best order of calculation.

3. To evaluate resulting positions.

And so on…

While calculating variations, you calculate forcing and logical moves. This allows you to find
combinations as well as simple moves that build up your position.

This system of thinking prevents you from making BLUNDERS.

In calm positions, you still should quickly check variations for soundness. While doing so, you have to
think about the possible aggressive replies of your opponent.

In tactical positions, you must look for your opponent’s candidate moves as thoroughly as you
look for yours.

You MUST calculate the most dangerous replies of the opponent first.

The Blumenfeld’s Rule is an additional safety measure that will help you prevent blunders.

Let me congratulate you with the good training we’ve done! Talk to you in the next lesson!
 Practical Tips For PEAK Performance

Lesson 4

Welcome into the 4th lesson of the course “Calculate Till Mate”. And as you can see, the 4th video is
ALL about “Practical Tips For PEAK Performance”.

In the previous lessons, we discussed and analyzed the whole process of calculation in GREAT and
DEEP detail. However, since calculation is a complex process, I still have some tips and tricks left in
the bag that I want to share with you.

Some of these tips are not even about chess tactics, but rather about your PSYCHOLOGY and mental
approach.

Along with that, I’ll also give you some practical tips which will help you unleash your TOP form in
real tournaments. All of these simple techniques have been tried and tested in real practice; and I can
guarantee that your results will significantly improve if you apply these regularly.

The 1st thing I’d like to discuss here is your ATTITUDE towards making decisions during a REAL
game. There are several typical delusions that hinder chess players of all levels from bringing out
their best results.

One of them is: ASPIRATION FOR PERFECTION.

Many players try to play 100% correct moves ALL the time. They want to play the best move in their
every single turn.

Now let’s be realistic: this is SIMPLY IMPOSSIBLE.

Nobody knows everything about chess. Even the best chess player ever (arguably) Kasparov said that
there are a lot of things about chess that he still doesn´t know. Chess is a too difficult game and has A
LOT of different aspects. It’s just impossible for you to know EVERYTHING about it.

Additionally, we need to keep in mind that there’s a time restriction. Even in a standard game with
long time control, you have only about 3 minutes for a move. Of course, it’s not enough to calculate
all the lines in extremely complicated positions.

Think about this:

 Sometimes, it took YEARS for the WHOLE chess community to find the right
 continuations in certain openings.

 Some famous games have been analyzed to death by different strong Grandmasters. And
still, they can’t come to a final conclusion in several critical

positions.

Steinitz – Bardeleben

White To Move

This is the famous game Steinitz – Bardeleben. It has been analyzed by many strong grandmasters
including Kasparov, Bondarevsky, Heller, Zaitsev and many others. It took about 100 years to find
the best move for White in this position: that is 15.Qa4+.

We will analyze this game in the practical part of the course.

  NOBODY knows everything about chess

 We need to play under the TICKING CLOCK

Keeping these 2 factors, you have to admit 1 thing: you will NOT be able to find the best moves
ALL THE TIME. Nobody can do that!

Let’s look at this situation from another point of view. Most often, a game is decided by the mistakes
of one side (NOT by the brilliant play of his opponent). With that in mind, it’s MORE important to
avoid mistakes, than to try finding 100% best moves all the time.

Here’s a typical scenario, which happens for players, who don’t understand this idea. They spend A
LOT of time trying to find the best move in every turn during the 1st half of a game. This gives them a
really superior position. However, in the later stage of the game, time trouble catches up and causes
them to blunder and lose!

Usually they consider such losses as something annoying and unfair (because they lost after having a
superior position). But the truth of the matter is that such a result is completely logical and well-
deserved! It happens because they don’t understand this rule:

It’s more important to AVOID MISTAKES,

than to find brilliant moves.

Summing things up, you need to admit this idea:

It’s fine to make NORMAL moves. You can’t play the best moves all the time. Sometimes, you have
to be content to play a normal move: the one which doesn’t worsen your position. This is completely
OK!

The 2nd typical delusion is very close to what we have just discussed. Many players…

Want To Be Sure That Their Following Move Works Well!

They want to calculate everything and be guaranteed that the move they’re planning to make is safe.
Well, this is quite natural. While playing a game, we often feel NERVOUS, and we certainly don’t
want to lose.

That’s why we try to check every very well, and we do our best to ensure that our moves work.

However, again let’s be real, very often, you can NOT calculate all consequences of your move.

Even computers can’t do so. And I’m talking about engines that calculate millions of moves, and
evaluate positions very fast!

Botvinnik – Fischer

Black To Move

This is another famous game: Botvinnik – Fischer.

The FULL analysis of this position could easily fill up a separate book. Of course, I will not show all
of them here. I guess it is enough to just mention that one
of the lines is ended in this position:

Black To Move

It’s Black turn and it’s a draw. The variations stemming from the original position (after 45.a4) are
ENORMOUS! Nobody can really calculate all those lines during an actual game.

In conclusion, curing this ‘disease’ of trying to calculate ALL the lines is simple. You need to admit
that, in many positions, you will not be able to calculate all the lines. Having said that, sometimes,
you should rely on your intuition. And that’s COMPLETELY OK!

Your intuition is based on your chess understanding. If your understanding is good enough, then many
of your intuitive decisions will end up the RIGHT

choice!
  It’s FINE to make NORMAL moves.

 It’s FINE to rely on your INTUITION when the situation calls for it.

Don’t put too much pressure on yourself. Don’t undertake impracticable obligations, which will only
put you at a disadvantage.

You need to adopt these 2 ideas for getting correct attitude towards making decisions. Believe me; this
will help you a lot in practical games.

Well, don’t get me wrong: of course you should calculate variations and try to find the best move as
much as you can. But if you can’t do it – don’t be a perfectionist. Just play a normal move and rely on
your intuition.

Using these practical tips, we can conclude one IMPORTANT thing we should keep in mind when
playing:

Do not OVERLOAD yourself.

And do not think for INORDINATE amounts of time

Sometimes, you can’t detect the best move even after performing all the necessary steps of thinking.
For example:

 You can’t decide which Rook to place on a central file.

 You can’t decide whether it’s safe for you to accept opponent’s sacrifice or not.

 You can’t decide whether your sacrifice gives you enough compensation.

 You have 2 nice options and you can’t choose the best one.

The list could go on and on!

Many players try to dig deeper in such cases. They start calculating the same lines over and over
again, or try to calculate deeper. They eat up A LOT of time in the clock, but they can’t come to a
final decision anyway.

This confusion causes negative influence on player’s psychology. Ultimately, it could lead to strange
mistake and a sudden loss in the end!

This is a typical situation faced by many players: after long think, players do something ridiculous and
lose. I’ve seen this many times in different tournaments.

Larsen – Tal

Black To Move

Here we will see one of the world’s best calculators and attackers of all time make the typical mistake
I’m talking about. And as expected, he went down in flames!

It’s Black’s turn now. White is going to take on h5 placing the Black’s Knight on the edge. Black
would prefer to avoid it. Black should move his Queen. The only logical move here is 14…Qg5
creating a threat of Bh3. Initially Black really was going to play this move, but then he found a
White’s idea 15.f4-ef 16.Bf4-Qh5 17.Bf7-Kf7 18.Qb3 which leads to an unclear position. After a very
long think, Black wasn’t able to come to a clear conclusion about this line. In the end, he decided to
reject it.

After some more minutes, he played the strange move 14…Qh6. This puts the Queen out of a game
and gives White an advantage. Ultimately, Black was caught in time trouble and lost the game
quickly.

Why everything happened so sad for Black? It’s definitely not because he is a weak player – we are
talking about the legend Mikhail Tal!

He just overloaded himself. He thought too long. What should have Black done instead? First,
Black should try to calculate the move 14…Qg5 and the line 15.f4, which he did. After about 10
minutes of thinking, Black could see that this line is very unclear and it’s impossible to calculate it
completely. Then he should NOT try to calculate further. Black should stop his calculation and play
14…Qg5 following his intuition.

Now let’s make up some practical conclusions:

 Perform Your Usual Thinking Process ONLY.

In the previous lessons, we analyzed the RIGHT steps of thinking and decision making. You should
perform these steps when trying to find the best move. However, you should not go beyond that. Do
NOT try to dig deeper. This will not help you anyway. Quite the contrary: you’ll get tired, confused
and be caught in time trouble.

Once you perform your usual thinking process – you should make a decision. If you are not
completely sure – RELY on your intuition.

 Calculate Each Line Only One Time.

When you calculate “The Tree Of Variations”, you should calculate each line only ONCE.

Well, I agree sometimes there may be an exception. But in most, cases you should follow this rule.

When you calculate the same lines several times – you are NOT thinking. YOU ARE HAVING
DOUBTS!

This will undermine your self-confidence, and will lead to cowardly moves… ultimately leading to
your demise.
 Do Not Think For A VERY Long Time.

If you notice that you are thinking for a long time already (10 minutes or more), then stop it and just
make a move. Believe in your chess understanding. Keep the base strategic principles closely in mind.

 And remember, it’s fine to make intuitive moves sometimes.

Maybe you are wondering how to find intuitive moves? Very simple: it’s the FIRST move which came
to your mind when you check out a position. That’s your initial impulse. As we already know,
intuition is based on your past experiences, which is quite huge. That’s why intuitive decisions are
often correct.

Larsen – Tal

Black To Move
If I ask you where the Black’s Queen should go in this position, many of you will suggest putting it on
g5. Without any calculation, this move looks to be the MOST NATURAL. It side-steps threat and
creates a threat of its own. It just feels and looks right. This is your intuition at work.

Here’s the next IMPORTANT piece of advice:

 Do not stick to ONE candidate move.

Let me show you an example to illustrate what I mean

Bogda – Ferreira

White To Move
Let’s say you are playing the White side and you start thinking. What are the candidate moves? As I
have recommended before, you may pause the video now and think about it by yourself first.

With the Queen, we can take on e6 (1.Qe6). With his Rooks, we have 1.Rd7. The Bishop can go to g4
(1.Bg4). And lastly, as for the Knights, we can play 1.Nd6 or 1.Nf6.

Thus we have several candidate options. Let’s say you decided to calculate 1.Qe6 move first. It looks
promising. After 1…fe you calculate 2.Bh5, 2.Nd6, 2.Rhf1 and so on. Some time has gone, but you
haven’t found something decisive in the lines you saw. And, you see that a complete calculation of
this line will require many time. In such cases, it would be wrong to stick to this line.

Maybe after another candidate move you are winning easily. You should play that move RIGHT away
if you found one. Or maybe all other candidate moves don’t work. Perhaps, you’ll definitely need to
play 1.Qe6, because you don’t have a choice.

What you need to do is to put this line (1.Qe6) aside for some time, and check other candidate
moves. Later on, you’ll decide whether you need to get back to the line 1.Qe6 or not.

In this position a sudden move 1.Nf6 is winning immediately. After 1…fe 2.Qe6-fe and 3.Bh5, White
delivers a nice checkmate.

If you stuck to the 1st candidate move 1.Qe6 instead, then you would only waste a lot of time and
efforts for nothing. Again, let me remind you:

Do NOT stick to 1 candidate move!

Well, if you can calculate a certain line quickly – then go ahead. In this case you will calculate all
candidate moves in turn, and that’s the ideal situation.

Sometimes, however, you’ll see that calculating a candidate move requires serious time investment. In
that case, it’s better to put this line aside and quickly look at other possibilities first.

By the way, we discussed a similar method in the 2nd lesson:

If there’s a clear main line –

QUICKLY check sidelines first, and FOCUS on this main line afterwards.
The next recommendation is EXTREMELY important. It was well-known in former USSR chess
school, but nowadays, most players don’t know about it.

During the previous lessons in the course, we discussed the right order of thinking:

1. First you should think in general terms.

2. And after that, you should calculate variations.

Here’s the trick:

You can perform the 1st step during your OPPONENT’S time!

When your opponent is thinking, you should not just walk around. You CAN and MUST use this time
provided to you.

An opponent’s single move will not change the position too much. Thus you may think about the
position in general terms:

 Think about your PLAN and how you can push for its realization.

 Mentally review the base STRATEGIC PRINCIPLES of chess. Think of what you must
do based on these principles.

 Find the BEST POSITIONS for your pieces.

Once your opponent plays his move – you will start calculating variations.

Abramovic – Dudukovic
Black To Move

We have already discussed this position. Now let’s imagine that you are playing White. While Black
is thinking about his next move, you should think about the position in general terms.

You can notice that there’s an open d-file and you would like to take control of it. You’ve got an
outpost square d5, which can be occupied by your Knight or Rook.

Also there’s a pin on Black’s Knight. You can try to take advantage of it by playing Ne4 or Nd5.

Your least active piece is a c1-Rook. Perhaps you should move it onto d-file. Maybe you should trade
Rooks on the d-file first.

Also, White has a pawn majority on the Queen-side. You may try to move it forward and create a
passed pawn on the c-file.

See? You can discover MANY USEFUL ideas during your opponent’s time. Once he makes his move,
you’ll start calculating concrete variations.

How To Calculate Lines When You Are Tight In Time?

We already talked about it. Nevertheless, let’s repeat it again. If you are in a time trouble – then you
may skip thinking about candidate moves.

1. Find the best move based on your general understanding.

2. Check if it’s sound (look at AGGRESSIVE and FORCING replies of your opponent).

Maybe you will not find the best move. But at least you’ll play a normal move, and you will not
blunder. Plus you can try to perform the 1st step during your opponent’s time. That’s what we have
talked about few minutes ago.

In this lesson we discussed some important practical tips related to calculation. Now let’s quickly
review them.

It’s important to adopt CORRECT ATTITUDE TOWARDS MAKING DECISIONS:

 It’s FINE to make NORMAL moves sometimes. You don’t have to find the best moves
all the time. Moreover, it’s impossible. Sometimes, you have no choice but to play ordinary
moves.

 It’s FINE to rely on your INTUITION. Sometimes, it’s impossible to calculate all
eventual consequences. You need to admit it and realize that it’s just normal. There are
positions where relying on your intuition is the BEST way to go.

And here are some PRACTICAL TIPS:

 Do NOT overload yourself (do NOT think for a VERY long time).

 Perform your usual thinking process ONLY (there’s no need to dig deeper).

 Calculate each line only ONCE.

 Do NOT stick to one candidate move.

  During your opponent’s think time – think about generalities.

 If you are in a time trouble: find the BEST move based on your understanding, and then
check if it’s sound.

Now you know the right system of calculation and your arsenal is now filled with important practical
tips. When you train and digest this knowledge, this will give you a HUGE edge over your opponents.
Most of your opponents don’t know even a little part of this information! Now you can easily leave
them behind!
 Tactical Hurricane

Lesson 5

Hi there! As you have guessed, I’m back with the 5th lesson from the course: “Calculate Till Mate”!

Previously we analyzed and discussed the WHOLE calculation process in great detail. Now, we come
to an exciting topic: chess COMBINATIONS. We will discuss:

 What a combination is

 And how can you implement combinations in your practice.

This will make you a VERY formidable player… a dynamic force who will hit opponents with tactical
hurricanes left, right, and center!

