Chess Calculation Technique PDF
Chess Calculation Technique PDF
Chess Calculation Technique PDF
Chess calculation training deserves high priority if you are serious about improving your chess. As is the case
with any other skill calculation should be trained. And should be trained the right way. This brings us to the
main problem we often face knowing just how we should go about to improve this important skill.
In this article I will give you advice that will put you on the right track.
To help you avoid this random way of thinking, I suggest that you follow a certain order:
1. Find all the candidate moves involving your queen,
2. Find all the candidate moves involving your rooks,
3. Find all the candidate moves involving your bishop,
4. Find all the candidate moves involving your knights,
5. Find all the candidate moves involving your pawns,
6. Find all the candidate moves involving your king (particularly in the endgame stage).
Thee moves that need to be calculated properly are all the forcing moves. Lets look at an example.
Here is a position from a real game:
Chess calculation exercise how would you approach this position? (white to move)
Before reading on, I suggest that you look at the position above and decide how you would approach it if this
was your own game.
Candidate moves with the queen: 1) Qxh7+ (a capture); 2) Qxg5 (a capture); 3) Qd4+ (a check) 4) Qxb5 (a
capture).
Candidate moves with the bishops: 1) Bh3 (a threat to f5 pawn); 2) Bxd5 (a capture)
Candidate moves with the knights: 1) Nc6 (a threat); 2) Nxd5 (a capture); 3) Nxf5 (a capture) 4) Ng6+ (a
check).
Of course a quick look at all the candidate moves will reveal that many of these moves can simply be
discarded. For example the move 1) Rc1 threatens blacks pawn but it is clearly not enough since the threat
is not strong enough given the fact that black has an extra rook. Also moves like 1) Qxh7+ loses the queen and
gives white nothing we dont need to spend more than a few seconds on such moves. Yet, following this
process will help you to not miss some opportunities.
In the above example you might spend a lot of time calculating the moves Ng6+ or Qxg5 (which dont lead to
much). Instead, if you followed the process to first find all the candidate moves, you would quickly find the
move 1) Qd4+ (which wins the game instantly).
I hope you can see the power of training your chess calculation skill this way. I suggest you always follow this
process when you play and when you solve tactical puzzles.
Your calculation skill depends quite heavily on your ability to visualize different positions in your mind. I
suggest you train regularly to improve this important part of your chess skills.
This article is not a complete guide on chess calculation but can have a positive impact on the effectiveness of
your chess calculation technique. You can start training right away by solving tactics puzzle using this method
(http://chesstempo.com is a great source of tactics puzzles or www.chess.emerald.net).