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

BEWARE: this may change the entire trajectory of your chess career! When you think about studying chess tactics—also known as chess puzzles—you may imagine a set of moves that transform some initial losing/neutral position to a significantly more winning one. Though that is true, the reasons you should study them are not only to help you find those winning combinations of moves. In fact, thinking solely in that way will ruin your chess improvement and strategic thought by making you more prone to find “cheap tricks” to win.

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.

Over 99% of chess players play way under their maximum performance rating. Wouldn’t it be great if you could simply flip a switch and your chess performance goes up? Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that, otherwise, everyone would’ve been a Grandmaster already. Don’t get upset though, because there are some things that I cover that act exactly as that magic switch. You won’t become a grandmaster or even a master overnight, but if you implement even some of the advice given here you will notice you start making progress [especially if you are stuck and not improving].