Last week, we looked at reducing tension or pressure within a position. I was going to give you some positional examples this week, but realized that I needed to add two additional components to the mix, relative value and the trading of material. There’s more to relative value than meets the eye, especially if you’re … Read more
“There’s a lot of tension in that position dude!” I said that to two of my students upon viewing their middle-game. Tension and stress are a killer, both on the chessboard and off the chessboard. In life, if you want to live to a ripe old age, your doctor will tell you to reduce the … Read more
I was going to play out our long running endgame from the last few months this week. However, I decided to discuss some additional middle-game principles instead. The reason for this is because you should have enough information at hand to play last week’s position out yourself. At some point, I will play through the … Read more
Last week, we worked through a position in which it was Black’s turn to move. This week, we’ll look at the same position, but this time it’s White to move. I mentioned that whose turn it is can be decisive in a given position. This week, we’ll see how things can change when it’s the … Read more
We’ve spent the last few months examining how you should go about selecting a move and some basic tactical ideas. While I didn’t introduce you to every tactic you need to know, rest assured that you’ll meet those other tactics in upcoming articles. The ground we covered may have seemed vast, however, you can use … Read more
This week, we are going to wrap up the last six weeks of work on tactics. I’m actually spreading out the end of this part of our middle-game studies during the next week because we covered so much information. This week, I’ll summarize what we have covered so far, to give those of you having … Read more
We’ll look at the position from last week and examine the idea of “the squares left behind” in greater detail this week. I know there’s a lot being thrown at you in terms of analyzing a given position, which is known as positional analysis in chess. However, the greater your ability to look at a … Read more
This week, we will take the concept of thinking three moves ahead and apply it to our original tactical position. We will spread this out over the next few weeks. The process is simple, at least on paper: Come up with three candidate move choices (three possible moves you can make) as White. You’ll go … Read more
One of my students, who read through my last piece here at the Chess Improver, mentioned that I had not brought up a teaching method I used for calculation training. Chess comes down to thinking ahead and having the ability to do so! All the strategic and tactical skills in the world won’t help you … Read more
Two weeks ago, we looked at a position that will form the basis for creating a combination that set up a tactic called a skewer. A combination is simply a series of moves that allow you to create a tactical opportunity. Since the majority of tactics don’t appear out of thin air, you need to … Read more