Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
How far can you look ahead in a chess game? You have to have a very good memory to play chess! These comments/questions I hear quite frequentlyand while a good memory certainly helps in chess, and being able to look ahead (visualize) is very important, UNDERSTANDING concepts/strategy and HOW to choose the best move are more important. Having said thatlooking ahead does give one a great advantage and it is NOT a skill that is only for the select few with LOTS of TALENT! Visualizing and calculating multiple moves ahead, even to the point of being able to look 10+ moves ahead in a game, is achievable by most people that are willing to put in the simple (notice I didnt say Easy!) methods to learn it! The time put into this area certainly produces great returns, even at only 10 minutes/day practice in this area! So how do we achieve this ability? The following is the method that I have used successfully with dozens of students to help them become strong players, able to calculate many moves in advance. (You can even follow these methods and then WOW your friends by your amazing talent at visualization, thanks to your following Elliotts Visualization Techniques!!) So how do we accomplish this at 10 minutes per day? If you will follow these steps patiently, you will be a much stronger chess player! In fact, several of my students who followed these steps have become national champions, and even those that have not become champions have AMAZED their friends by taking them on in a BLINDFOLD challenge and won!! (With their friends NOT blindfolded!)
IMPORTANT NOTE: Before getting started with this visualization program, remember the following: a. Do not try to master this until you can move all the pieces competentlythen its a great time to get started with visualizing! b. Secondly, your visualization will increase rapidly if you follow these tips while continuing to work on the other areas of your game dont feel that you must master this area before progressing in other areasits a process that takes some time, but with patience and some consistency, you WILL become a VISUALIZATION MASTER!!
where they are without looking at the names on the keys.) Practice this until you can point to the squares within 1-2 seconds of having it named, again from both the white and black sides of the board. 5. Next, we learn to recognize DIAGONALS on the chessboard. Diagonals are named by the first and last squares on the diagonal, such as a1-h8. Have someone call out a diagonal, and as quickly as you can, point to all the squares on that diagonal and NAME them all. Do this also from both the white side and the black side of the board (1st rank and 8th rank).
9. Time to introduce some chess pieces on the board!! Start with the rook either have someone call out a square, or just imagine it on a certain square (lets say, for example, h1). Now choose any other square, such as e8, and figure out in your head how to move the rook from h1 to e8 (h1-h8-e8 or h1e1-e8). Once you can do this rapidly, time to move to the bishoppick 2 squares (of the same color!) and figure out in your head how to move the bishop from one to the other (should always, as with the rook, take only 2 moves). Start with squares fairly close together (such as h1 to h3), and then advance to squares far apart such as a1-c7. Once you have mastered the rook and bishop moves on an empty board, its time for the challenge piecethe KNIGHT! Start with squares very close together, such as h1-f1 or h1-g1, on the edge first, and then as you get better at this visualization, choosing squares farther from the edge and farther apart. 10.After you have mastered the above exercises, its time to introduce a couple more piecesfor this, I generally recommend having someone place 2 pawns on the board, preferably in such a fashion that one protects the other (such as a6 and b7), and then you (blindfolded) use each of the following pieces (in this order) to capture those pawns: Rook from h1, Bishop from f1, Queen from d1, King from e1, Knight from g1. Rules for this: You must capture the pawns SAFELY, only capturing pawns that are UNPROTECTED e.g. starting with the b7 black pawn then the a6 pawn. The goal is to try to do it in as short a number of moves as possible. As you become competent with this, add 1 pawn at a time, till eventually you do the same exercise with the following positions of 8 pawns: a6, b7, c4, d7, e6, f7, g6, and h5.
12.Final step!! You are ready to try a chess game blindfolded! With all the pieces set up, play a game against someone else who gets to see the board and move the pieces. (They will move your pieces when you tell them your move, and will tell you wherever they move also.) Try to go 5 moves into the game then stop and set up the position on a 2nd board to see if you remember the position correctly Next go 10 moves and do the same Next 15, etc Now go as far as you canwhen the position starts to get muddled in your head, take an empty board and set up where every piece should be to try to figure it out, remembering where each piece went. Soon, you will be able to play a complete game blindfolded! CONGRATULATIONS!! You have become proficient at visualizing! This skill will help you tremendously in being able to look ahead in chess!
NM Elliott Neff
PS Please do send any comments or questions to ebooks@chess4life.com. I look forward to hearing from you!
a1 a5 b1 b5 c1 c5 d1 d5
a2 a6 b2 b6 c2 c6 d2 d6
a3 a7 b3 b7 c3 c7 d3 d7
a4 a8 b4 b8 c4 c8 d4 d8
e1 e5 f1 f5 g1 g5 h1 h5
e2 e6 f2 f6 g2 g6 h2 h6
e3 e7 f3 f7 g3 g7 h3 h7
e4 e8 f4 f8 g4 g8 h4 h8
st
nd rd th th th th th