Ok, without wasting a moment, let’s get started. In the previous lessons, we’ve discussed many
important aspects of tactics. A combination is just a particular case of chess tactics. If you studied
the previous materials CAREFULLY, everything that I will discuss should make perfect sense and be
VERY easy for you to pick up.

When you have a good OVERALL understanding, digesting all of the concrete rules will be a smooth
process. That’s why it’s so important to have a firm background and to DEEPLY UNDERSTAND
chess basics.

Let’s review the general points we have discussed earlier. Based on these generalities, we will deduce
ALL specific rules about combinations.

There’s a general strategic goal in chess: to gain in activity.

Once you have achieved this, you can turn your greater activity into an EFFECTIVE attack that will
tear through the opponent’s position. To be more specific, activity is made of 2 factors: material and
piece activity.

Your moves and ideas should steer towards this overall goal. The FUNDAMENTAL strategic
principles will help you to keep treading on the right path.

Tactics, on the other hand, helps you to find the BEST WAY to achieve this overall strategic goal.
Your opponent will try to do the same. At a certain point in the game, you and your opponent’s forces
will COLLIDE. When such a tension happens, tactics become especially important.

You have to calculate different variations and find the most advantageous one for you: the variation
that leads to gain in material and activity.

Now let’s think what scenarios can happen here. Both players have activity and material. And that
balance can tip to either side.

______________________________________________________________

Your Activity <-------> Opponent’s Activity

Your Material <-------> Opponent’s Material

______________________________________________________________

If you gain advantage in one of these factors, this is obviously favorable for you. For instance, if you
win material, this gives you an edge. If you lose in these factors, this is certainly bad for you.
Everything is obvious and straightforward, isn’t it?

Sometimes, however, we will face MORE COMPLEX scenarios. This occurs when you EXCHANGE
something with your opponent. In this case you’ll need to assess who gains MORE out of the
exchange. The ensuing positions after a series of exchanges can be very unclear sometimes.

Now let’s think what exchanges are possible. You can make an exchange

 within 1 factor (material-material, or activity-activity),

 or between different factors (material-activity).

When you trade something within one factor, it’s usually pretty easy to evaluate it. For example, we
know that a Rook is stronger than a minor piece. This exchange is in your favor.

You may be wondering: What is an exchange of activity? Well, let’s say you expand in the center. In
doing so, you let your opponent to expand on the Queen side. Or, for example, you activate a certain
piece, which allows your opponent to activate one of his pieces as well. That’s an exchange in activity.

Let’s take a look at a concrete example.

Black To Move

If Black now takes on d4 (3…cd), this will give him the c-file. However, it does have its share of
negative consequences. It gives White the e-file and a diagonal for his Bishop (c1-h6). With that in
mind, we can say that this exchange of activity is more beneficial for White.

While it’s not always so easy to evaluate an exchange of activity, still, it’s pretty simple to assess in
many cases.

What produces UNCLEAR situations… positions that can be hard to assess, are exchanges between
different factors (activity-material; material-activity).

When you trade your material for gaining in activity, we usually call it a SACRIFICE.
 When a forcing variation contains a sacrifice, we usually call it a COMBINATION.

As you can see, there’s nothing really special or complex here.

We calculate forcing lines with our usual calculation process. As you already know, we should also
calculate those forcing moves which look bad at first sight. Why? SIMPLE! It’s because sometimes
you can give up material, BUT get something MORE valuable in return.

Now let’s take a look at situations WHEN a sacrifice can be advantageous for you:

1. You grab more MATERIAL in return at the end of this forcing line.

It’s not even a combination. It’s just a matter of properly and efficiently CALCULATING
variations.

2. Your sacrifice results to an unstoppable CHECKMATING attack.

No doubt, this is good for you! Again, this shouldn’t be too hard to understand. Once again,
this is more about calculating variations.

3. You gain greater ACTIVITY after the sacrifice.

When you trade material for activity, this is called “a positional sacrifice” or “an intuitive
sacrifice”. Actually, this is the only REAL sacrifice. The other ‘sacrifices’, mentioned
above, result to immediate PROFITS. All you have to do is calculate.

Here, however, it’s your general understanding that is crucial. It’s necessary for evaluating such
situations properly. Later, we’ll talk about it in more details.

So far, we have discussed different scenarios that can happen when your forces collide with
opponent’s forces (when there’s contact between the pieces).

Sometimes, it’s more advantageous for you; sometimes your opponent may come out on top. What
causes this result? The answer is pretty simple:
ACTIVITY. The MORE ACTIVE side will win in this battle.

Graphically, it can be showed like this.

This simple image, which a schoolboy can draw within seconds, explains nearly everything about
tactics.

Let’s take a look at a couple of rules that we can conclude from this picture. Again, having SOLID
understanding of the basics is essential.

With it, we can understand ALL of the specific rules easily. You don’t need to remember them.
Instead, you should understand the logical flow of the process.

Here’s the 1st rule: If you have an advantage (in activity), you should start an attack and create
contact between you and your opponent’s forces.

This skirmish will be more beneficial for you.

In order to create an intensive contact, you need to have enough open lines. With enough open lines,
your pieces will be able to move forward and attack opponent directly. I’m sure we know the rule: If
you want to ATTACK, you need to OPEN lines first.

Here’s another principle stemming from the first rule: if you are leading in DEVELOPMENT
(during the opening), you should OPEN the position.

The next rule states: If you have ADVANTAGE in activity, your attack will be SUCCESSFUL.

Here’s one more: if you have an advantage in activity – it makes sense to calculate combinations
(or sacrifices). There’s a good chance that it will work and tip the balance in your favor.

We can EASILY deduce many specific rules. BUT, the key point is to understand this basic idea: A
contact between the pieces will end in favor of MORE ACTIVE side.

Let’s move on and think: WHEN can we gain an advantage in activity?

Both players have same quantity of pieces. However, their locations can be different.

With that in mind, you can get an advantage on a certain PART of the board. This idea produces 2
similar conclusions:

 You should attack where you are STRONGER.

 You should attack opponent’s WEAKNESSES.

These 2 ideas talk about the same thing; it’s just the point of view that differs. Take a look at the
following position:
Black To Move

All the White’s pieces are taking aim at the Black’s King-side. Black, not really worried about the
Kingside demonstration, played 1…Nc4, which moved away one of the FEW defenders of Black’s
King.

This means White should start an attack and create INTENSE contact between the pieces on this part
of the board. Sacrifices can help White doing this, and there’s a big chance that White’s possible
sacrifices will deliver a knockout blow.

For instance, White can play 2.Rh7. After 2…Kh7 3.fg Black can take (3…fg) or go back (3…Kg8).
HOWEVER, White replies 4.Qh5 in any case: 3…fg 4.Qh5, using the pin, 4…Kg8 5.Qg6 and White
will play Qg7 or Qh7 mating.

As we noticed Black could also go 3…Kg8 instead of taking the pawn. Here, White can play 4.Qh5
which will lead to the previous variation with a transposition: Black has to take on g6 anyway.

In addition to that, White can play 4.Bg7-Kg7 and then 5.Qh5. now there’s a bit funny line 5…Rh8
6.Rf7-Kg8 7.Rh7 and Black can’t protect the h8-Rook. White is winning here. Now let’s go back.
POSITION After 1…Nc4 2.Rh7

Black To Move

We have analyzed and concluded that 2…Kh7 is losing. Let’s see what happens if Black takes on d4:
2…Bd4. 3.Qd4. Black still can’t take the Rook because of 4.Rh4 and Rh8.

Maybe Black should bring his defender back to e5: 2…Ne5. White has many options here: for instance
3.fg-fg 4.Rf8-Rf8 and 5.Bg6 using a pin.

In all these lines White used different tactical motifs. And it’s ALWAYS favorable for White. Why?
It’s because White’s activity was MUCH GREATER on the King-side.

You should attack where you are stronger:

+ If you have more quantity of pieces on a certain part of the board.

 + If you have more space.

+ If you have greater activity.

Then you should attack and create contact between the pieces. Your potential sacrifices have good
chances to be successful.

Now let’s take a closer look at the 2nd part of this rule:

You should attack opponent’s WEAKNESSES.

What is a weakness? What does it mean precisely?

First, an UNDEFENDED pawn or a piece is weak.

Quite often, all of your opponent’s pieces SUPPORT and PROTECT each other.

This is the case in the starting position of a chess game. But later on, your opponent’s pieces can lose
their coordination, and some of them can become undefended. Once you see these weaknesses, you
can try to grab them.

The 2nd factor that results to a weakness is LIMITED Mobility. Usually, it’s hard to snatch your
opponent’s pieces since they can easily run away from your attack.

Sometimes, however, an opponent’s piece can be HIGHLY restricted. It becomes weak, and this gives
you a REAL chance to trap and capture it.

All in all, opponent’s forces become WEAK when they are:

 Undefended

 Has LIMITED Mobility

When your opponent has undefended pieces, it’s usually called “hanging pieces” o r “tactical
weaknesses”.

By the way, these 2 factors are applicable to all of your opponent’s forces: his pieces, pawns, and his
King. You can attack the opponent’s King when it doesn’t have enough defenders or when its mobility
is limited.
Let’s have a look at the following position:

Berezovsky – Ruzele

White To Move

It’s White turn and the position is very interesting. You may like to pause the video and think about it
by yourself first.

First, we can see that the Black King’s mobility is GREATLY limited. Right now, it has no available
squares to move to. Next, if we focus attention on the Kingside, then we’ll notice White’s advantage
in activity there: White has 3 attackers (Qc4, Bh6, and Ng5) against 2 defenders (Rf8 and Bg7).

These factors allow White to land a nice combination: 1.Qf7! If Black takes with 1…Rf7, then after
2.Nf7 White takes on d8 (2…Kg8 3.Nd8) winning the exchange.

By the way, this happened because Black has a tactical weakness – an undefended Queen on d8. Due to
the Black Knight dozing on b8 (instead of standing on c6), the Queen doesn’t have support from other
pieces.

Let’s see if there’s anything else Black can play. The White’s Queen is pressuring the g7 and
indirectly the h7 squares. The only way to protect them is 1…Rg8. However, the Black’s King is
completely suffocated! White has a brilliant move 2.Qf6 preparing 3.Nf7 mate!

In order to cover the f7-square Black must play 2…Be8. Now Black has 2 problems: Queen-d8
became undefended and the Black’s King is still out of flight squares. White can use either motif with:
3.Bg7-Rg7, and now, 4.Qg7 followed with Ne6 is winning a rook.

Alternatively, White can keep attacking the opposing monarch: 4.Qf8-Rg8 5.Qh6 White still has
advantage on the King-side: 2 attackers against 1 defender - 5…Rg7 6.Ne6. This deadly fork leads to a
winning position for White.

Black To Move

It’s Black’s turn. Can you see his tactical shot? YES, Black has the typical blow: 12…Nd5. Now Black
is winning a pawn in any case, for instance after 13.Be7-Ne7.

Let’s take a look at the starting position again. Some players, those who don’t understand chess really,
would say that it’s just a sudden tactics for Black. And Black was lucky to use a sudden favorable
situation.
I hope that you understand the situation much better now.

First, the g5-Bishop is a tactical weakness. It’s the only White’s piece that doesn’t have enough
protection and it lost contact with his other pieces.

Secondly, White placed this Bishop on the Black’s territory – onto that part of the board where Black
is STRONGER.

These 2 factors allowed Black to perform a little combination.

So far, we have analyzed WHEN a combination can be favorable for you. Generally, it happens when
you have greater activity. We also analyzed some other

specific situations as well.

Now let’s think WHY this happens?

Initially both players have equal positions. If both players make correct moves – a position will
remain equal. Therefore, you get an advantage, if your opponent makes a mistake.

This can be:

 One HUGE blunder

 Several little mistakes.

As for the 1st item: if your opponent does something really dubious or suspect, you should think how
to punish him for this mistake. You’ll be amazed at how many favorable combinations you could find!

Owen – Whitehead
Black To Move

This is a well-known theoretical position. Here Black may play 5…d5, using the pin on c3. After 6.ed-
Nd5, White may simply castle 7.0-0.

Quick development is important always, but in open positions this becomes ESPECIALLY crucial. I
hope you already understand why. In an open position, more active side can quickly create contact
between the pieces and start an attack. That’s why it’s so dangerous to be on the LESS active side in
this position.

Black should care about his development PRIMARILY. For instance, he can play 7…Bc3 and castle to
safety.

In this game, however, Black decided to win a pawn. He played 7…Nc3 8.bc-Bc3.

What should White do now? Maybe 9.Rb1 is the only move? Well, it’s certainly possible, but let’s
NOT FORGET that Black made a dubious move.

In such cases you should think how to punish an opponent for his mistake. You need to start an attack,
and you may consider sacrifices. Since your activity is higher, a full-blown confrontation will be
favorable for you.
With that in mind, White played 9.Ng5. If Black keeps taking material, then after 9…Ba1 10.Bf7-Kf8
11.Ba3-Ne7 White is winning easily. He can play 12.Qf3, Qa1 or almost any other logical move.

Black can castle instead: 9…0-0. But after 10.Qh5 Black is still defenseless. 10…Bf5 was played
11.Bf7-Kh8 and 12.Nh7. Another little combination leads to mate: 12…Bh7 13.Bg6 and Qh7.

In this example White used Black’s mistake to start an attack IMMEDIATELY. Also, please, pay
attention to the factors we discussed previously:

 White attacked Black’s weakness – his undefended King-side.

 White attacked on that part of the board, where he has great advantage in activity.

Thanks to these factors all White’s sacrifices worked well.

We have analyzed that you can get advantage in activity, if your opponent makes a serious mistake.
The same situation can happen if your opponent made

several little mistakes. In this case your position becomes better gradually. People say: “You
OUTPLAYED your opponent”.

At a certain point, after several small mistakes, you’ll get a dominating position. It’ll be important to
convert your advantage into an attack, and to demolish opponent.

Often you should sacrifice something to create intense contact between the pieces. It’s important not
to miss this moment. Let’s not forget that your opponent will be realizing his own plan as well.

If you don’t go forward – he will FORCE you to go BACK!

Korobov – Bukal
Black To Move

White hasn’t made any huge mistakes in this game, BUT he has made SEVERAL minor errors. These
minor errors snowballed, and gradually, Black’s position became better. As of the moment, he has a
huge concentration of pieces on the King-side.

In such situations, it’s important to convert your advantage in activity into a DIRECT attack.
Sacrifices may be used for this purpose.

In this position Black has an obvious way to create contact between the forces: 19…f4. Next, Black
can play Bh3, Bg4, Ng4, and maybe g5-g4 – something along those lines.

However, Black didn’t play it!

This is a very typical situation, and that’s why I want that you pay attention on it. When you have a
dominating position, you have a very comfortable situation. You don’t want to take risks or give any
counter-chances to your opponent. The problem is: you do NOT have any other way to breakthrough
and win the game.

IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO WIN A BATTLE WITHOUT GOING INTO BATTLE!

Remember, if you don’t go forward, an opponent will force you to fall back!

True enough, the move 19...f4 gives some counter-chances to White: it opens the b2-Bishop (after
20.ef), it gives the e-file for the White Rooks and so on.

