This brings up another psychological aspect of puzzle-solving training: that (for better or worse) it tends to condition us that there is always a tactical solution (mate, won material, perpetual check when losing, etc.) to be found when a position is in front of us. Not many puzzles have "nothing exciting can be done here" as the answer. So you'd think puzzles would train us to be "believers." On the other hand, if you play a lot of games, most of the time there's not going to be a crazy combination available, so that might subconsciously discourage you from looking during a game when there likely may not be a reward, as opposed to puzzles when there always is. Fascinating things to think about.
As Andras put it "no one is there to tap on you on the shoulder and tell you there's a forced win in an actual game". And we also get distracted by so many things during a game in comparison to puzzle solving. In my case, when I'm doing puzzles, I'm focused on locating forced wins. Because it's a puzzle. I know there's one. What I do not think about, is "how did I get here", "what was my plan", "did my plan work, or is this the result of some unexpected move", "am I even better here?", "does opponent have an attack/threat I must deal with?", ""how much time do I have left?", "is this going into the endgame?", and plethora more. And clock is ticking. I also don't have any lasting mental effects, such as being disturbed by misplayed opening, hanging pieces, not seeing a tactic early on till opponent made a move to shut it down, etc. When I'm doing puzzles, that is. I'm not tired after hour and a half of tedious maneuvering in an unfamiliar territory, or defending for an hour a "scary" position. Puzzles do not address that. Unless you do them for two hours straight, but how much will you remember from the last ones you did? So unless all the variables are kept the same, I don't think puzzles can train us to be "believers". Too many things are too different between puzzles and actual games. Even if one would start looking for tactics after every single move, most of the time they will fail to locate one. Because unless one got a better position with excellent coordination, there are none. At least not the medium puzzle level of "white/black to move and win". That eats away at conscience too, methinks. Failing too many times saps the energy to keep trying.
The thing about puzzles is that you know there is always a tactical solution, while in games you never know when such a situation is at hand. I think one thing we're meant to take away from puzzles is an instinctual awareness of when such tactical positions arise, but it's difficult because even though there might be similarities it's not as all tactical positions (even on the same "theme") are the same. Another thing is that many don't play games with long enough time controls to really find such tactical plays. Often discovering a tactic is simply a matter of time; time spent looking through numerous candidate moves and testing them out via calculation. With faster time controls so often it's just about avoiding major blunders and playing good-to-excellent moves, rather than finding the best move all the time or any kind of combinations.
@@user-un-known This is more or less what I think. In an actual game, with the clock ticking, it is difficult to think as we do when training puzzles. But there is a good book about "signals" : Chess tactics Antena". I have been reading the book (almost finishing it) with a friend and we improved a lot. The author give us 7 possible signals to look at in a game, and it doesn't matter in what stage we are (opening, middle or end) to look for one of the signals.
Andras is a treasure and consistently presents some of the most compelling content, often a unique blend of chess knowledge and psychology, and this video is a 10 on both counts. Thank You!
Oh man, this lesson is amazing! Sounds like an idea from "The Art of Learning," but phrased so masterfully. Love the idea of being in the "believer" group 😁
The Qe6 one is ridiculous! But using your idea, of playing a move that goes for mate in one, I solved the last one with Nf6 then Rg4!! Both moves threatening mate in one, by putting pieces on squares that are not captures. Thanks for this insightful strategy. Qe6! Just wow! I will remember this! I am now a believer of impossible moves!!
The problem with the second puzzle seems to me less about unwillingness to sacrifice the queen and more about board vision. Basically you need to see that moving the knight both opens the file for the rook and the diagonal for the bishop, otherwise the tactic wouldn't work at all. For someone who can't visualize, this is a very difficult thing to see.
What a Lovely , Lovely video , i was a Puzzle 1 at the start of the video , i was Rook to - > g4 Believer by the end. Took me about a good 5 & half minutes to figure it out by pausing the video. I kept thinking about what the Rook battery can achieve & then i realized keeping with the theme of the lesson , that'd actually be a futile line. So that's when i realized the Rg4 move , didn't realize the Nf6 move had to come first , i did ponder that , the g7 pawn needs to be dealt with somehow so knight at h5 would handle it. Only fo find out there was more. Love such lessons. Thank you Mr. Andras!
I solved all of them and their variations, no one would believe me but I squeezed my mind like a true believer especially in the fifth one ! it's not about about rating but about believing and wanting a certain motif to happen. Btw I'm under 2000. I have to also thank Charles Hertan for writing "Forcing Chess Moves" which you recommanded btw. Actually its exercices are easier than the exemples, but I always start solving the exemples before the exercices instead of just reading them. This serie of amateur's mind helped me laugh at myself in which concerns decision making based on fear, overpass some myths, push my calculation further, look for dynamic play, be flexible in planning... I'm very thankful to you Andras, also keep doing this type of instructive content !
