5 Ways to Immediately Improve Your Opening Play

Many players think that their opening preparation is the weakest piece of the chess chain. Regardless of whether that's true or not it makes sense to work on all parts of the game. It is not wise to disregard any elements of chess and opening is no exception. Today we will talk about the five ways to improve your opening play.

1. Understand the main ideas

The very first step for understanding any chess opening is learning the main ideas of that opening. Many players make the mistake of memorizing variations instead of learning how a certain opening should be played. Instead of blindly memorizing the moves, it is much more efficient to understand the plans and counter-plans for both sides.

That way you won't get lost if your opponent deviates from the main lines you have learned. You will know the basic ideas of the openings, weak spots of setups, typical attacking maneuvers and so on.

2. Learn about the placement of pawns and pieces

After learning the main ideas and plans of the opening you should spend a little bit of time, learning about the pawn structures. Each opening has a unique pawn structure associated with it.

If you want to learn how to play the opening well, you need to understand the advantages and disadvantages of those pawn structures and also to learn about the typical piece placement.

The second point is especially important because the correct positioning of pieces will almost guarantee success in the middlegame.

3. Analyze games of the masters

After learning the main ideas and typical pawn/piece structures you need to go a step further and study the master's gamesplayed with the same opening. Only by analyzing the high level games you will be able to get fully submerged into the opening and understand typical attacking/defensive ideas.

By understanding a dozen of high level chess games, you will feel much more confident playing that opening, thus your over-the-board results will improve.

When you’re picking the games to study, you shouldn't give preference to necessarily the most recent ones, played by the most prominent players. It is better to start by going over the games played early on; understand the ideas of these games first and only then move to the modern games.

4. Create an opening database

It is extremely important to create an opening database for storing your opening preparation lines and ideas. All grandmasters do that, and there is a very good reason for it. A simple opening database, tremendously helps at systemizing all of your opening preparation.

Not only that, but it also helps in broadening your opening knowledge, making it deeper and more versatile. Unfortunately, most amateur chess players don’t realize that and prefer to save time on opening databases.

By simply organizing your current opening repertoire into a database, you will be able to see things that you have never noticed before. You will see what lines you understand and which ones you don't. You will see what lines give you the highest probability of winning the game, and which lines typically lose. Based on that priceless information, you will be able to improve on you opening preparation and become a much more theoretical player.

To make your life easier and your training more effecient, we have setup a comprehensive guide on how to work on your opening repertoire, how to setup a chess database, how to prepare for your opponent, and so on.

This guide is a part of the complete package of our training course. You can learn more about it here.

5. Blitz it up

The final step of working on your openings is getting enough practice. The most efficient way to practice a new opening is by playing plenty of short time control games to test out the new ideas.

You probably know that I'm not a big fan of using blitz as a training tool. This is an exceptional case though, and many grandmasters recommend playing blitz to try-out certain openings and you should too.

***

If you want to improve your chess level, you need to have a clear study plan. If you aim for a dramatic improvement at chessyou need to work on all of the elements of the game in a systematic way:

• opening preparation
• tactics
• positional play
• attacking skills
• endgame technique
• classical games analysis
• psychological preparation
• and much more

That seems to be like a lot of things, and that is. But no worries, we have made it easy for you. Our comprehensive training course covers it all and much more. Sign up for 21 Day Training right now!

Grand Master birthday and exciting offers!

there will be a MASSIVE 30% discount on all the RCA products! This discount is valid from today until Saturday, 31 October (inclusive). You can use the coupon “igor28” when making your purchase.
Check here if you don’t know how to use a discount code.
Second, we have released the second part of the premium video “Killer Endgames” by GM Nick Pert (a premium video from our partner, GM Simon Williams).

We released “Killer Endgames Part-1” for you, in the month of August. We received a lot of feedback from the students – many students (someone like YOU) liked the premium video. So, we have made the best foot forward and continue to provide you with what you like.

Don’t forget that you can get this premium video with the above-mentioned 30% discount! Just use the coupon “igor28”.

Moreover, there is another special offer, you can get. If you purchase the premium video, “Killer Endgames Part-2” by GM Nick Pert, you will get the RCA premium video, “Typical Mistakes in Practical Middlegame and Endings” (worth $15) completely FREE. 

<<Get them now>>

• Number of DVDs – 1
• Number of files to download – 2
• How to decompress split zip files? – check here

Additionally, we are doing our best to make the paper version of my book, A Promoted Pawn: My Chess Journey, available, and most likely it will be so. Since there are special offers in honor of my birthday, you will be able to purchase the book with a good discount.

