Chess Tips, Articles and Guides to Help You Win Chess Games

Very often we are asked about training tips and methods to improve one’s own play by doing individual training. As we have written in the past, working alone is quite difficult for beginners. There is no guidance and therefore no feedback on whether you’re doing it right or wrong. In other words, it is easy to get lost and not see any sign of improvement. For this reason, we have always advocated the figure of a trainer.

Dynamic vs. Static Play: Here are a couple of the questions we receive most often from our students. “When do I know when to play for an attack? And, when to stay quiet and follow the strategic path?” You can always find the answer to this question by looking at the position you have in front of you. There is no rule that tells you when to do one or the other. But, there are certain things in the position. They usually point to the path you have to follow during your game.

In this article, I would like to share my thoughts on the topic that is, for sure, extremely important for every chess player. That is how to calculate variations. Unfortunately, this highly interesting and crucial topic had never been covered in a great detail. The only decent source I know is the book of a Soviet Grandmaster Alexander Kotov “How to became a grandmaster”. However, it is quite evident that since it was written half a century ago, some ideas are not relevant anymore, the main reasons are that 1. time controls have been decreased 2. computers have changed chess world drastically.