Comment for the algorithm. I miss a ton of winning mates when I have a solid advantage. Main problem is playing too much bullet and have no time to think. In slower controls I would probably do the same thing because I’m too focused the current plan and am too materialistic. After every game I review them and then I catch the misses. Have a good week.
Yeah, you have to just trust your gut in bullet and can't possibly go through all candidate moves. We probably build a lot of bad habits by playing too much bullet! 😅
There is actually a missing piece so maybe you found THAT or maybe you found it unconsciously. Do you know if you figure out more or just did it with belief?
Reminds me of Hans Tikkanen (The Woodpecker Method): "one conclusion I drew from my reading was that a tremendous amount of activity happens unconsciously, below conscious effortful processing, and that this should reasonably be reflected in my approach to chess." It seems like for most of us, moves like Qe6, Rg4 etc, are filtered out by our subconscious mind, and thus never get to be calculated. We need to retrain our brains (which have been conditioned by general principles, the piece relative value system etc) by doing lots of repetitive puzzles, automatic pattern recognition etc, so that these moves are more open and intuitive to us.
I invite you to read Valeri Beim's books, and incorporate one of his brilliant contributions to the theory of calculation and so-called "candidate moves". Beim came up with the concept of "resultant candidate", which implies that oftentimes a good (or the best) candidate move can only be arrived after we have "tried" other candidate lines which seem not to work. In the case of the Qe6 puzzle, for example, Beim would say that you can arrive at Qe6 after "seeing" first, and then discarding, the Ba3 or Qa3 lines, when d6 by Black simply blocks the mate. So the Qe6 idea (distracting the Black d-pawn from the d6-square comes to mind. Since Qe6 also includes a mate-in-one threat, it is doubly powerful. In the end, we can arrive at Qe6 after checking the combined work of all the pieces in the attack, checking what and how many squares they take away from the King, and then combining harmoniously their roles -- regardless of their material value.
Great video. One thing that's really helped me is remembering to see moves THROUGH pieces. That second puzzle is a good example. While I'm sure that there is indeed a psychological block for some against losing material on open squares, it's also hard for many (myself included) to see that the a4 Bishop is controlling the black king's d7 escape square through the knight, and the b1 Rook is controlling the b file through the same knight and black bishop. If the b5 knight and B7 bishop weren't there, white would have all of the black king's escape squares covered and just have to deliver a check. So if you start from there and then ask yourself "is there a way to move these pieces so that I can control all the escape squares and then deliver check mate?" I think it becomes much easier to see the queen sacrifice. This "seeing through pieces" is something we're supposed to learn from pins/skewers, discovered attacks, etc., but for some reason it can be harder to recognize when we're talking about those pieces just covering escape squares.
Coach Andras: *trying eloquently explain mental blocks in tactical thinking.* Me, a Poet: "and then I saw checkMATE... now I'm a BELIEVER!!! And not a trace.. of doubt in my mind!"
After taking CM Chua’s course, I think it also has to do with the fact that the CCT approach skips some of the foundational tactics. If you first identify all x-rays, vulnerable pieces (hanging, unprotected, semi-protected), interference, deflection, decoy opportunities, forking squares, potential for skewers and pins …… THEN look at checks and mate threats, you’re able to see real opportunities that you might have dismissed had you just looked at checks first. Case in point on the first example with Qa8+ … if you saw the rook x-raying the b-file and the bishop x-raying the king’s escape square, you’d see a trapped king. You might even see Na7# if the queen and bishop weren’t there, which makes you think about deflection opportunities. That’s all caught with a methodical approach evaluating the position through the filter of those tactical themes BEFORE you start looking at checks and mate threats and calculating your candidate moves. This is not a fast approach, but it is thorough. And speed will come with practice.
This is brilliant. I'm impressed by all your videos, Andras, but this one blew my mind. Thank you for highlighting the need for creative thinking in chess. This fundamentally changed how I look at the game.
In the second puzzle, the obvious queen moves don't work because of the enemy queen and rook. So the bishop move attacking them both, trying to draw the queen away, was easier to find than the queen move.
THIS! This is the lesson of the year. Thank you. Where can I find puzzles that focus on solutions like these to practice “Find the Threat”? There are plenty of the normal sac-sac-mate puzzles…. But puzzles that require us to be Believers… using a Threat to move the opponent’s pieces… wow. I need to practice this.
Hey, thanks for the kind words! I prefer for this type of exercise full games rather than puzzles. Hellsten's opening strategy is a good starting point!
