King Kibitz — Chess Musings

Now that your committed to doing tactical puzzles, we also need to learn how to accurately analyze a chess position?  Why?  This will allow us to set up a superior position and that will permit us to win material or checkmate the enemy King through tactics.

 

I freely admit that there are many good chess book out there about improving your ability to analyze a chess position, play good opening moves, how to formulate a plan, etc.  I personally recommend that you study the games of great chess players.  Each game can teach you something about the opening, strategy, positional play, tactics, forming a winning plan, the endgame, etc.

 

What you need are annotated games (or games that have comments about the moves).  And the book you buy should be based on your playing ability.  If you’re a beginner, don’t buy a book geared for advanced players.  These books contain few words and have list after list of move variations that are 10 moves (or more) deep.  A beginner needs a book that explains what’s going on with words and contains short move variations.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

        

 

 

 

 

 

 

 For Beginners:
Play through the game move by move.  Before each move ask yourself “what move would I make and why.”  Next, read the move (but not the comments).  Now ask yourself, “why did White (or Black) make that move”?  Then read the comments and compare this with what you thought.  If it was different, then try to understand and remember the reason behind the move. 

For more Intermediate and Advanced Players:
Play through the games without looking at the annotations, and make your own annotations.  Now play through the game again comparing the book’s annotations and your notes.  What did you get “right” and what did you “miss”?  Did you recognize the critical moves in the game?  Did you miss tactics?  After playing through several games you may notice things or positions that you consistently get “right”.  This means that you probably understand these chess positions.  Things or positions that you consistently get “wrong” indicate areas where you need to increase your chess knowledge or areas where you need to think in a new way.  The annotations should give you the proper way to analyze the position. 

If you plan on using a computer, then use it when you compare your annotations with the book’s annotations.  A computer might be able to tell you the best move (or a good move), but it really doesn’t help you with why a move should be played?  I use a computer to check my tactics or the tactical reasons not to play certain moves.  

 

 

King Kibitz
Do Tactics. Study Games. Play Chess

 

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This entry was posted on Monday, February 16th, 2009 at 8:43 am and is filed under Chess Improvement. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.