Tactics are one of the most important aspects of the chess game, no doubt. A good tactical vision, an eye for tricks, imagination together with the ability to calculate are qualities desired by every chess player. The general thought among club players is that this ability (the sense for tactics) is more or less natural and you either have it or you don’t. There is some truth in this; however, natural born tacticians are few and most of us mere mortal players can learn, then train and become better at it. In this article we will give you 10 (!) training tips to help you improve your tactical vision regardless of your level.
How many of you have tried to get better at chess without fully achieving your ideal goal? This is not uncommon at the aficionado level. Even at more advanced level signs of being stuck in the same place appear often. What’s wrong then? It’s hard to give an answer to this question; after all, in chess, as in every other sport, each person is unique. However, here is a list of what we think are the most common reasons club players do not improve over the years, although they are trying to. The same reasons could be used for intermediate players who don’t take that leap onto the next higher level. The list is not done by the level of relevance, every aspect matters.
In this article, we are going to present another player who is perhaps less known to the wide public, but was one of the best players of his time. Henrique Mecking was born in Brazil in 1952 and was considered a prodigy child, is often compared to the famous Bobby Fischer. He won his first national title at the age of 13 and achieved the title of International Master at 15. This made him the first youngest International Master in history.
Mecking achieved the Grandmaster title in 1972 and qualified for the Candidates Tournament twice – in 1973, after winning the Petropilos Interzonal, and in 1976, after winning the Manila Interzonal. However, he never became World Championship, being eliminated both times in the quarterfinals, by Kortchnoj and Polugaevsky respectively. In 1977 he was ranked third in the World, behind Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Kortchnoj.
Today, I have decided to come up with a few examples on the topic that are very challenging for any chess player—even of the highest level. This is primarily because it’s totally counterintuitive, namely using your king in the middlegame while the battle is in full swing.
It’s difficult because the first thing we learn about chess is that the king should be kept safe. Then, as we mature and improve our game, we learn that, in the endgame, the role of the king increases: it can be an active piece, even one of the most active. So, how to use the king in the middlegame?
The black pawns resemble the spikes of a hedgehog, not letting white cross the 5th rank without getting hurt! The so-called Hedgehog System is one of those mysterious ways to play that captivate every chess player. There is certain beauty on how one side can concede so much space and then strike with all his power destroying the enemy’s pretentions. It’s a universal system that can be obtained from several openings, for example, the English Opening, the Nimzo-Indian, but also in the Sicilian and from several other transformations in the middlegame.
Today, I would like to discuss a topic, which in my opinion, is an important and interesting one, yet hasn’t been covered extensively in chess literature. How can sacrifices be used for a successful defense? Often, we cannot hope to survive an opponent’s attack by means of normal defensive moves that improve our pieces slowly or deal with their threats convincingly enough.
In the computer era that we live in, where every opening is analyzed in detail and every chess player, regardless of their level, knows a fairly amount of theory, it is important to have in your opening arsenal a system that doesn’t require so much memorization and is based on middlegame understanding.
Lajos Portisch does not need any introduction to the chess community, but if you are a beginner, you may want to read more about this amazing player. He was 8 times Hungarian Champion, participated in 20 Olympiads from 1956 to the year 2000 representing Hungary and won 11 Olympic medals. In his prime, Portisch qualified for the Candidates cycle more than once and won numerous tournaments around the world.
Rook endgames are probably the type of endgames that are most seen in over the board games. They are complicated and require a lot of patience to learn, but we hope that these short articles will help you get a better idea of the defensive and active ideas you need to be aware of in specific positions. In this article, we are going to approach another common endgame, where one of the sides emerges with an extra passed pawn on the queenside, while the kingside structure is balanced.
How frustrating is to observe kids make leaps and bounds with seemingly no work while we adults work so hard and yet we barely make progress! While it is true that sooner or later everybody reaches a plateau, I think there are other, hidden factors at work when it comes to chess improvement as adults.