Chess for Beginners

Tag: thought process

  • Faulty Thought Process: Wishful Thinking

    A frequent issue confronted by amateurs is wishful thinking when calculating combinations. This propensity to fabricate beneficial scenarios in our analysis is very typical throughout an amateur’s game, but it is most dangerous when calculating combinations.

    You see a pretty combination worthy of Tal, and you analyze it over and over, after you have finished your analysis you are sure that the move is a winner. You make the move and you lose a piece, or it initiates a series of exchanges that cause you to lose your initiative and perhaps the game. Unfortunately, you have failed to see the refutation or you simply missed a defending piece that you have conveniently kept out of your analysis. This very common oversight causes you to lose material and / or the game.

    If only you had realized that there was a defending piece all you usually need to do is to combine that information along with the combinational theme to make the winning move. In most cases by adding the bothersome piece to your analysis you can easily spot a sacrifice or deflection that will get the piece out of the way and lead to a winning combination.

    Getting rid of this faulty thought process will lead to more accurate analysis and an improved ability to calculate. Here are a few ways you can improve by eliminating this error in your thinking process:

    • Play long games with a standard time control greater than 30 minutes
    • Pick interesting middlegame positions and spend > 15 minutes analyzing
    • Try to visualize the position before making your move
    • Double and triple check your analysis

  • Chess Imbalances – The Silman Thinking Technique

    In How to Reassess your Chess Jeffery Silman describes how to create a plan in the middle game based on his set of chess imbalances. The list of imbalances includes:

    Chess Imbalances

    1) Superior minor piece
    2) pawn structure
    3) space
    4) material
    5) control of key file or square
    6) lead in development
    7) initiative

    Silman goes on to describe his ‘Thinking Technique‘ which is based on his concept of imbalances in chess. In a nutshell the thinking technique consists of:

    Silman Thinking Technique

    1) Determine your position based on positive or negative chess imbalances

    2) Determine the side of the board to play on

    3) Dream up fantasy positions

    4) Try to acheive fantasy position, if not dream up another one

    5) Look at candidate moves. candidate moves are all moves that lead to fantasy position.

    Related