HOWEVER, you should NOT overlook the additional possibilities it creates for Black! You need to
understand very well, that if your activity is higher, then tactical complications will be more favorable
for you. You may, and moreover, you MUST initiate such complications!

In the game Black played 19…Ng4. Black enjoys his position and he doesn’t want to change it
drastically.

White replied with 20.h3-Ngf6. Black wants to play f4 in a very comfortable situation. Now he’ll be
able to capture the h3 pawn after that, so the f4 move will be definitely good for him. However, White
was given enough time to catch his breath and prevent it: 21.Rae1.

Now 21…f4 is bad for Black because after 22.ef the e4-Knight is hanging. On the previous move
Black could play f4 without any serious problems. Now, playing …f4 has become MUCH HARDER.

Nevertheless, Black’s position is still more active and he STILL should start an attack. I like the move
21…g5. Black is going to push g4 and open up a position. If White plays 22.Nd2 (removing the Knight
from upcoming attack), Black can take (22…Nd2 23.Qd2) and go 23…f4 with a strong attack.

After 24.g4 Black has a little combination: 24…Bg4 25.hg-Ng4 and mate is unavoidable.

BUT again, Black was indecisive and didn’t want to take risks. He played 21…Nc5. A long game
ensued where White was able to neutralize Black’s pressure and won the game in the end.

We analyzed when and why your position becomes favorable for attack and combinations. It happens
after an opponent’s serious mistake, or after making several LITTLE mistakes.

In both cases, you need to create intense contact between the pieces and start a direct attack. Since
your position is more active, these complications will be favorable for you.

You must be ready to start a fight and sacrifice if necessary. Remember: if you don’t go forward, an
opponent will push you back.

Ok, in this lesson we analyzed the general theory about COMBINATIONS. Along with that, we also
repeated everything about chess tactics. That’s the power of a deep understanding!

Now let’s make a QUICK SUMMARY:

 Combination – this is a FORCING variation with a SACRIFICE.

Using our standard thinking system, we calculate FORCING and attacking moves first of all.
That’s how you will find forcing variations.

Now let’s take a close look at SACRIFICES.

When you calculate variations, you want to find the most advantageous one… the line where you
gain MATERIAL and ACTIVITY.

Sometimes you can grab such advantage for free. Sometimes you will give-up something in return,
resulting to a favorable exchange.

When you trade material for activity, this is called a SACRIFICE. To be honest, “sacrifice” isn’t
the right term. Actually, it’s an EXCHANGE… you are exchanging material for activity!

If you approach your chess games this way, sacrifices will be natural for you. You will EASILY find
and calculate such moves, too!

Your general understanding helps you realize WHEN you should look for sacrifices and during which
instances they are correct. It happens when there’s a contact between the forces and you have
GREATER ACTIVITY.

This happens when you attack:

 On that part of the board where you are stronger

 The opponent’s weaknesses (his undefended or immobile pieces)

This usually happens after an opponent’s mistake. So this is an additional signal for you to consider
attack and sacrifices.

That’s it! That’s all you really need to know about combinations. Everything is simple and logical.

To end this lesson, let’s make practical summary for real games:
 What exactly do you need to CREATE combinations in REAL games?

You need 3 things:

1. Firm general understanding

2. Efficient calculation system

3. Knowledge of typical combinations

You need to have a GOOD UNDERSTANDING of the things we talked about in this course.

Once you have ingrained it into your mind, you will always seek ways to increase your activity. This
will lead to positions where you can unleash DEVASTATING attacks and combinations.

You will know what a combination is, and have a refined sense of when they can happen and how to
make them happen. This will make it easy and natural for you to find combinations.

Looking for combinations is a part of your usual CALCULATION SYSTEM.

You always should calculate forcing moves first: checks, captures and attacking moves.

Oftentimes, such moves give-up material. In most cases, they will NOT work. When they do work,
however, you’ll get something MUCH more valuable in return. This is called a combination.

As we already know, these 2 elements are closely connected and supplement each other. Strategic
understanding shows you the right path, the overall goal; while tactics helps you to find the best way
to achieve it.

DEEP UNDERSTANDING of chess tactics and PRECISE CALCULATION will allow you to find
combinations EASILY.

Also there is one MORE additional element. Players have already discovered many typical patterns
and combinations. Knowing them will simplify your task. You will find combinations quicker and
easier.

It’s important to understand that this is an additional, auxiliary element. With the 2 main skills
(Understanding + Calculation) you will find combinations even if you have never seen that motif
before. If you are already familiar with the combination, you will just find it a bit QUICKER and
EASIER.

On the contrary, if you only know typical combinations – this does NOT help too much. Unfortunately
this happens with most players.

- They don’t know how to create a position, where combinations will be possible.

- They don’t know when they should look for a combination.

- They can’t calculate it precisely and evaluate resulting position PROPERLY.

These are the players who solve thousands of tactical puzzles, BUT they can hardly apply what they
have learned and almost never play combinations in their own games!

In order to avoid such a frustrating situation, we have built a strong FOUNDATION first and
foremost. We discussed EVERYTHING about chess tactics. PLUS, we analyzed effective calculation
techniques.

Next we will quickly familiarize ourselves with typical combinations. Having a firm background,
you’ll digest them easily. That’s what we will look at in the next lesson. Talk to you then!
 All The Main Combinations

Lesson 6

Hi and welcome to the 6th video lesson - “All The Main Combinations”. In the previous lesson, we
analyzed what skills allow you to find and execute combinations in your games:

1. General Understanding

2. Calculation System

3. Knowing Typical Combinations

All previous lessons were all about the first 2 skills. Now, for the 6th lesson, we’ll have a closer look
at the final skill.

Combinations can happen when your forces collide with opponent’s forces. The contact between your
and opponent’s pieces can lead to different variations. You need to analyze the stemming variations
and choose the most beneficial one for you.

Players have noticed that some of these possible scenarios happen quite often in different games.
These are typical combinations.

It’s very useful to study the most typical combinations. Knowing them will help you find these
advantageous lines QUICKER and EASIER during your calculation.

Before we begin I’d like to make one last note.

Millions of different combinations are possible. We CAN’T and SHOULD NOT be obsessed with
learning them all. We are not machines. It’s like trying to learn and memorize a full-set of opening
encyclopedias. This is impossible, and more importantly, it’s unnecessary.

As humans, we should understand the general ideas that lead to different combinations. Learning those
concrete combinations and patterns is just an additional measure. Nevertheless, doing so will help
optimize our search for combinations.

In this lesson, we will look at the most typical combinations. You just need to familiarize yourself
with them. It’s not really necessary to remember the title of
each tactical motif, or memorize mechanically how many tactical motifs are available. Take it easy.
Again, this is just an additional technique to help you discover combinations quicker in real games.

Ok, without delay, let’s get started!

Classifying combinations under different categories or motifs are possible. We already know one of
them. It shows WHEN a sacrifice of material can be beneficial for you:

 If you grab more material in return at the end of this forcing line

 If you grab (mate) opponent’s King in return

 If you gain in activity after that

As I have discussed, a sacrifice is rather an exchange. It allows you to grab something MORE valuable
in return. This can surge in activity or gaining material.

On this lesson, we’ll analyze some examples. Mainly we’ll focus on EXACTLY HOW you can find
such combinations in YOUR games. I advise that you pause a video and think about each position by
yourself first.
Ivanchuk–Yermolinsky

Black To Move

It’s Black’s turn. We can see an intensive contact between pieces here. No doubt, the position before
you is tactical.

We need to calculate lines. What are the candidate moves for Black? With a Queen, Black can take on
b3, and maybe on h4 (this doesn’t look great, but anyway we should consider captures).

With a Rook Black can take on c5 (1…Rc5). If White takes the Queen (2.Qh3) Black can keep
attacking the White’s King somehow. It’s worth considering. Again, especially in tactical positions,
we MUST consider ALL FORCING MOVES, including those which look bad.

With his light-squared Bishop, Black has no sensible moves. The dark-squared Bishop, on the other
hand, can deliver a check on c1.

All in all, we have 4 candidate moves: 1…Qb3, Qh4, Rc5 and Bc1.

First, we should calculate the consequences of checks (since they are the most forceful): 1…Qb3 and
1…Bc1.
1…Qb3 2.Nb3 leads to an endgame. Perhaps Black is better here, but it doesn’t look decisive. Let’s
not dig dipper into this line now, but, instead, look at the other options first. Maybe we’ll find
something MUCH better and decisive there. If not, we can return back to this line later.

After 1…Bc1, White has several options in reply. First we should analyze the most forcing move
2.Kc1. Now Black can take on c5 with check (2…Rc5), or even better to take the Queen (2…Qb3)
using a pin. This is winning!

Since White can’t take the Bishop – that already makes this move quite promising. Anyway, we
certainly should calculate 2 other options for White as well: 2.Ka1 and 2.Ka2.

The move 2.Ka2 looks more natural, let’s start from this move. Black has a choice and we MUST find
the candidate moves again.

 2…Qh4 is too slow.

 2…Qb3 3.Nb3 and, probably, 2…Rc2 seems winning.

 2…Rc5 3.Qh3 and then 3…Ra5 or Bd5 - maybe there’s something there.

 2…Bb1 gives nothing – White takes 3.Kb1.

 2…Bd5 3.Qd5 and Black is suddenly winning after 3…Qa3 and 4…Qb2.

Please, pay attention to this method of thinking.

When position is VERY COMPLEX, it makes sense not only to find EACH candidate move, BUT
also to think about each option for several seconds.

That’ll give you better understanding of the situation. It’ll be easier for you to decide the best order of
calculation later on. Maybe you’ll dismiss some of the moves immediately, during this several
seconds thinking.

All in all, we noticed that 2.Ka2 is losing for White. The last move we need to calculate is 2.Ka1.
Again, we should detect candidate moves for Black.

Queen can take on b3: 2…Qb3 3.Nb3 which probably leads to better endgame.

Rook can take on c5, and this is winning: 2…Rc5 3.Qh3-Ra5 with mate!

In means that Black is winning after 1…Bc1. At least Black is winning material, and if not, White gets
mated.
During the course of the analysis, we found several combinations. HOWEVER, it wasn’t about
knowing the arising combinations. We found the combinations thanks to PRECISE
CALCULATION. It was SIMPLE to evaluate a certain sacrifice, because Black was winning by force
after that.

In the last example we’ve seen first 2 situations.

________________________________________________________

SACRIFICE CAN BE BENEFICIAL:

1. If you grab more material in return at the end of this forcing line

2. If you grab (mate) opponent’s King in return

3. If you gain in activity after that

___________________________________________________

As you can see, they are quite simple and it mainly relates to calculation.

The 3rd item, however: positional or intuitive sacrifices are considered to be the most difficult ones.
Usually people say that you need to have great chess intuition, large experience, and HUGE amounts
of talents for executing such sacrifices.

However, I’d like to simplify the situation for you. Instead of all those obscure discourses, I’ll give
you 1 simple rule. Here it is:

IF THERE’S A SACRIFICE FOR ACTIVITY – GO ON AND PLAY IT!

That’s all you really need to know about this type of sacrifices.  Well, I’m kidding a bit, but just a
bit.

Of course, you need to calculate variations before sacrificing something. If you see that this line does
not work – you should obviously dismiss it. But if you see that it works, or even if you are unsure
about it – go on and play it.

In one of the previous lessons, we were analyzing how to evaluate positions. There I’ve told you, that
if you can’t evaluate a position – it means that it’s approximately equal. If one side really has an
advantage, you would notice it for sure.

We can apply the same idea for sacrifices. If there would be a concrete refutation, you would notice it
while calculating variations. That said, if you are unsure, it means that at least there’s no direct and
obvious refutation. It’s not that bad already!

Plus there are many GOOD reasons why you should sacrifice for activity.

You Will Go In DEFINITELY Right Path

Usually, you have several options in a complex position. You can sacrifice for activity or you can do
something else. While you may be unsure about other options, sacrificing for activity is, WITHOUT
A DOUBT, a move in the right direction.

Let me remind you: ACTIVITY is a key factor of a chess game. To increase your activity is the
overall goal of a chess game. With it, you can overpower the enemy forces.

If you raise your activity by sacrificing intuitively, you are DEFINITELY doing the right thing. You
are following the main guiding idea of chess.

You’ll Be In A Favorable Situation From Practical Point Of View

Practically, it’s easier to attack, than to defend. You’ll just move forward and stir up threats. On the
other hand, your opponent will have to think hard and calculate carefully all your possible threats.

He has to find precise defensive moves and this is stressful especially with the clock ticking. Your
opponent will have to spend a lot of time, which is also good for you.

Being on the defensive is being on the verge of ruin, where a single mistake will probably become
fatal. This brings us to the next argument:

You Will DOMINATE Psychologically

Let’s not forget that it’s not just a chess game. It’s also a competition between 2 individuals, where
you want to break down your opponent psychologically.

When you sacrifice, you demonstrate your self-confidence. You make a brave decision, and you show
your opponent that you are NOT afraid of him. You show that you don’t want a draw…you are playing
for a win! You are leading, while an opponent only has to react on your moves.

All in all, you start dominating psychologically, which is very important.

 YOUR SACRIFICE SHAKES NOT ONLY AN OPPONENT’S POSITION,

BUT HIS SELF-CONFIDENCE AS WELL!

That explains why defenders make mistakes often. And that’s why even incorrect (but dangerous)
sacrifices often bring great results.

In conclusion…

IF THERE IS A SACRIFICE FOR ACTIVITY – GO ON AND PLAY IT!

Different situations are possible here. After such a sacrifice you can:

 Raise the activity of a certain PIECE (or constrict an opponent’s piece)

 Raise your OVERALL activity

 Gain greater activity on a certain PART of the board (for instance on the Kingside)

In any case, when you sacrifice intuitively, you gain activity that enables you to start an attack!

Akshayraj – Mozharov
White To Move

It’s White’s turn. Black is going to bring the Knight to d5, where it’ll be on a strong central position.
On the other hand, White’s Bishop is passive.

However, there is an obvious way to turn around the situation: the move 1.d5. This opens a diagonal
for the Bishop and takes away the d5-square from Black’s Knight.

Of course, you can’t be sure that the move 1.d5 is completely correct. You can’t be sure that it’ll bring
you an advantage. But you still should play it. Remember the rule: if there is a sacrifice for activity –
go on and play it!

This makes the White’s position much more active. This gives you good attacking chances.

This makes your following move quite obvious and easy to find.

If Black takes with e-pawn (1…ed), you’ll play 2.g4 and will attack on the g-file. You have a clear
plan, while for Black it’s not so obvious what to do. Matter of fact, in the game, White did just that: he
invaded the g-file and won!
White To Move

The White’s pieces are locked on the first 2 ranks. The central pawn chains of both players limit their
activity. This gives White an idea to somehow remove those pawns.

And as usual we should calculate forcing moves: in this position these forcing moves are 1.Nf4 and
1.Bf4. Yes, they look bad. It seems that they drop material for no apparent reason, BUT we should
consider all forcing moves at least for several seconds.

Here the move 1.Nf4 is interesting.