Note: if you have already purchased the book in e-book format, you will just have to pay for the paper version (i.e. You need NOT pay for the actual book’s cost)

Also, we’re planning to sell the book during my next seminar in Trissur. You can get the book from me along with my autograph. If you would like to attend my seminar, just reserve your seat now here.

Problem of the Day

Massimo Tricomi’s success story

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5 Steps for Calculating Like a Grandmaster

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.

 

Step 1. Knowing when and what to calculate

The most important step in move calculation is actually to know when you need to calculate the variation and when you don’t.Chess players, even very strong Grandmasters, are not machines. They cannot simply calculate all lines and come up with the best continuation.

That’s why it is very important to realize when you need to calculate the line. The primary difference between a strong and a weak player is not how much each player calculates. The main difference between the two is in the ability of each player to find the right moves to calculate in the first place.

There are no general guidelines as of when and what you need to calculate. But I will try to give you some basic suggestions that will help you at deciding when you should calculate the variation:

1. When your own king or your opponent’s king is under attack, you should calculate the possibilities to end or continue the attack.

2. When there are many pieces/pawns under attack you should calculate the possibilities to win/save the pieces/pawns.

3. When the position is unstable (possible exchanges, pawns structure changes, simplifications etc.) you should calculate how you can benefit the most from it.

Step 2. Finding the candidate moves

After figuring out what and when to calculate you should find the so-called candidate moves. These are the moves that will most likely lead to the most favorable outcome. They generally make sense based on the current positional evaluation. After identifying3-4 candidate moves you should start calculating the lines, starting with what you think is the strongest candidate move.

The ability to calculate these lines solely depends on your calculation and visualization skills that can be enhanced by special exercises.

Ready to start systematic training that actually works? 

Click here to start your training using the day-by-day program.

Step 3. Evaluating the position

After you have finished calculating the line based on selected candidate moves, you have arrived to a certain final position. In order to judge if the move was a good one or not, it is necessary to evaluate this position and to understand if you’ve achieved some improvement on the board.

This evaluation possesses additional challenges because you cannot see the position on the board, and need to evaluate it only based on your visualization ability.

Step  4. Using method of elimination

In order to make your life simpler, it is crucial to decrease the number of moves and variations that you need to calculate and analyze. If you start calculation of the line and notice that there are already many problems after move 3, there is no need to continue the calculation. Save some time and use it where it needed the most.

Chess is not a game for a perfectionist, by rather for a player who knows how to spend his resources wisely. You goal is to eliminate all bad possibilities and to calculate/play only the good moves.

Step  5. Making the final decision

The final step is probably the easiest of all five. You need to critically look at your analysis and select a single best move to play in the game. If you encounter two or more moves which are about the same quality, you can go ahead and play any of the two. It doesn’t need to be perfect, but it should be a good move.

After you have selected the move you will play, it makes sense to double check the line and to make sure that you are not making a mistake. When that is done, you can go ahead and play the move. If you did everything correctly, your position should slightly improve.

5 Chess Combinations to Solve Today

Tactics training is a very important element for any chess training program. Unless you are at least 2400 rated, your tactics vision is not that great and it is something that can dramatically improve your overall level if worked on consistently. Let me give you a simple analogy. Just think that your chess ability is a horse. A weak tactical vision means that your horse has only one leg instead of all 4. Is it easy to ride a one-legged horse?

Anyways, the point I'm trying to make is simple, if you practice enough tactics, you will get a 2nd leg for your horse, then the 3rd one, etc. Today's tactics problems are based on 5 very important combinations that occur often in actual games. Pay attention and give it a shot!

Position 1. 

White to move and win

Position 2.

Black to move and win

Position 3.

Black to move and win

You already understand that a horse with no legs is no good. That's why you are working on tactics. However, the horse not only needs legs, but also it needs strong muscles, stamina, and ideally, an obstacle avoidance capability.  What I mean is that you also need to work on endgames, positional play and attacking skills. All of that you can learn in our training course. Give it a try you have nothing to lose 

Position 4.

Black to move and win

Position 5.

White to move and win

7 Signs You Have a Potential for Becoming Grandmaster

Many chess players wish to know if they will ever become Grandmasters. There are many exams available that can estimate your current strength, but none can tell you whether you can become a GM or not. Today we have compiled a short list of very important signs that may suggest you have a real potential for obtaining the highest chess title. Curious to find out if that’s about you? Read on!

1. Well-developed chess intuition

All grandmasters have a well-developed chess intuition. That means even without analyzing the position, GMs already know what's happening on the board, what side is winning and what move each player should play.

