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

Playing in chess tournaments is a completely different thing from studying chess or playing friendly casual games at the club with your pals. While we can do pretty well during our lessons, training sessions with friends or coach, an official competition forces you to make your best effort and put to work your best competitive skills and character. Of course, usually, there are hundreds of other colleagues doing exactly the same. And, as if this didn’t sound hard enough there is the time pressure.

Tactical Play for Club Players: It is a well-known fact that tactics play a major role in the chess game. The ability to spot tactical motifs and hidden combinations is a must-have for every chess player who wishes to obtain notable results. However, the vast majority of players do not shine because of their talent in spotting tactics; in fact, many are just average in this aspect. The reason for this may well be that it is an element of chess that hasn’t been trained properly or even not at all. There is the thought that tactical vision, or let’s say tactical style, is something innate; you either have it or you don’t.

Chess position visualization is a very important ability. This ability allows a chess player to calculate tactics precisely multiple moves ahead and most importantly it makes it possible to picture and evaluate the final position correctly. This is exactly what Magnus Carlsen was referring to when he was asked how many moves ahead he can calculate. Carlsen replied that the trick is to evaluate the final position, not simply to calculate the moves.