After 1…ef the only attacking move for White is 2.e5. If Black takes the pawn (2…Qe5), we can
answer with 3.Rce1. Now, ALL of White’s forces are free from the limiting effects of the pawn chain
and they enjoy a sudden and huge surge of activity.

If Black takes on d5 (3…Qd5), White can play 4.Be4. In case of 3…Qg6, White has 4.Rg6. PLUS, in
all the lines, White has the possibility of Qh4 – putting pressure on the h-file.

By the way, 3.Qh4 is also possible instead of 3.Re1. This also looks interesting: White is attacking the
Bishop and threatening Rg5. Now let’s get back to the starting position. Of course, it’s hard to
calculate all possible consequences of the move 3.Nf4. You should calculate the consequences of
course, but even after that you will not be completely sure if 3.Nf4 is advantageous. However, you
should remember the rule: If there’s a sacrifice for activity – go on and play it!

Otherwise, it would be quite hard to find a real plan for White. Maybe you will find something good,
maybe not.

But the 1.Nf4 idea is a step in the RIGHT direction for sure: you are gaining activity and can start an
attack! Plus, all your next moves are quite obvious, while Black will has to solve difficult problems.

So go on and play it! 1.Nf4-ef 2.e5-Qe5 Now 3.Qh4 is the most forcing move. 3…Qd5 4.Qh3-Qd2
and after 5.Qh5 White got a decisive attack.

White To Move

It’s White’s turn. What are the candidate moves? With the Queen, there is nothing logical. We can
remove the f1-Rook from attack, but that would be passive. We’ll consider it last of all.

Bishop can take on g6. This is a discovered attack on the h3-Bishop, so it’s interesting. We have few
forcing moves with a Knight, but only 1.Nh3 is worth looking at.
Therefore, we have only 2 main moves to consider: 1.Bg6 and 1.Nh3.

Everything is quite simple with 1.Nh3-Rh3. This is just an exchange and it’s the end of the forcing
line already.

What we really need to calculate is the most aggressive move on the list: 1.Bg6. If it’s winning – we’ll
play it. Otherwise we’ll simply take on h3 (1.Nh3).

Here we go!

After 1.Bg6, Black has 3 options in reply: he can take on g6 with pawn and Rook or take on f1 (1…
Bf1). Taking on g6 looks bad because White will take back the Bishop on h3: 1…Rg6 2.Rh3. Now
Black can’t use the pin 2...f6 because of 3.Rh7.

Therefore, the only move for Black is 1…Bf1.

The move 2.Kf1 is obviously bad. Black will take with 2…Rg6 or even play 2…Ra1 check first. The
move 2.Nf7 is also impossible because of 2…Rg6 check and then Black will capture the Knight
(3.Kf1-Qf7).

With that in mind, White should play 2.Bf7. This leads to a VERY unclear position. Generally the
White’s attack looks strong: White is attacking with all his pieces, while Black has only 1 Rook on the
King-side. However, White is down a Rook at the moment. At the same time White is ready to:

 Capture the f1-Bishop

 Play Ne6 with fork

 Or continue the attack after Rg3

Of course, you should try to calculate the following lines. But it’s an almost impossible task: Black
can play 2…Ra1, 2…Kh8, Kf8, Kf6, 2...Qe7, maybe 2…Rf6 or move the f1-Bishop somewhere.

How will most players deal with such a situation? After some time, they will notice that position is
totally messed up. White sacrificed a Rook and everything looks really complex and risky. Most of
them will reject this line.

Well, with our previous discussions and after finishing the course, I hope that you’ll have a different
mental approach in such situations. First of all, we know the rule: “If there’s a sacrifice for activity
– go on and play it!” Here, White sacrificed material to get GREATER ACTIVITY on the King-side.

Next, if position is unclear, then at least that there are no direct and obvious refutations of this
intuitive sacrifice.

I want that you pay serious attention to this idea. If YOU can’t investigate a certain position
because it’s too hard, then why do you think your OPPONENT can do it?
His task is even more difficult!

It’s always harder to defend than to attack. The next White’s moves are obvious: you’ll play forcing
moves like Ne6 and Rg3.

What should Black do?

This is a much TOUGHER question. Luckily for you, you don’t need to think about it, because it’s
your opponent’s problem. Once again, I’d like to emphasize this important idea: If you can’t
investigate a certain position, then why do you think your opponent can do it?

He can’t do it as well. He’ll make a mistake and will lose. That’s why we stated the rule: If there’s a
sacrifice for activity – go on and play it!

Even if your sacrifice is not completely correct, your opponent only has several minutes to think about
his move. If he strains too hard to find a defense, he’ll appear in a time trouble and will lose anyway.
This is also a very important idea.

Mikhail Tal said: “Minutes of a game and days of analysis are 2 different things.” Maybe later on,
in the home analysis, your opponent will find correct defense. But during a real game this is VERY
difficult. By the way in the current position, White is winning in all the lines. I recommend you
analyze it on your own.

Ok. Earlier, we analyzed the situations when a sacrifice can be beneficial for you:

1. If you grab more material in return at the end of this forcing line

2. If you grab (mate) opponent’s King in return

3. If you gain in activity after that

The first 2 items require your precise calculation, PRIMARILY. As for the 3rd one, we have a simple
rule: If there’s a sacrifice for activity – go on and play it. I hope that everything is quite clear for
you now.

Additionally, I’d like to tell you 1 practical rule. It’s related to sacrifices for activity in an OPENING
stage. Here it is:

 If you have an advantage in development of TWO TEMPI, you may sacrifice a

PAWN
  If you have an advantage in development of THREE TEMPI, you may sacrifice a
PIECE

These principles result from years of experience and observation. It doesn’t work in 100% of the
cases. You certainly may not follow it blindly. Nevertheless, it works very often and you may use it as
a guideline.

This rule is mainly related to OPEN positions. When position is closed, it’s hard to create contact
between the pieces and start an attack. That’s why in closed positions, it’s not so easy to make an
effective sacrifice.

Tal – Darznienks

Black To Play

Here Black played 11…Qd7 attacking the pawn. Of course, White can protect it by playing 12.Qf3 for
instance. However, you can notice that Black needs to spend 2 moves (Qd7 and Qf5) to capture the
pawn. Keeping in mind that you may SACRIFICE a pawn for TWO tempi, you may ignore that
Black’s threat. This rule simplifies your task: even if you can’t calculate the following lines precisely,
you still can be confident that this sacrifice will work well for you.

That’s why instead of making a defensive move, White played 12.Bg5. Black answered 12…Be7 13.0-
0 and took the pawn 13…Qf5. There followed 14.Rfe1 and Black starts experiencing problems: he
hasn’t castled earlier, and now it’s nearly impossible to tuck his King to safety.

Play continued: 14…Kf8 15.Qe3 (attacking the Bishop) 15…Re8 16.Bf6-Qf6 17.Nd5. Now White is
attacking many pieces, and Black can’t avoid material loss. And after 17…Qd4 18.Qf3-c6 19.Nc7,
Now Black has no defense against dual threat of Ne8 and Ne6.

Now, it was impossible to calculate all these lines before sacrificing the f5-pawn. However, it was
unnecessary. Instead, we have relied on our general understanding, and on the rule: you may sacrifice
a pawn for 2 tempi.

Tal – Van Der Wiel

White To Move
White has an obvious attacking move 7.e5. Generally, we should play attacking moves, but there’s a
little problem here. The e5-pawn becomes isolated and Black can try to capture it: Ng4, Qc7 and so
on.

However, you can calm yourself down, by recollecting that you may sacrifice a pawn for 2
tempos.

After this eventual sacrifice you will definitely got those 2 extra tempos: Black needs to play Ng4,
take the pawn, and perhaps even make some preparatory moves, too. After that, you can gain another
tempo by playing d4 or f4 and attacking the e5-Knight.

Thus, you may play 7.e5 with clear conscience. 7…Ng4 8.Be4 now the Knight is pinned and Black has
to make one more preparatory move 8…Qc8.

9.d3-Nge5 10.Ne5-Ne5 11.f4. Now, White gains another extra tempo by attacking the Knight. 11…
Nc6 12.f5 White has started an attack on the Kingside. In reply Black played 12…g6, which made
White’s advantage in development even greater.

If you have advantage in development in 3 tempos, you may sacrifice a piece.

That’s why White may keep ignoring the Black’s moves, and he played 13.Bg5 developing 1 more
piece. 13…gf 14.Bf5, since he has a BIG advantage in activity, White needs to open the position.
When he does so, he’ll go for the direct attack and grab Black by the throat!

If Black accepts the sacrifice 14…ef White will play 15.Qe2, then Rae1 and will probably mate the
Black’s King soon.

In the game Black played 14…Be7 instead. 15.Qh5 White is raising his activity CONSISTENTLY.
The last move takes aim at the f7-pawn. 15…Bg5 16.Qg5-Ne7 17.Be4 (opening the f-file for attack)
17…Be4 18.Ne4-Qc6.

And for the final blow, White can pull out the Black’s King by playing 19.Rf7. This is not a real
sacrifice, because White has a forcing win. 19…Kf7 20.Qf6-Kg8 21.Qe7 next White will play Nf6
and he is winning.
Again, let me emphasize:

 If you have an advantage in development of TWO TEMPI, you may sacrifice a

PAWN

 If you have an advantage in development of THREE TEMPI, you may sacrifice a

PIECE

This rule doesn’t always work, but quite often it does. Understanding this rule will help you make
decisions easier. You should keep it in mind especially in open positions during the opening stage of a
game.

And, of course, you should calculate variations before sacrificing something.

Ok, let’s move forward. So far, we mainly focused on the purpose of a combination. Also there are
many typical scenarios of interaction between you and your opponent’s pieces.

For instance, if your piece attacks 2 opponent’s pieces simultaneously, it’s called a fork. There are
many other motifs as well: pin, discovered attack, and the list goes on and on. Again, there is no need
to be obsessed with memorizing them all. However, it’s useful to be aware of them. Now we’ll have a
quick overview of the main combinative motifs.

Sutovsky – Grigoriants
White To Move

It’s White’s turn here. At the moment, Black has some “ Hanging Pieces”, which gives White an
opportunity to attack them somehow. An attack on the d5-Knight will not give anything for White,
because Black will simply take on e3. Thus White should attack the e5-Knight.

Some players would play 17.Bd4. It’s not bad, but we should try to move the pieces as FORWARD
and as AGGRESSIVE as possible. White has more aggressive move 17.Bc5! This puts pressure not
only on the Knight, but on the e7-Bishop as well.

As you can see, there is nothing hard here: White just has to focus on ATTACK and MAXIMUM
ACTIVITY.
17.Bc5 - Discovered Attack!

By the way, this motif (17.Bc5) is called “Discovered Attack”: White has just moved a backward
piece and opened a file at the same time to attack another piece.

If Black takes the Bishop 17…Bc5, then after 18.Re5-c6 Black has some hanging pieces on the 5th
rank. White can use it with 19.Bd5-cd 20.Ne4: a nice position where White is using two Pins: on the
d-file and 5th rank. On the next move, White will win the d5-pawn.
20.Ne4 Creates A Dual Pin

Some people would play 20.Nb3 without thinking, but you should try to advance as MUCH as
possible. Also, it’s important to calculate variations properly. If you focus attention on the Knight and
think about candidate moves it can play, you will definitely notice the move 20.Ne4.

All in all, this line is bad for Black. Let’s go back.

In the game Black played 17…Nd3. There followed 18.Be7-Ne7.

Now White can retreat the Rook. However, you should always try to attack and play actively. You may
retreat and defend only if you have no other options.

This means you should check more aggressive options first.

If you think about candidate moves with every piece you have, then you’ll easily find 19.Nf3 or
19.Ne4 move using a pin on the Black’s Queen.

White played 19.Nf3 in the game. By the way, this is Counter-Attack – White is going to take on e7
winning 2 pieces for a Rook. We should think about forcing moves first (checks, captures, threats) and
that’s how you can find this idea.
19.Nf3 – A Counter-Attack

Black played 19…Rad8. Now the e1-Rook is indeed attacked and must go somewhere.

Following the principle of maximum activity, you should check the most forward moves first.

White will play 20.Re2 only if all other more active moves don’t work. We should consider 20.Re4.

If Black takes the pawn now 20…Nb2 White answers 21.Qe2 with dual attack on Black’s Knights.
This motif is called “Double Attack” or “Fork”.
19.Nf3 – A Double-Attack Or Fork

White isn’t afraid to lose a pawn. Moreover, White is provoking Black’s Knight to go on b2. This
tactical motif is called “Decoy”.

Additionally, the move 20.Re4 prepares an “Interference” on the d-file with Rd4, trying to capture
the d3-Knight. That’s why Black played 20…Nc6, covering the d4-square.

White answered 21.Qe2 preparing a new Pin on the d-file after Rd1. Black retreated 21…Nc5
(attacking the Rook) 22.Re3-Qf5. 23.Bc2 this is an attacking move plus it saves the Bishop from the
exchange.

After 23…Qf6, What should White do here?

As usual you should consider attacking moves first. Also White needs to bring the a1-Rook into a
game. For this purpose, White can play 24.Re1, but it doesn’t create any problems for Black. Is there
anything more aggressive? YES, the move 24.a4 attacking Black’s pawns on the Queen-side.

These pawns look strong at the moment, but if White trades the b5-pawn they will become weak. This
is called Undermining.
24.a4 Undermines The Queenside Pawns

Black answered 24…Rb8 25.ab-ab. Now there’s the only attacking move 26.b4, but it doesn’t work
because Black can use a Pin: 26…Nb4.

The only move forward White can really play is 26.Ne5. This doesn’t attack anything directly, but it
increases the pressure and centralizes a piece.

Black played 26…b4.

27.cb releases tension, which will only help Black to go forward.

27.Nc6 also releases the tension and pressure on Black. Remember: to take is a mistake. If it doesn’t
give you any concrete advantages, you should refrain from such exchanges.

Thus White has the only attacking move 27.Ng4. If Black moves the Queen to d-file, White will
pursue it with Rd1. 27…Qg5 was played in a game.

What should White do now? As usual you should think about attacking ideas. Black has undefended
Knights, which are Tactical Weaknesses. White played 28.Qc4 putting pressure on them.
28…Rfd8 29.Rae1 Now, White is intending to play Ne5 attacking both Black’s Knights.

29…Na5 30.Qe2-Nc6 was played. There are only 2 attacking options for White here: 31.Qf3 and
31.Ne5. Both of them are good.

After 31.Ne5 Black can’t take 31…Ne5 because White will double-attack Black’s pieces after that
32.Re5. Let’s say Black plays 31…Rb6. Here White has several forcing moves to calculate and one of
them is 32.Nf7.

It could be interesting because Black’s pieces crowded on the Queen-side. White has advantage in
activity on the King-side. The move 32.Nf7 Destroys Pawn Cover Of Opponent’s King, and Pulls-
Out Opponent’s King under the fire of White’s forces. These are quite typical motifs.

