15 articles Exercises

Training Position #1

White wins this position by creating a passed pawn on the Kingside.   Note that if the Black pawn would be on d3 instead of c3, the game would be a theoretical draw. Copy the FEN position 4k3/1pp2ppp/p1p5/8/4P3/8/PPP2PPP/4K3 w – – 0 0 and play this position against an engine. NOTE: There was an issue with…

Karpov & Mazukevich's Chess Thought Process

(adapted by Herman Grooten) The following thought process which is recommended by Karpov and Mazukevich is used to detect the important features of an arbitrary position in order to devise a plan that conforms to the positional assessment derived by using this thought process. This thinking process is based on 7 criteria in which the…

Improving Chess Analysis Skills with Stoyko Exercises

This content was buried in a post for Kotov’s Method for Chess Improvement, and since it is such an important chess improvement tool, I figured I would promote it to its own post. Stoyko Exercises from Dan Heisman’s Exercises page A summary of Stoyko exercise: 1) Find a fairly complicated position 2) Get out a…

Chess Board Visualization Exercise #6

It is very important that you have mastered exercises 1-5 before starting on this exercise. For exercises 1-5 visit the chess exercises page. Without looking at the board, tell all the squares controlled by: – a bishop on b2 – a bishop on b7 – a bishop on a5 – a bishop on h4 –…

Chess Board Visualization Exercise #4

Previous Exercises: – Exercise 1 – Exercise 2 – Exercise 3 For exercise 4, using the board look at all of the squares controlled by: – the f1-bishop developed to e2 (place only this bishop on the board) – the f1-bishop developed to d3, c4, b5 – the f8-bishop developed on e7, d6, c5, b4…