Many chess players are asking what they should do right before an important game to help their performance. There are many different things to take into consideration but I’m focusing only on the most important ones. I’m giving you an outline of 7 things you should do just few hours before the round to positively influence your game. Here we go!

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.

All chess players know that grandmasters can calculate many moves ahead, evaluate the position, and deliver the final blow. How do they do that? Is there a way an ordinary chess player can learn to calculate many moves ahead like masters do? In this article, we will answer those questions and show you a simple schematic that will tremendously help at calculating moves.