32.Nf7! Destroys The King’s Pawn Protection And Smokes It Out

After 32…Kf7 33.Qc4 Black is defenseless. 33…Kf8 is losing after 34.Rf3. 33…Qd5 doesn’t help
either: 34.Qf4-Kg8 35.Re8 and Qh4 with mate. White has MORE attacking pieces on the King-side
that’s why his attack goes smoothly.

In the game, however, White has chosen another attacking move 31.Qf3, which is also quite good.
White is still attacking the Black’s Hanging Pieces. Black answered 31…Qd5.

Now, White has a forcing move 32.Re8. This is a check and we always should consider forcing
options, even if they look bad. In this position, however, it works EXCELLENTLY.

32.Re8 Is A 2-In-1 Blow! Deflection And Overloading

White wants to distract the Black’s Rook and grab the Queen after that. This motif is called
Deflection. We can see that the Black’s Rook can’t perform both tasks: cover the 8th rank and protect
the Queen. This often happens with defensive pieces that are over-stretched and it’s called
Overloading.

Additionally the White’s e8-Rook attack’s not only the d8-Rook, but indirectly the b8-Rook as well.
This motif is called “X-ray”. For instance, after an exchange on d5, White will be able to take on b8.

OK. Since Black may not take the Rook, he played 32…Kh7. Now we can notice that the Black King’s
mobility is greatly limited. When opponent’s pieces are undefended or restricted, it gives you REAL
chance for an ATTACK.

For instance, in the current position it’s enough to make single check to mate the King.
Now let’s detect the candidate moves. With the Queen, there’s 33.Qd5. The e8-Rook can take on d8,
but it’s only an exchange. The e1-Rook can go to e5 attacking the Queen. Bishop can take on g6, and
Knight can go to f6 with check.

Of course, some of these moves will not work. But it’s OK. We should consider ALL FORCING
MOVES, including those which look bad. And if you noticed any tactical motifs in the position, then
you have even greater reasons to check all aggressive options. There’s a big chance that one of them
will work for you.

First, we should calculate checks. Let’s try 33.Nf6-gf. Now it’s hard to find a continuation: after
34.Qf6 Black will simply take the Rook 34…Re8.

33.Bg6-fg perhaps doesn’t change much. Anyway, we should calculate until the end of the forcing
line: 34.Nf6-gf 35.R1e7-Ne7 36.Re7 this looks too optimistic. Black can go 36…Kg8 or Kh6 and he is
winning.

Taking on d5 (33.Qd5) is only an exchange.

Let’s think about 33.R1e5. If Black takes on f3 (33…Qf3) White will mate the Black’s King using a
pin: 34.Rh5.Wow that’s interesting!

You see? The restricted position of Black’s King gives White serious mating attacks and
opportunities.

Besides that, Black can take the Rook 33…Ne5. Now 34.Qd5 is fine for White.

After that White will take back the Rook on b8 (34…Rd5 35.Rb8). Another forcing move is 34.Nf6
and it suddenly works!

After 34…gf White can now play 35.Qh5 check using the pin. 35…Kg7 and 36.Qh8 mate.

Therefore, White’s sudden and brilliant move 33.R1e5 is winning! It closes the 5th rank for the
Black’s Queen, allowing White to play Qh5 after that.

This motif is called Interference.

33.R1e5 – A Striking Example Of Interference

On the next move (33…Ne5) White wants to play Qh5, but the Knight is blocking this direction.
That’s why White is sacrificing the Knight with tempo (34.Nf6). This is called “File Vacation” or
“Square Vacation”.
The Tactics Keep Coming – 34.Nf6+ Vacating A Square!

By the way, an interesting line happens after 34…Kh6. Of course White can take the Queen (35.Nd5),
but 35.Ng8 is even more powerful – it pulls out the Black’s King. 35…Kg5.

Now White would like to play Qg4, but the Knight is covering this square. However, White can
eliminate it: 36.Re5!
36.Re5! Eliminates The Last Defender Leading To An Elegant Mate!

This is called “Elimination Of Defender”. 36…Qe5 37.Qg4 – a very nice finale indeed!

During the last game we have observed ALL main tactical motifs. Together with previous materials on
this lesson, they make up ALL most typical combinations.

Now let’s make some CONCLUSIONS.

It’s useful to know typical combinations, because it helps you to find them quicker and easier during a
real game.

A Sacrifice Of Material Can Be Beneficial In 3 Major Cases

1. If you grab more material in return at the end of this forcing line
 2. If you grab (mate) opponent’s King in return

3. If you gain in activity after that

The first 2 items mainly require your precise calculation.

As for the 3rd item, there’s a rule: If you have a sacrifice for activity – go on and play it!

After Such A Sacrifice You Can Raise Your Activity Of:

 A certain piece (or restrict opponent’s piece)

 Raise your overall activity

 Gain greater activity on a certain PART of the board

Also there’s an additional practical rule for sacrificing in the opening stage:

 If you have an advantage in development of TWO TEMPI, you may sacrifice a

PAWN

 If you have an advantage in development of THREE TEMPI, you may sacrifice a

PIECE

There are many typical tactical motifs: fork, pin, deflection, decoy, interference, X-ray, overloading,
pawn undermine, pulling-out a King etc.

It’s useful to know them and to train them from time to time. You’ll find such tasks in the practical
part of the course.

Ok, that’s it: we have observed ALL of the MOST typical combinations. Well, of course, there could
be millions of different combinations, but there’s no need to be obsessed with learning them all.
Having a good general understanding and good calculation method will allow you to find any tactical
shot by yourself!
By the way, having a firm background, we were able to analyze all most typical combinations within
just one lesson. Let me congratulate you with this GREAT progress! And thanks for watching!
 Training And Bringing Your Skills Into Practice

Lesson 7

Welcome to the 7th lesson called “Training And Bringing Your Skills Into Practice”.

In the 1st lesson we analyzed what you need to play chess REALLY WELL:

 A LOGICAL System For Understanding (of chess).

 An EFFICIENT Chess Thought Process (which will allow you to USE your
understanding in your chess games).

 A GOOD Training System (which will AUTOMATE your thinking process).

In the previous lessons, we’ve discussed and defined what chess tactics are. This gave you a good
overall understanding.

Next, we have analyzed exactly how you should use this understanding in practice. You’ve learn how
to calculate variations and find combinations. You have now learned a detailed and efficient chess
thought process.

Now, we came to the last item: you need to train and automate these skills. Therefore, you need to
have a good TRAINING SYSTEM. That’s what we will analyze in this lesson.

Calculation is a practical SKILL. You need to train and automate it before you can use it in practice.

Reading a book about physical training will not make your muscles bigger.

Watching these videos will not make your calculation skills better. It’s only the 1st step. If you really
want to acquire a skill, you need to train it regularly… and do it the RIGHT way!

Now let’s see how you should train your tactical skills. Of course, we will not pull it out of a hat.
Having a firm understanding of chess tactics, we can easily understand what you really need. Actually,
we have already discussed it in the previous lessons.
We have analyzed what you need to have to CALCULATE VARIATIONS EFFICIENTLY:

 General understanding

 Calculation system

 Visualization Abilities

Also we analyzed what skills allow you to FIND and PLAY COMBINATIONS in your games:

 General understanding

 Calculation system

 Knowing typical combinations

It’s easy to notice that these 2 lists are very similar. It’s logical because combinations are only a
particular case of calculation. And both of them are related to chess tactics.

If we combine these 2 lists of skills, we’ll see what you need to be a GOOD TACTICAL player:

1. General understanding

2. Calculation system

3. Knowing typical combinations

4. Visualization abilities
That’s what you need to train! Next question is:

HOW YOU CAN TRAIN EACH OF THESE MUST-HAVE SKILLS?

Let’s discuss them one by one.

The 1st item in our list is good general understanding. How can you train and improve it?

First of all you need to study this whole course CAREFULLY… trying to absorb as much as you can.
Moreover, you should REPEAT these lessons from time to time.

When you study it for the 1st time – you only familiarize yourself with the general concept.

During the 2nd passing, you’ll already know what the key moments are and you’ll pay MORE
attention to them.

After the 3rd repetition, you’ll start remembering this information.

Only after the 4th time the material will start becoming natural for you.

This is what you must achieve. Also you may repeat not the whole course, but only a certain its parts -
where you have some questions or problems.

Next, what kind of understanding is important for tactics? We’ve discussed it already: mainly, it’s
focusing on ACTIVITY and ATTACK.

You should keep training and focusing on the fundamental strategic principles of activity. I’ve
explained them in-depth in my other courses. If you have them, I recommend reviewing them from
time to time.

As for attack, it’s very useful to

ANALYZE GAMES OF A STRONG ATTACKING PLAYER

By doing so, you’ll eventually adopt his approach to chess. The RIGHT way of thinking will become
natural for you. You’ll train your understanding and your calculation skills. All in all, this is one of
the MOST useful training techniques you can apply. There are a few important pointers to take into
account:
 ANALYZE THE WHOLE GAME, NOT ONLY THE FINAL COMBINATION

Many chess books contain the final combinations only. You need more than that. You need to analyze
the WHOLE game. You need to see:

 How he gained activity

 How he converted it into an ATTACK

 When tactical motifs appeared and so on

You can notice all these factors only if you analyze the whole game.

 FOCUS ON 1 PLAYER

As I said earlier, you need to adopt the style of a certain strong player. Each player has some special
individual talent. If you study the games of different players, that’ll only create chaos in your head.

Instead, you should focus on ONE player only. In doing so, you’ll understand his style and his way of
making decisions better and better with each game.

After you analyze 50-100 games of this player, his style will start to become natural for you and will
rub on you. You’ll develop that habit of thinking in the right path… thinking like the strong
player you’re trying to emulate. That’s what you need to achieve.

There are many books about attacking chess. They usually contain many games of different players.
As I have said, it’s not what you really need.

Perhaps I should make one more clarification: of course, I don’t mean to say that you should focus on
1 player during your lifetime. That’s just plain

obsession!

Focus on one player, study some of his games (50-100), and when you feel that you adopted his style,
you can go to the next player.

Here’s the next important thing:

 ANALYZE THE GAMES THOROUGHLY

Training your UNDERSTANDING requires asking and answering the following questions while
analyzing a game (or after you’ve seen the whole game):

 How did a winner raise his activity?

 When did he start an attack? Why and which factors did he base his attack on?

 What mistakes were made by a losing side?

 Why the attack was successful? What factors determined its success?

 What tactical motifs have been used?

 Was the combination correct objectively or not (and why?)

All in all, you should have a good understanding of what happened in the game after answering those
questions. If you studied this course “Calculate Till Mate” seriously, then the answers to these
questions should be quite obvious for you. All those answers are already presented in the previous
video lessons.

Additionally, you certainly can also use that attacking games to train your CALCULATION SKILLS.
Such games contain a lot of tactical complications. It’s a good chance for you to apply your
calculation system and analyze all those lines.

And one more tip: there’s no need to analyze all games of a certain player. You are interested only in
his winning games, where he performed an EFFICIENT attack.

There were many strong attacking players in the past, and there are a lot of aggressive modern players,
too.

And of course you’ll find a lot of material for study in the practical part of this course.
Ok, we’ve discovered the main ways to train your general understanding of chess tactics:

 REPEAT this course (and my other courses) from time to time.

 Analyze good ATTACKING GAMES.

Now, let’s move on to the next item: how to train your CALCULATION SYSTEM?

It shouldn’t be too complicated since in this course we analyzed the proper system of calculation in
GREAT detail. Your task is just to train it and automate this way of thinking.

From the start, you need to have enough DISCIPLINE to follow the proper steps of thinking strictly.
Later on, you’ll AUTOMATE this skill and, once you do that, every single step of the way will be
natural for you.

When you were learning to write in your language, it required serious discipline and efforts from you.
Now, you can write QUICKLY and almost WITHOUT THINKING. This is the same process you will
have to undergo to train your calculation skills.

Later on in this course, you’ll print out the right steps of calculation. You can put this paper in front of
you, and perform calculation tasks to get used to this system.

You can train your calculation while solving tactical puzzles, analyzing your games or games of other
players, it doesn’t matter what material you decide to choose. What matters is to FOLLOW the
CORRECT system of thinking.

Here’s a PLAN for training your calculation skills:

1. You take a certain position and calculate the variations there.

Apply your calculation system: (1) Find the candidate moves, (2) decide the optimal order of
calculation, (3) calculate, and so on. After doing so, you should

come to a conclusion which move is the best in the position.

2. You check the answer (if there’s an answer for the position) and check this position with a
computer program.

Even if you have solved a tactical puzzle and it has an answer, you still should analyze this position
with a computer. First of all, you need to check ALL the lines you calculated, and not only the move
which was played in a game.

The next reason is quite unfortunate: many books with tactical drills contain tons of mistakes. That’s
why it’s important to check everything with computer

engine.

Usually people finish their training here. However, there’s one more step, which is VERY
IMPORTANT:

3. That is to perform “Ideal Calculation”.

At this point, you already know the answer and ALL the relevant lines in the position. From there, you
can determine how you should have thought about this position:

 What candidate moves you should have considered

 What was the most optimal order of calculation

 Which techniques you could use, to minimize the calculation

 How could you come to the right move

And so on.

If you weren’t able to find the right move by yourself, this will help you find what was wrong in your
thinking process, and how should you correct it.

Thus, at the end, you should look at the starting position of this example again, and perform
“IDEAL CALCULATION” quickly.

Perhaps on your first try, you did not approach and thought about the position as efficiently as you
could. After knowing the answer, however, you can do it in the MOST EFFECTIVE WAY. Doing so
will further train, reinforce, and automate the CORRECT thinking system.
Now let’s move on to the next important skill in our list: How to learn typical combinations?

There is a very good method for this purpose: Analyze TACTICAL games . I am talking about sharp,
complicated games that show MANY tactical motifs. We have analyzed such a game in the previous
lesson. By using just ONE good tactical game, we have discussed nearly ALL tactical motifs: fork,
pin, discovered attack and others.

This is the first GREAT advantage of ANALYZING tactical games. While solving a tactical
puzzle, you study only one motif. While analyzing a tactical game, you can see almost ALL motifs in
one game!

Of course, you can also use such games to train your calculation system.

Analyze all possible variations, which could happen in the game. There will be many complicated
positions where you’ll need to perform EFFICIENT calculation.

Another advantage is you can train your GENERAL UNDERSTANDING. We have talked about it
while discussing attacking games. Here you can extract the same benefits as well:

Think about the following generalities:

 Why was the attack successful?

 When was it possible to start the attack?

 What tactical motifs have been used in this game?

And the list goes on.

As you can see, analyzing tactical games is a really COMPREHENSIVE training. That’s great for you:
you’ll improve many tactical skills simultaneously!

The 2nd method for learning typical combinations is well-known: Solve TACTICAL puzzles.

Many players solve tactical drills. However, their improvement is quite unsatisfactory (especially
when compared with a HUGE amount of time they spent for this training). Now I’ll tell you why it is
so, and how to perform such training properly.
Little earlier we have discussed how to train your calculation skills:

1. You take a certain position and calculate the variations.

2. You check the answer and check this position with a computer program.

3. Perform “Ideal Calculation”.

Of course, this plan is applicable for solving tactical puzzles as well. I’d like that you pay attention on
2 important aspects:

 While solving tactical puzzles you should STICK TO THE PROPER CALCULATION
SYSTEM. Don’t just try to find the combination, but perform the

proper thinking process.

