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

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.

Playing Better Blitz Chess: Quite often we have met club players who perform well in tournaments with classical time control and give a strong appearance of being underrated players. However, when the time trouble comes they tend to collapse quite easily. The same is seen at rapid and blitz events; some players can’t even finish the game and they end up losing by flagging or making horrible blunders. We all have seen that and it is sad, indeed. Playing good blitz and rapid is important; every strong player is competitive in these modalities and it is a fun way to develop skills.

This article is primary dedicated for under 2200 chess players that want to improve their game (sorry those of you higher rated). Many players struggle and don't know where to start and how to improve. Today we will give you some specific pointers and outline the most important topics to work on. Ready to proceed?