That won't be a 100% accurate analysis, like you will get if you calculate all of the variations or plug in the position into an engine. Nevertheless, it is a fairly accurate evaluation that can be used to make decisions during the game.

Another sign that you have a well-developed chess intuition is ability of guessing GM's moves during the game. It is very easy to check. Start watching any high level chess game and try guessing what moves one or another player will make. If the percentage of the moves you’ve guessed correctly is high, congratulations, you already may have a well-developed chess intuition.

2. Great memory for chess positions and patterns

Another very important thing for a strong player is a good memory for chess positions and patterns. Many grandmasters keep 100s if not 1000s of classical games in their heads.

Ability to memorize positions and games is extremely useful when it comes to preparation of openings, endgames or playing a typical middlegames. Grandmasters remember many classical games dealing with all sorts of pawn structures, endgames, tactical motifs, weaknesses, attacking schemes and so on.

If you have a good chess memory, you can put yourself a big plus on the potential grandmasters' checklist.

 

3. Superior visualization skills

Visualization is probably the single most important skill that a grandmaster needs because it is directly related to tactics. Without the ability to visualize positions, after certain moves are made and some pieces are captures, it is next to impossible to become a strong tactical player.

Visualization skills help tremendously at finding the correct tactics, calculating lines, planning the game and even finishing off the simple endgames. If you have strong visualization skills, your chances of becoming a grandmaster are much higher than for those who don't.

4. Ability to work on chess for hours

Even if you have all necessary prerequisites for becoming a grandmaster, you won't become one unless you spend a lot of time working on chess and perfecting your game. You see, even the most gifted chess players such as Magnus Carlsen, need to spend years to develop their talent.

That's why the ability to work on the game consistently, without getting bored and tired is crucial for becoming an elite chess player.

5. High level of competitiveness

Without a high level of competitiveness and a strong drive for becoming a better chess player it is not possible to progress. Some of the most competitive chess players such as Bobby Fischer and Garry Kasparov are also the most successful ones in history of the game.

If you want to become a grandmaster you must be competitive, you must try to win every single position against every single opponent you face. You should take each defeat as an opportunity to patch your preparation holes, to return and win.

6. Ability to stay focused for extended periods of time

Chess matches can be long, extremely long. Any grandmaster has played games which lasted for 6-7 hours non-stop. These kinds of games are exhausting and drain you both mentally and physically. In order to win such games you need to preserve energy and stay focused for the whole time. Any mistake can end the game not in your favor.

If you want to become a grandmaster you should be able to stay focused for very long periods of time. You need to learn making the best moves, even when you're tired or totally exhausted. Only then you can win games against stronger competition and be on your way to breaking that magical 2500.

7. Ability to perform well under pressure

It is a fact that defending in chess is much harder than attacking. There is a lot more at stake when your king is under pressure. You can get checkmated and the game will be over instantly. Any chess player ends up in terrible position sooner or later. It takes a true talent and courage not to give up and to pull yourself out of the losing position.

It is not possible to become a grandmaster without the ability to save lost games. You need to learn playing your best chess under pressure, even when you are down in material or under a serious attack. That will save you many games, and will gain you plenty of rating points.

Is it enough for becoming a grandmaster? It is no way to know. But if you can do it, the chances are you can become a GM someday.

If you want to improve your chess level, you need to have a clear study plan. If you aim for a dramatic improvement at chess you need to work on all of the elements of the game in a systematic way:

• tactics
• positional play
• attacking skills
• endgame technique
• classical games analysis
• psychological preparation
• and much more...

This book is not about how I became a Grandmaster..

Click to preview book

A Promoted pawn: My Chess Journey By Grandmaster Igor Smirnov

This book is not about how I became a Grandmaster..

..rather, about how a GM overcame various obstacles in his chess journey.

 This book summarizes the most valuable lessons from 20+ years of GM Smirnov's extensive chess practice, both as a player and a coach.

You'll learn what does work best for your chess progress. Also, you'll be warned of typical pitfalls or will see the way out if you already stuck.

Finally, you'll definitely enjoy reading a book full of interesting stories and witty advice. It may give a whole new meaning to your own chess study...

There will be a lot of advice, but also a lot of truth

There are many twists and turns down the road to chess strength and improvement. Chess students are told many things, and not all of them are correct. Some things are actually flat out wrong.

This same information gets passed down generation after generation and players don’t get any better. I hope to help the reader navigate through some of these pitfalls and steer them along the better parts of the road for smoother travel.

Click to preview book