 Secondly, it’s very important TO PERFORM THE 3RD STEP: to make “ideal calculation” after
you already discovered the answer. This will help you to analyze your current thinking process, to
improve it and to train the right way of thinking. In this case your training will really bring you
progress.

Most players don’t know about this technique. They simply solve tactical drills day in and day out.
However, they use the same thinking algorithm AL L THE TIME, and get similar results as a
consequence. They make no headway. Now you know how to avoid such a sad and frustrating
situation!

Here’s another great technique: Solve tactical puzzles looking at the board from another side.

For instance, if it’s White’s turn, you should look at the position from the Black’s side.

Most players enjoy thinking about their own aggressive moves, but don’t consider opponent’s options
as carefully. This leads to blunders!

That’s why I recommend that you train this way sometimes. This training method helps you develop
the habit of thinking about opponent’s possibilities carefully. Let’s see how it works:
Istratescu – Wijesandara

White To Move

This is a tactical puzzle, where it’s necessary to find the next White’s turn. You take the Black’s
pieces and try to solve the puzzle. You use the standard way of thinking, and the only difference is that
you need to apply it for your opponent.

You should think of the moves White can make with his Queen: maybe 17.Qg7 following with Nf6?

With a Rook, White can take on e8 (17.Re8).

The dark-squared Bishop can go to h6 (17.Bh6).

And the Knight can take on g7 (17.Ng7).

After that you start calculating these candidate moves, and you try to find the best move for your
opponent. At first, it will feel a bit unusual for you.

Nevertheless, this develops a very important skill – your attentiveness towards opponent’s threats.
By the way, you will use this skill while playing a game and do an anti-blunder check. Do you
remember what that is? Before playing your following move on the board, you should QUICKLY
check possible aggressive replies of your opponent.

In this game, Black player haven’t performed such a check. Otherwise, he would not play Bf5 to g6 on
the previous move.

Here, White played 17.Bh6 and won the game soon. White is going to take the e8-Knight and deliver
mate on g7.

Finally I’d like to give you one last advice regarding to tactical puzzles: do NOT spend too much
time on them.

As we’ve already discussed, knowledge of typical combinations is only an auxiliary skill. What you
really need for finding combinations is a DEEP UNDERSTANDING of chess tactics and effective
CALCULATION SYSTEM.

Therefore, while training tactics, you should spend 90% of your time on the main skills, and only
about 10% on auxiliary skills.

And don’t forget about analyzing tactical games! This method of training is more comprehensive and
GREATLY develops many of important skills.

Yes, you should solve tactical puzzles sometimes, but DON’T be obsessed with them!

Ok, we have discussed EXACTLY how you can learn typical combinations:

 Analyze tactical games.

 Solve tactical puzzles.

Now I’d like to give you an important practical recommendation. If you want to improve your
tactical skills, play SHARP openings.

Some players fall into a typical psychological trap. They play solid positional openings. Such lines
lead to calm middlegame positions, where it’s hard to play combinations for both players.

They don’t gain experience in tactical play!

Lacking in experience, the tactical skills of such players are bad. And since they know their tactical
skills are bad, they don’t want to play sharp openings. And the cycle goes on and on… and they don’t
make any progress.

If you want to develop your tactical skills, you should play sharp opening lines. You need to gain
experience in these types of complicated and tactical positions.

If you play a gambit opening or a sharp line of Sicilian defense, you’ll get LOADS of experience in
just one game. PLUS, you’ll analyze this game afterwards, which will also improve your tactical
skills.

Now we arrived at the last item in the list of necessary skills: your visualization abilities This is a very
interesting and important topic. At the same time, visualization training is almost completely ignored
by common chess books. Here we will fill in this gap.

In the practical part of the course you’ll find many concrete tasks. Right now, however, I’d like to
explain them to you, and provide some important comments and recommendations.

During a real game, you will look at a certain position and visualize possible variations in your
head. That’s the main thing you need to train. At the same time, blindfold play is quite similar thing.

It’s a good additional measure to develop your visualization abilities.

Moreover, it also improves your memory and concentration. All these skills are very important during
chess (and in life as well). That’s why we’ll use blindfold training, too.

Now I’ll give you a couple of practical recommendations. Here’s the 1stone:

You can train visualization abilities SEPARATELY.

You can allot some time to train your system of thinking. And you can do the same for your
visualization skills. There’s no need to mix up things.

You should visualize the lines you already know. For instance, you can take one of your previous
games and try to play it in your head (without looking at the board). Of course, you can use the games
of other players as well.

Also you can solve a tactical puzzle, and after that, when you already know all the lines, visualize
these variations without looking at the board.

Due to the same reason, there’s no big need to play blindfold games. It’s enough to visualize the game
you already know.

Visualizing the moves in your head (without looking at the board) can be a hard thing. Now I’ll tell
you exactly how you should do it.
First, visualize the MOVEMENT of the pieces on your imaginary board.

Please, try to do it right now. Close your eyes and imagine the starting position of a chess game. After
that, visualize the first move 1.e4. Imagine how the pawn moves out from the e2 square, how it goes
forward slowly, and finally how it reaches the e4 square and land there. You should imagine this
process of movement. You may pause a video and try it right now.

By the way you should use similar method while calculating variations during a real game. Clearly
visualize the MOVEMENT of the pieces on the board. Your brain will digest vividly where a
certain piece was played to.

Here’s a next advice regarding to blindfold play. Visualize the position GRADUALLY. It can be
hard to visualize the whole board full of pieces right away.

Instead, you can imagine different parts of the board one after another. At the end you’ll build a
complete picture.

Istratescu – Wijesandara
White To Move

We have seen this position recently. Now, please take a look at that position again. After that pause
the video, then close your eyes and try to visualize the WHOLE position.

Was that easy for you? Or perhaps it was completely hard? Anyway, now let’s test another method:
you will visualize this position gradually.

First pay attention on the area around Black’s King. Remember that Black has a standard castled
position plus a Bishop on g6 and Knight on e8. Now close your eyes and imagine only this part of
position.

That wasn’t so hard, was it? Now pay attention on the Black’s Queen-side. In that corner, Black has
the initial position, plus pawn on c6 and Queen on d7. After that try to imagine this Queen-side
position without looking at the board.

Were you able to do it? GREAT!

Now take a look at the whole Black’s position: at his King-side and his Queen-side. You are already
familiar with that. Now, look away from the screen and try to visualize the whole Black’s position.

Imagine a clear board.

And after that, start adding pieces one after another. First, add the King-side pieces and then the
Queen-side. Do it SLOWLY but SURELY. Please, try it now.

If you followed all previous instructions, then this task should be not too hard for you. After that, you
can do the same process with the White’s position. And finally, you’ll be able to build up a complete
picture.

This is how you can visualize any position in your head. As I’ve mentioned earlier this greatly
improves your concentration and your memory also. It’s a useful training technique FOR SURE!

Just one little note: of course you can imagine the board looking at it from the White’s side as well. It
doesn’t matter.

In the practical part of the course, you’ll perform many different tasks. They will develop your
visualization skills as well as your mental skills as a whole. Here I’ve just given you some
instructions, so that you can perform all FUTURE tasks properly.

In conclusion, one of the best ways to develop your visualization skills is to replay chess games in
your head (without looking at the board). This should be a game which you already know. By using
games you’re familiar with, you don’t need to think about the moves, you focus on visualization
solely.

As I’ve said, this is a useful training technique for your mental skills in general, too. You can perform
it during your free time… perhaps when you taking a trip with the bus, having a cup of coffee, etc.

Now let’s make a final conclusion about training of your tactical skills.

FOR BEING A GOOD TACTICAL PLAYER, YOU NEED THE FOLLOWING SKILLS:

 General Understanding

 Calculation System

 Knowledge Of Typical Combinations

 Visualization Abilities

THE EXACT TECHNIQUES FOR TRAINING ABOVE SKILLS:

1. Reviewing this course (and my other courses) from time to time

2. Analyzing games of a strong attacking player

3. Training your calculation system

4. Analyzing tactical games

5. Solving tactical puzzles

6. Playing sharp openings

7. Replaying chess games in your head

These are the BEST training methods and they will bring ENORMOUS progress when followed
closely. And of course, you should perform all practical tasks from this course.

Remember, watching these videos is only the 1st step. Now, you need to turn this general knowledge
into your practical skills. Only then will you get GREAT results out of this course.

The first part of your journey to tactical chess is over. Now let’s get some practice!
 A SPECIAL And Highly Instructive Task

(BONUS)

With the previous lessons, we’ve been learning correct system of thinking when playing chess. Now,
you’ll apply it in practice and test yourself.

Your task is to analyze the presented game (“Bonus-task.pgn”). Take up the WHITE side, and focus
your attention on the White’s decisions. You need to determine 2 MAIN things:

1. When (at what positions) it was necessary to calculate variations during this game?

2. What variations should have been calculated? (and how this should have been done?)

That’s a very important task and I ask you to perform it seriously… think like you would in a REAL
game.

We are testing your thinking process with this exercise. That’s how you will think on your FUTURE
games. It’s very important to make sure that you do everything RIGHT.

Please analyze this game thoroughly. Imagine that you are playing White, immerse yourself in the
game, and use the thinking process and calculation method we discussed.

Once you’ve finished your analysis, go to the answer and check yourself.
 “Complete System at Work”

BONUS Lesson:

Hi, and welcome to this bonus video lesson. I hope that you performed the task SERIOUSLY and
analyzed the game THOROUGHLY. Here, you’ll be able to check your thought process and analysis.
I’ll show you exactly how Grandmasters think during a chess game.

You should try to imitate this process, to adopt it. Do that and you’ll start playing on a
GRANDMASTER’S LEVEL in no time!

If something is unclear for you, find the answer in the previous video lessons. There we have analyzed
everything in great detail.

Before we begin I’d like to make one last note. During a real game you certainly should think about
generalities also. You need to think about strategic principles, planning, and so on.

Here I’ll skip this strategic discussion because it’s a separate topic. We will focus on tactics, and
calculation. We’ll discover when and what variations you should calculate.

Mamedyarov – Nabaty

25.01.2012

Ok, here we go.

1.d4-Nf6 2.c4-e6 3.Nf3-Bb4

You should calculate variations only in tactical positions. If there’s no real contact between the pieces
– you’ll make decisions based on your general understanding. For instance, in this position there’s no
need to calculate something.

4.Bd2
4…Qe7

After an opponent’s move, you should think about the idea behind it. You should care only about
opponent’s aggressive possibilities. Here Black may want to

play 5…Ne4. If you take on b4 then (Bb4-Qb4), Black will attack the pawns b2 and c4.

Well, this is not too dangerous, after 5…Ne4 you may simply ignore his idea and continue your
development. Anyway it’s useful to take notice of eventual

opponent’s threats.

After that, you start thinking about your next move. White has several logical moves to continue his
development: 5.a3, e3, g3.

In the game, White played 5.a3-Bd2 6.Qd2.

The position is still calm and you should focus on the general features of the position and use your
strategic understanding more.
Anyway, before playing your move 6.Qd2, you should quickly think about possible aggressive replies
of your opponent. Here Black can play 6…Ne4. However, it’s not dangerous. White can answer 7.Qc2
or maybe even 7.Qf4. Since there’s no real danger, you may go on and play 6.Qd2.

6…d5

Once again, we should QUICKLY consider our opponent’s ideas . Perhaps he is intending to capture
our pawn on c4. This should not be too worrisome, but we should be careful anyway.

What move should be the BEST for White according to the general strategic principles? It’s 7.Nc3.

But, before playing this move we should quickly check variations. First, let’s see if there’s
anything else we could miss. White can take on d5 (7.cd), but it’s not good. White can play 7.e3, but
7.Nc3 should be better. It seems like we really should play 7.Nc3.

However, we should QUICKLY check possible aggressive replies of our opponent . Black can play
7…Ne4 or 7…dc.

7…Ne4 is not dangerous. At least, you can play 8.Qc2 and everything is fine.

After 7…dc, you can go 8.e4, or at least 8.e3, and take back the pawn with Bc4 move.
After you checked these variations, you may play 7.Nc3.

7…0-0 And now, the only logical move is 8.e3-Nbd7.

What is Black’s idea? Perhaps, he is preparing c5 or e5 move. That’s not dangerous, but it’s useful to
take note of the opponent’s plans.

After checking his ideas, you may start thinking about your next move.

The position is still calm and strategically oriented, and you should rely on general principles
primarily. Nevertheless, there’s contact between the central pawns (c4 and d5), plus Black is ready to
intensify the contact by playing c5 or e5.

Therefore, some calculation is required before you make a decision.

Following the fundamental principles, playing 9.Bd3 looks like the MOST logical choice. Now let’s
check variations. Does White have any other candidate moves? 9.cd is a forcing move, BUT we don’t
want to release the tension.

Now, let’s calculate 9.Bd3.

9.Bd3 Is The Most Logical. BUT, Is It The Best?

Black has several aggressive options in reply: he can play 9…c5, 9…dc and 9…e5.

We need to check the most aggressive options of an opponent first. 9…c5 doesn’t create any real
problems for White. We can simply ignore it and castle for example. We’ll calculate 9…c5 last of all.

The move 9…e5 seems to be the most dangerous: Black is threatening a fork with e4. White is forced
to take the pawn: 10.de attacking the f6-Knight 10…Ne5.

Now White can take on e5 (11.Ne5) or on d5 (11.cd). It makes no sense to calculate these lines further,
because, at least, after the simple move 11.cd White is winning a pawn without any real compensation
for Black.

If this position does occur in the game, we’ll analyze it more carefully, but right now it’s not
necessary.

Ok, since 9…e5 doesn’t work immediately, maybe Black should take 9…dc first. 10.Bc4. Now Black
still can play 10…e5 or c5. 10…e5 looks more aggressive.
Generally, we don’t want to take. After 11.de-Ne5 Black has no problems for sure. So White should
castle instead: 11.0-0.

From here, Black can take on d4 or push e4. 11…ed is not dangerous for us. We can recapture with
any piece, for instance 12.ed looks good followed by Re1.

11…e4 is more unpleasant. We don’t want to go back, so 12.Ng5 is the only serious option. It doesn’t
look good. Black can push away the Knight with 12…h6 then 13.Nh3-Nb6 and take on h3 (14…Bh3)
doubling our pawns and wrecking our King’s pawn cover. This is a bad transaction for White.

Of course, White could retreat to e1 instead (12.Ne1). But it’s not what we want. This is a passive
move back. This means that the WHOLE variation is not good for White.

In the starting position we also mentioned the move 9.cd. Since 9.Bd3, although logical, doesn’t work
well, let’s turn our attention to this alternative instead.

Is 9.cxd5 The Best Move?

At least Black can’t push e5 anymore (after this pawn capture). Let’s calculate this line now.
Black can recapture by the Knight (9…Nd5) or pawn (9…ed). 9…Nd5 looks a bit strange and doesn’t
create any problems for White. We can play 10.Nd5, 10.Bd3, 10.Bc4. We can reject this line right
away.

After 9…ed, we will play 10.Bd3. Has Black any aggressive options here? Yes, he can play 10…Ne4.
However, we have a counter-blow 11.Nd5 attacking his Queen and winning a pawn.

Anyway it was very important to notice this refutation. Without 11.Nd5 move this whole line would
be bad for White.

Summing things up, we discovered that we may play the line 9.cd-ed 10.Bd3 It looks more
advantageous for White than immediate 9.Bd3.

This variation was played in the game, and in this position, Black played 10…c5. The position is still
rather calm and we should mainly rely on general principles and our strategic understanding. What
would be a good move for White here? Castling looks very logical and strategically motivated.

As usual, let’s quickly check variations.

Is there any other option except castling?

White can take on c5 (11.dc), but it only helps Black. Therefore, castling is the only logical move.
Does Black have any attacking rebuttals? We already know that 11…Ne4 doesn’t work because of
12.Nd5. 11…cd is not dangerous White can recapture by Knight or pawn.

With that in mind, 11.0-0 was played. Black played 11…c4.

White has 2 logical moves: 12.Bf5 and 12.Bc2. After 12.Bf5 (trying to maximize the Bishop’s
activity), Black will probably play 12…Nb6 trading the Bishops. It’s a strategic position, so you
should rely on your general understanding here.

In the game, White preferred the move 12.Bc2 and it’s the correct move.

Black answered 12…Rb8.

What Is The Motivation Behind The Rook Move (12…Rb8)?

What is the opponent’s idea?

He is going for Queenside pawn attack: push b5, a5 and b4. Anyway, it’s not so dangerous for us and
it’s slow. Now we should think about our own ideas.

White probably should play in the center. We can play 13.Rfe1 and 14.e4. Now let’s quickly check
variations. Are there any other interesting options?

With the Queen, there’s nothing sensible. We can move the a1-Rook to e1, but it would lock the f1-
Rook. It’s not a good move. With Bishop and Knights we have no logical or attacking moves. There
are 2 interesting pawn moves: 13.b3 and e4.

After 13.b3-b5, now we can take on c4, but it doesn’t lead to anything. Rather, this rather helps Black
open lines on the Queen-side.

White has an interesting pawn move: 13.e4 and then 13…de 14.Rfe1 using a pin. However, if White
has to play Rfe1 anyway, then it’s better to play it in advance. Later we will decide whether to play e4
or not. You see, we should try to minimize our calculation.

Therefore, there’s nothing better than 13.Rfe1 for White. Does Black have any attacking replies? No.
As we have seen, 13…Ne4 is simply refuted by 14.Nd5.

13.Rfe1 was played followed 13…Qd6 from Black. He just removed the Queen from a possible attack
and tactics on the e-file.

What should White do now?

Perhaps we should play 14.e4. This will create contact between the pieces and will require some
calculation. Let’s start it.

Does White have any other candidate moves?

We can go for 14.Nb5.

Maybe 14.b3 is an option.

These moves don’t look convincing, so let’s think about them quickly, and then we’ll focus on the
main line 14.e4.

True, 14.b3 is possible, but we’ve thought about it on the previous move. After 14…b5 it doesn’t give
anything for White. After 15.a4, Black at least can play 15…a6 to patch things up on the Queenside.

Let’s analyze 14.Nb5-Qb6 and now maybe 15.a4, maybe 15.Qb4. Although it’s OK, it’s probably a
step in the wrong direction. White should attack in the center. Tactics is about finding the BEST
WAY to achieve our general goal. We should not calculate everything, but only the steps in the right
direction.
Is 14.e4 The Step In The RIGHT Direction?

Let’s focus on the main line 14.e4. White is threatening e5 and Black has to take the pawn. Black can
take by a pawn or Knight. It’s better for Black to take by the pawn, and on the next move he may
decide whether to capture with the Knight on e4 or not. That said, we need to calculate only 14…de.

This is a tactical position and we should calculate variations thoroughly.

Now, what candidate moves does White have here?

We have no logical moves with heavy pieces. Bishop can take on e4, Knight can take on e4, and
another Knight can go to g5. These are 3 candidate moves. We should consider captures first.

Let’s think about 15.Ne4-Ne4 and here 16.Be4 or Re4. In any case Black will reply 16…Nf6, so this
will lead to similar positions.

Next Black will play Be6, Rd8 and he has no problems. Having the White pieces, we want to get an
advantage after the opening. Let’s try to find something better for White.

Aside from 15.Ne4, we also have 15.Be4 and 15.Ng5.

The move 15.Be4 looks quite interesting. If Black takes on e4 now (15…Ne4), after 16.Ne4 White will
attack the Black’s Queen. Once it moves away, White can push the d-pawn. If he goes to d5 (16…
Qd5), we can answer 17.Nc3 and then will push the pawn anyway. This looks promising.

This already means that the White’s move 14.e4 works well and we should play it. It makes no sense
to calculate the last candidate move. When and if Black takes with 14…de, we will check the move
15.Ng5 as well.

In the game, however, White played 14.Ng5. Maybe, White wants to transfer the Knight to f4 (Ng5-
h3-f4). Since our focus on this lesson is NOT planning, let’s just analyze the move 14.Ng5. Before
playing this move, White should check eventual aggressive replies of an opponent.

Black has 2 active options: 14…h6 and 14…Ng4.

14…h6 15.Nh3 now 15…Nb6 is not dangerous, because we will simply play 16.Nf4.

15…Ng4 is more aggressive, however, it looks dubious. White can answer 16.g3, f4 or Nf4.

When opponent’s move looks bad, we should calculate the most POWERFUL answer first. This is
how we try to refute his idea quickly. Thus let’s consider 16.Nf4. Now Black has 16…g5 – it’s is an
attacking option. However, White has a lot of counter-blows available: 17.h3, f3, Bf5. Black’s attack
failed and this must be bad for him.

We have checked the move 14…h6.

We should also check 14…Ng4. It also looks bad for Black. White can grab the h7-pawn. At the very
least, White can play 15.f4. After 15…h6 16.Nf3, White will have an additional e5 square for his
Knight. Thus 14…Ng4 is not dangerous.

After quickly checking these lines, we may go ahead and play 14.Ng5.

Black answered 14…Ng4 in the game. This move created INTENSE contact between the forces and
here we MUST rely on calculation.

When an opponent’s move looks dubious, we should calculate the most powerful replies first. That’s
why, although White has a lot of moves: f4, g3, h3 – we should consider the most aggressive move
15.Bxh7+ first. It’s a check (the most forcing move) and it grabs a pawn.

If it works, we will play it and there will be no need to calculate sub-optimal options.

Let’s calculate 15.Bh7-Kh8. Now Black is attacking the h2-pawn. White has the candidate moves
16.f4, g3 and maybe 16.h3.

Actually, 16.h3 is the most forcing move, because it attacks the Knight. Thus we should consider it
first. Black certainly plays 16…Qh2 17.Kf1. Here Black has a choice, and therefore we need to find
his candidate moves. With Queen, he can go 17…Qh1. Rooks and Bishop has no moves. Both Knights
can go to f6 (attacking the Bishop). And pawn can go to f6.
The most aggressive move is 17…Qh1. 18.Ke2 now the Queen is attacked. 18…Qg2. Black took back
a pawn and material is equal at the moment. Now Black is threatening the f2 pawn, so 19.hg is forced.
White is a piece up.

After 19…Qg4, White can go 20.f3 or Nf3. Even a simple move 20.Nf3 looks quite strong: 20…Kh7
Black is a pawn up, but White will develop strong attack after Rh1, Rag1, and White can take the d5-
pawn. Looking at it, it’s obvious that White has much GREATER activity with equal material. This is
definitely good for White and we may stop analyzing this line. If this line really happens in a game,
then we’ll calculate it more thoroughly.

Let’s go back. We have seen that, aside from 17…Qh1, Black also can move his Knight to f6. Of
course, the move 17…Ndf6 should be MORE powerful. White has the only forcing move 18.hg.
Additionally, White can retreat the Bishop 18.Bc2 – but it looks very PASSIVE and BAD. Let’s try to
check and reject this option quickly: 18…Qh1 19.Ke2-Qg2 20.hg-Bg4 and Black is mating White!

Therefore, White must play 18.hg. White has an extra piece and a pawn at the moment.

Black can play 18…Qh1 or Bg4. Let’s analyze a move with check first – 18…Qh1 19.Ke2-Bg4.

Now, 20.Nf3 is losing after 20…Qg2 and Bf3. Thus 20.f3-Qg2 21.Kd1-Bf3 (attacking the g5-Knight
also) 22.Nf3-Qf3 23.Kc2 (or any other move) and Black takes on h7: Nh7.

This line is probably in favor of Black and it’s too unclear. In the starting position White had an
advantage and it makes no sense to go into such unclear way.

This means we must reject the option 16.h3. Yes, it’s a pity: we’ve wasted some time on it.
Nevertheless, we should have done it. In most lines it was extremely good for White and without that
move 17…Ndf6 this probably would be simply winning for White.

Ok, let’s move on. White has 2 other options also: 16.f4 and 16.g3. Generally 16.f4 looks better. Let’s
analyze it. Black lost a pawn and he must do something active and decisive. Otherwise, White’s
material edge would bring home the point. 16…Qh6 doesn’t work because of 17.h3.

Black can try to capture the h7-Bishop by playing 16…f6, f5, or g6. The most forcing one is 16…f6
(this is an attacking move).

White is facing a problem: Black is going to take the g5-Knight and the h7-Bishop after that. Still we
should not stop calculating, because there are some forcing moves White can play. And indeed, White
has a counterblow – 17.Bf5.

After 17…fg 18.Bg4, a pair of Knights were exchanged, and White is still a pawn up. Moving forward,
after 18…gf 19.ef, this is definitely good for White. He has much greater activity, and if Black takes
on f4 White will be able to play Re8 check.

Sometimes we may rely on our general understanding.

 If you see that a position should be good for you for sure –

it makes no sense to calculate until the very end.

Next, we need to analyze the Black’s moves 16…g6 and 16…f5.

Let’s start with 16…g6.

Well, first of all, we should notice that White is already a pawn up, and at the very least, White can
take the 2nd pawn for a Bishop (Bg6). That’s already not so bad.

Now let’s think what attacking and forcing moves White can play.

With the Queen, we can go 17.Qe2, but it only helps Black to go to f6 (attacking the Bishop). Rooks
and Bishop have no logical moves. The Knight can go to b5. 17.Nf7-Rf7 gives nothing.

As for pawns we have a nice move 17.e4. This really looks very good for White. He is attacking the
d5-pawn and is threatening e5. 17…de 18.Nce4 and White’s position should be very good.

If Queen goes something on the 6th rank, White can push f5 and free his Bishop. After 18…Qd5,
White can play 19.Nc3 and then White can play Re7 or f5.

Let’s trust our understanding and stop the calculation here. It must be good for White.

Finally, we come to the last Black’s option: 16…f5. It doesn’t seem frightening.

Black has no threats actually. Nf6 doesn’t work because White will play Bg6. With that in mind,
White has enough time to do something. He can play 17.h3 pushing away the Knight.

Then White also can play g4 and free his Bishop. This already shows that this line is fine for White.
White should play the move 15.Bh7.

YES, the calculation of this line took quite a lot of time. It happened because the position is HIGHLY
tactical. BUT, if you have good calculation skills, you can perform all of those calculations in about
10 minutes.

If you can’t do it so quickly, then after about 10 (maximum 15) minutes of thinking you should rely
on your intuition and understanding. The Black’s move 14…Ng4 can’t be good. Generally it’s wrong
to try making an attack with only 2 active pieces. Therefore you should punish an opponent for this
mistake and make the most aggressive answer 15.Bh7.
Going For The Throat With 15.Bxh7+!

White played that move in the game. 15…Kh8.

We already know that 16.h3 doesn’t work. 16.f4-f5 leads to good positions for White probably.

If you’ve already spent a lot of time during this phase in the game, you should simply go into the line
arising from 16.f4. If you still have a lot of time on the clock, you also should check the last candidate
move: 16.g3.

Now we need to detect the Black’s candidate moves.

16…Qh6 is an option.

Maybe 16…Nh2 followed with Qh6.

And pawn moves to f5, f6, and g6.

Let’s check the move with capture first: 16…Nh2

Variation: 16…Nxh2

This equalizes the material balance. After 17.Kh2-Qh6 18.Kg2-Qg5 (maintaining material equality)
19.Rh1, this is bad for Black. While it’s even materially,

White has a strong attack.

Next, we should analyze attacking moves 16…f6 and 16…Qh6.

We already know that after 16…f6 isn’t too good for Black.
Variation: 16…f6

Here, White has the counterblow 17.Bf5. White is still a pawn up at the moment. 17…fg leads to a
simple exchange of Knights, which is bad for Black. What else can he do? Perhaps, he can play 17…
Nf2. Well, at least White can play 18.Nf3 or better yet 18.Ne6 and it’s bad for Black.

The last attacking option for Black is 16…Qh6.

Variation: 16…Qh6

In this position, White needs to protect the g5-Knight and the h2-pawn. White can do it with 17.f4 or
h4. Looking at it, 17.f4 seems better. Well, if White has to play f4 anyway, then probably it’s easier to
do it right from the onset instead of playing 16.g3. To be honest, I would stop calculating this line
here. 16.g3 is similar to 16.f4, but gives Black an extra possibility 16…Qh6.

This is a practical approach. Remember, there’s no need to find proof or 100% guarantee that our
following move is the best. Plus we should not spend too much time on 1 move (especially if it
doesn’t look decisive).

That’s why White played 16.f4 in the game. Black answered 16…f5.
Position After: 16. f4 f5

We can see that Black has no immediate threats. Matter of fact, the position became quite static,
there’s no huge contact between the pieces. Therefore we should rely on general thinking primarily.

Black will try to capture the h7-Bishop somehow. However, this will take some time. Black has no
pieces that can easily threaten the g5-Knight (which defends the h7-Bishop) or the Bishop on h7.

In the meantime, White should create an attack or try to free his Bishop. The only real way to do it is
to remove the f5-pawn. To get the job done, White should play h3 and g4. Aside from preparing g2-g4,
17.h3 will also push the Black’s Knight back on the edge. It looks like this is what White should play.

Let’s quickly check variations. First let’s think are there any other interesting candidate moves.

With the Queen, White has an attacking move 17.Qc2.

Variation: 17.Qc2

It looks aggressive BUT Black can EASILY solve this problem with 17…g6 for instance. Maybe
White can play 18.b3 trying to start an attack on the queenside.

But, it doesn’t look great. We should attack on that part of the board, where we have greater activity .
The White’s pieces stuck on the king-side, and White should attack there.

With his Rooks, White has nothing interesting. The Bishop can take on f5, but Black recaptures. It is
unlikely that White can develop an attack having only 1 active Knight.

With his Knight, we can play 17.Nb5, but we’ve already calculated a similar situation. Maybe, it’s
interesting, but it doesn’t give something concrete and it looks like a step in the wrong direction:
White should attack on the king-side.

In summary, we should play 17.h3.

Does Black have any attacking replies?

Not really.

In the game, White played 17.h3 and Black retreated to h6 (17…Nh6).

Position After 17.h3 Nh6

In general terms, what should White do now?

We decided to realize the g4-idea that would liberate the h7-Bishop, which is currently trapped behind
enemy lines.

Maybe we can even do it right away, or prepare and support the pawn thrust with the Queen or Rook
first. White can play 18.Kh1, Rg1 and g4. Or White can play Qe2 or Qf2-h4 and then g4.

The latter looks especially interesting, we are bringing the Queen into the attack!

BUT still, we must not ignore the possibility that White can play g4 right now, sacrifice a pawn, and
start an attack on the open files.

In all these lines, we are going to create contact between the forces, we need to calculate the
variations. Let’s list down ALL candidate moves first.
King can go to h1 or h2, but h1 looks more safe. So 18.Kh1 is an option.

Queen can go to e2 or to f2-h4. The 2nd idea seems more powerful.

And lastly, we can go 18.g4 right away.

To sum up our candidate moves, we have 3: (1)18.Kh1, (2) 18.Qf2 and (3) 18.g4. We should check the
most aggressive line first.

Variation: 18.g4 (The MOST Aggressive Among The 3)

After 18.g4, Black can take or he can play 18…Nf6.

We should look at the most forcing and dangerous line first:18…fg. White replies with 19.hg.

Now, Black can still take on g4, or play Nf6. Looking at it, 19…Nf6 seems good. Black is activating
his forces and will take on g4 with his undeveloped c8-Bishop.

That is NOT what we want. Black took back the pawn and became much more active.

In conclusion, we shouldn’t hurry up with g4. Let’s check out 2 other options: 18.Qf2 and Kh1.
I like 18. Qf2 better. After the move g4, the h-line will be opened and perhaps we don’t want to have a
King there. Let’s check 18.Qf2.

Variation: 18.Qf2 (Moving The Queen To The Kingside)

Does Black have any attacking options in reply?

With the Queen, he has nothing. With his Rook, he can move it somewhere (perhaps on f6) and then
play Nf8.

With his Knights, Black can play 18…Nf6 or Nf7. We should check these 3 active attempts by Black.

The most direct attack is 18…Nf6. We’ll go 19.Bg6. Black can try to setup a discovered attack on the
Bishop. 19…Ne4 is not really threatening, we will just snap off the Knight with 20.Nce4 and the
Bishop will escape via h5. 19…Ng4 is interesting. 20.hg.

No, it doesn’t work for Black. If he takes on g4 (20…Ng4) we have check 21.Qh4. If he takes on g6
(20…Qg6), then it’s only an exchange of minor pieces. We are still a pawn up and can take on f5 or
d5.
Another attacking option for Black is 18…Nf7. He wants to trade the Knights and grab the Bishop
then. White can play 19.Qh4, Nf7 and Bf5. The last one looks winning 19.Bf5-Ng5 20.fg and Black
can’t make use of the pin because of White’s move Qh4 check.

The last aggressive idea for Black is to play 18…Rf6. Now, he is threatening …Nf8 so White must
hurry up.

White can play his intended idea 19.g4, and if Black takes 19…fg 20.hg-Ng4 White goes to g3 or to h4
(21.Qh4). Yes, that’s really good. Black can’t play Rh6 at some point, because White has Nf7 fork. All
in all, this variation looks nice for White and we may play it.

Another idea, 18.Kh1, will probably lead to similar variations, but White’s King will be more exposed
on the h-file.

So White played 18.Qf2. Black, as expected, answered 18…Rf6.

Position After: 18.Qf2 Rf6 (A HIGHLY Tactical Position)

Now let’s examine the variations MORE thoroughly.

The position is tactical: Black is going capture the h7-Bishop, White is preparing a breakthrough on
the king-side. In such situations, calculation is our best friend.

White probably should play 19.g4. BUT, we should properly calculate the stemming variations. First,
let’s define candidate moves.

With his Queen, White has 19.Qf3 attacking the d5-pawn.

Rooks have no logical moves.

What about 19.Bf5? No, he just recaptures (19…Rf5).

A Knight can go to b5 (19.Nb5), but it doesn’t lead to anything – Black will play 19…Qb6. The Knight
can also take on d5: 19.Nd5-Qd5 and now 20.e4 that’s interesting, that’s an option.

As for the pawns, we have 19.g4 and maybe we can push with 19.e4. After 19…de, we can play
20.Nce4 forking the Queen and Rook. It looks disadvantageous, but we should invest a little time to
check it out.

Let’s review White’s candidate moves: 19.Qf3, 19.Nd5, 19.g4 and 19.e4.

Let’s start from the most forcing one: the capture 19.Nd5-Qd5 20.e4-fe and now 21.Re4 or Be4. That’s
already the end of the forcing line and it doesn’t look decisive. Black has more pieces around his king
than White and such an attack will not be successful.

Also we have an attacking move 19.Qf3. Now Black can protect the pawn (with 19…Nb6), but we
should care about his aggressive moves MAINLY.

Let’s calculate 19…Nf8 20.Nd5 (we took the 2nd pawn) Nh7 and now we can take on f6 immediately
(21.Nf6) or after an exchange on h7. In any case we’ll have a Rook + 2 pawns against 2 minor pieces.
That’s unclear, which means that a position is approximately equal. It’s not what we want. Before this
forcing line White had an advantage.

Now we need to check the last 2 moves: 19.e4 and 19.g4.

With the first pawn thrust, we have: 19.e4-de 20.Nce4-fe 21.Ne4 now the forcing move is 21…Qf4
22.Nf6-Qf2 23.Kf2-Nf6. The attack is over and material is balanced. No, this is NOT what we want.

Now we have the only remaining move 19.g4. While thinking about the previous move, we have
already checked it. It works and it’s promising. Since all other ideas are not that great, White should
play 19.g4 without any deep calculations. This is the only normal move, and White doesn’t have any
real choice.

This was played. Black answered 19…g6. Black is trying to keep the Bishop in the cage.
Position After 19.g4 g6

In general, what should White do?

He wants to develop an attack on the king-side. 20.Qh4 looks good, maybe 20.gf. That’s what we
should think about first.

Is there anything else for White? We already know that White also has the moves 20.Nd5, 20. Qf3 and
20.e4.We calculated them on the previous move, and they were not that great. Now, there have been
minor changes since the previous moves and that means we’ll have to calculate them, BUT they
should come last of all.

Now let’s calculate the most forcing and logical move 20.Qh4.
Variation: 20.Qh4 (Forcing Black’s Hand)

Black has to answer 20…Kg7.

What White should do now? The position is complicated. Let’s determine the candidate moves again.

Queen can only take on h6, but it doesn’t work.

Rooks can’t make forcing moves.

The Bishop can take on g6 (21.Bg6), and after 22.gf on the next move, the Black pawn structure is
destroyed. Ok, this worth considering.

The c3-Knight can go to b5, but again, we NEED to focus our attack and efforts on the side of the
board where we are MORE ACTIVE and that is the Kingside.

21.Nd5-Qd5 doesn’t change much.

The g5-Knight can go back to f3 (21.Nf3) threatening g5. However, this is a move backward, which
usually is bad. Black can simply remove one of his pieces from the eventual fork with 21…Nf7 or
21…Re6. No, I dislike 21.Nf3.

With pawns we can take on f5 (21.gf), but this only helps Black to bring the Knight into a game.
What about 21.e4? Probably NOT good, but we should ponder about this QUICKLY. Thus we need to
calculate 21.Bg6 and we may quickly check 21.e4.

Naturally, we should calculate the more logical and active move first: 21.Bg6.

Variation: 21.Bg6 (Does This AGGRESSIVE Move Cut It?)

White is 2 pawns up at the moment.

Black can recapture with the Rook or King. We must calculate both lines, so it doesn’t matter which
one to start with. Let’s look at 21…Rg6, which is more natural. White replies with 22.gf. Black can’t
take the pawn (22…Nf5), because of 23.Qh7 and 24.Qf7 mate. Since Black can’t take the pawn, White
already has 3 pawns for a piece + a strong attack. This line should be good for White.

Now, what can Black do?

After 22…Rg5, White has both the MATERIAL ADVANTAGE and ATTACK!

Therefore, 22…Rf6 is forced. White can play 23.Ne6 check or even 23.Kh1 and Rg1. This is good for
sure, let’s stop calculating this line.
Also we need to check the Black’s move 21…Kg6. If Black has to expose his King so much, it
probably means this line is bad for him. White has the moves 22.Qh5 and 22.gf.

After 22.Qh5-Kg7 there’s no forcing continuation. I think it rather helps Black as it forces him to
move his King back to safety.

Let’s check 22.gf. 22…Nf5 is impossible 23.Qh7.

22…Kg7, and we’ve seen this position already. Here White can play 23.Ne6 and it’s good.

22…Rf5 is probably the only move. Here White has no forcing moves. Perhaps we should just play
23.Kh1 and Rg1. White is attacking the Black’s King FEROCIOUSLY and it looks decisive.

Going back to the starting position, we discovered that 20.Qh4 followed by 21.Bg6 is VERY powerful.
Yes, we found other candidate moves in this position.

However, we’ve already spent a lot of time on calculating different lines during this game.

If we’re on a REAL game, White, most likely, is running low on time by now. In such situations you
may calculate only 1 move – the one you are going to play. And you may skip other options.

That’s why in a practical game White should play 20.Qh4 without considering other options. This is
the move played in the game. There followed 20…Kg7 21.Bg6-Kg6 we’ve already analyzed this
position. After 22.gf, Black played 22…Kg7.
Position After 22…Kg7 – Look At White’s Kingside Pieces!

Again, we have a tactical position and we should rely on calculation.

Anyway, let’s quickly evaluate the general situation. This should be good for White. White has 3
pawns for a piece and a strong attack. Perhaps White should play 23.Ne6 check or 23.Kh1 and Rg1.

Now let’s start our calculation.

King can go to h1 (or h2) vacating the g1 square for the Rook.

With a Queen we have nothing really (23.Qg3 is a move back and Black can reply 23…Nf5).

Rook can go to e2 and then g2. Perhaps this is similar to 23.Kh1 idea.

With the Knight we can jump to e6 (23.Ne6). As for pawns, maybe we have the 23.e4 move in the
cards.

All in all, we have 3 main ideas: 23.Ne6 check, transfer the Rook onto g-file somehow (for instance
after 23.Kh1), and lastly, we have the push 23.e4.

First, we will consider the most forcing move 23.Ne6. After that the attacking move – 23.e4. And if
they don’t work, we’ll probably play 23.Kh1.

Ok. What happens after 23.Ne6?

If he goes 23…Kh7 it’ll be hard for him to find the next move. All his pieces are tied down to the
defense.

Black can’t really bear the e6-Knight. He has to play 23…Re6 24.fe-Qe6. Now the forcing move is
25.Qg5-Qg6 and we can take the d5-pawn. White has Rook and 3 pawns against 2 minor pieces. This
looks winning.

However, if possible, we would prefer to decide the game by mating the Black King. Just look at how
close your pieces are to the Black monarch!

So let’s not dig deeper into this line. Let’s check other variations and if they don’t cut it, we’ll play
this instead.

We also have the attacking move 23.e4. Black has to take 23…de. White can take with the c3-Knight
or with a Rook. We don’t want to move the g5-Knight back. The move 24.Nce4 is MORE forcing – it
attacks the Queen.
Let’s check it: 24…Qd4 25.Kh1. Now White is threatening Rg1, Rad1, Ne6 and Nf6 also.

What can Black do?

He can’t take 25…Nf5 because of 26.Qh7. Yes, this line should be winning for White. This is A LOT
more convincing than winning a Rook and 3 pawns for 2 minor pieces. This is what we should play!

In the actual game, White played this line (23.e4 dxe4 24.Ncxe4 Qxd4+ 25.Kh1), and here Black
played 25…Nf8.

Position After 25…Nf8

Let’s think about the position in general terms first.

Here White is probably winning after any logical move. Black is playing without his b8-Rook, which
gives White a decisive advantage in activity.

The move 26.Rad1 is very tempting. By the way, if you are tight in time here, you should only check
eventual aggressive replies of Black after 26.Rad1. And if there’s nothing dangerous – you should just
play it.
But in a normal situation, you should perform the full calculation. White has the candidate moves
26.Rad1 and 26.Rg1.

With Knights White can take on f6, play 26.Ne6 check (although it probably helps Black to develop
his Bishop). Perhaps 26.Nf3 is also an option.

All in all, White has 2 moves with Rooks and 3 moves with Knights. Usually we should calculate a
check first, but here 26.Ne6 looks dubious. After 26…Be6, he exchanges his inactive Bishop for that
Knight that’s participating in the attack. Black will finally be able to bring his dormant Rook into
action with this exchange. I would calculate it last of all.

Let’s take a look at capture 26.Nf6.

Black has to recapture 26…Qf6. Now White has 27.Re8 (REMEMBER, we should consider the most
forward moves first), 27.Re7-Qe7 and 28.Ne6 – this may be interesting. And maybe 27.Rg1. 27.Ne6 is
an option, too.

We should look at checks first. Let’s try 27.Re7-Qe7 28.Ne6.

This is a discovered attack on Black Queen and he must play 28…Kf7. Now we have 29.Qh5 and
29.Nd8 which is a bit eccentric. The move 29.Qh5 looks good. After 29…Kf6 White simply takes
30.Qh6.

On the other hand, 29…Kg8 allows 30.Rg1 which should be winning. 30…Kh7 and now White has
several options: 31.Rg7, Rg6, 31.Nf8, 31.Ng5 and pawn to f6 (31.f6).

The most forcing move is 31.Rg7-Qg7 32.Ng7-Kg7 33.f6 and if Black takes (33…Kf6) – 34.Qe5
winning a Rook. If Black doesn’t take (33…Kh7) White still can play 34.Qe5 and then Qe7-g7. Yes,
this is winning and White should go into this line.

Having looked at those variations, White already may play 26.Nf6 – he can go into this line with
confidence. Later on, we’ll check the variations more carefully.

In the actual game, after 26.Nxf6 Qf6 27.Re7 Black simply resigned.

Throughout this analysis lesson, I have shown you EXACTLY how a Grandmaster thinks during a
game.

Now, you can compare your analysis against this one.

Please, don’t be upset if things seem too hard for you at the moment. Remember, we analyzed a VERY
COMPLICATED game between top Grandmasters.

Most often your games will be much simpler.

Everything that we analyzed about this game is based on the rules from the previous lessons.
I hope you can now see the importance of automating these skills. During a real game, you don’t have
much time to think. You need to play and use those skills, which should be deeply wired in your brain
and automated for you.

In the practical section of the course, you’ll train all necessary skills.

You have to perform all the tasks SERIOUSLY, and you’ll become a VERY STRONG tactical player.
I gave you the rules on a Grandmaster’s level.

Even if you digest only a half of them – you’ll still become much stronger than most of your current
opponents.

Thanks for watching! This is the last video lesson, and now, it’s about time you move to the Practical
Part of the course and train your tactical skills.