Incredible video! I think another issue with adult improvers is not only sacrificing on empty squares but also Piling up (with more attackers than defenders) on empty squares. Even if it's fairly obvious, like a Back rank theme, if there is high amounts of tension in other places on the board and pieces with big scope move around the board, it's so easy to limit yourself to calculate "future moves" that attack "something" rather than an empty square. I missed an empty square tactic OTB recently, and now when solving a puzzle I tunnel visioned on the 7th rank when there was an obvious 8th rank weakness to be targetted by 3 pieces, but it was empty (!), and there were pieces and pawns that looked more attractive to attack (everything except attacking the empty square loses the advantage of course) so I successfuly solved the puzzle but without actually seeing the follow up (targeting the 8th rank empty square weakness with 3 pieces). So in essence it's a failed puzzle! These are great tools to have presented in this video! Mate in 1 threat is to be categorized as a "must calculate" and just as much forcing as some obvious sacrifice. Also believing and being curious about chess during the game and not dismissing moves because they look crazy
@@ChessCoachAndras Perhaps I should also have mentioned that I've always thought the content was absolutely top-notch, and when I said "quality", I was mainly referring to the presentation. It's clearly the result of a lot of conscious effort on your part. Big respect from me!
The believers in Caissa ;) Very intuitive guess about adult mentality. But honestly, I don't think it is really a matter of believing. Empty squares seem difficult to consider because: 1 - you are too much trying to make work a mating motif that will not to allow your brain to try another one...you have to go backwards and kinda "mourn" quickly what you really thought would work. 2 - your right about the fact that empty squares seem strange to conquer because...it does not seem you are conquering anything You definitely got a point about: capture, check....and threat to consider. Never forget the last option. By the way, I did not find the Qf6 but solved the last position! When Andras! Just tell us when are you going to take students again :) Isn;t there a coach that you can advise that have the same school of thought?!!!
Great video! I solved every single one of these puzzles but only after I was forced to think "creatively". Unfortunately, if I were to have these in a game, I'd be too reluctant/ underconfident to be a believer.
hey Andras, great video as always. not exactly what I expected though. fair warning this is a bit of a wall of text. anyway I agree this is a big hangup for adults. But Id like to offer if not an alternative something that has helped me play a lot more tactically in my own games, a relatively recent transformation. For context, Ive started playing chess as a >30 y.o. adult. For a long time I was doing (and still do do) tactics puzzles like a madman; in fact I sometimes feel like I prefer doing puzzles to actually playing. But it really wasnt showing up in my games, and I was sort of convincing myself "well maybe I just need to rely on my positional play to compensate" because I felt like tactics weren't "showing up in my games" (I know, I know). And I know many 'serious' adult improvers either fall into the 'only tactics' or 'openings courses' study and I was definitely the first category. Anyway, what I think was missing for me was is that the combinations are super important, but they are NOT the atomic unit of a tactic. The atomic unit are the tactical elements and I simply wasnt seeing them; if my opponent blundered super hard into one I could see it, but I wasnt able to pressure my opponent in a way that created tactics because I wasnt recognizing the signs. Anyway, not that this is the only book or course that did it, but I got the book Chess Tactics from Scratch and instead of just showing a few puzzles or interesting patterns, it showed how the tactics developed. This, and actually your video about the French and some of the resulting tactics from that opening have been a massive help, I would attribute the switch flipping to this more than anything, and now I feel like Im just seeing tactics EVERYWHERE now in my games. I have done so, so many tactics puzzles and the thing that helped me see them in my games was simply... starting earlier. Dunno I feel like this is a big oversight in adult chess improvement; the failure to link piece activity and tactical themes to the resulting pattern we need to know so instantly our hand plays the combination. JMO. Again love your videos and I hope you do many more openings videos where you show some middle games and common tactics that result from them as Ive found that super helpful in terms of helping me play tactically.
"WAIT A TICKARINO!!!!" - LMAO.. I love how descriptive, original and hilarious your speaking style is. Its not that dry boring vernacular you often hear on other channels. You are not only a great coach but a very engaging personality which helps maintain interest and focus. Another thing is while you have a fair following i believe you really should be a 100k sub's + channel so i wonder about that. I think its exposure quite frankly.
Thanks Coach! This is how GMs like Kasparov and J.Polgar (2 of my faves) in my opinion think. It looks complex, but the puzzles shown are forcing moves and therefore are simple. The fifth puzzle has happened to me sooooo much where I try to figure out how to remove a piece from a square, but don't take it to that level--> BAMN! (By any means necessary). Thanks again!
I've been working my through a lot of your videos recently and I must admit this video could well take first place in terms of its clarity and it's impact.
Amazing video! The lesson I took from this is to think about squares you want to occupy more than anything else and try to ignore opponent pieces and pawns and place yours on the squares you want (even if they are protected) and then check if the tactics works!
That second puzzle I solved quickly actually because of going through the chessable course "A Complete Guide to Calculation for Club Players". In it he talks about "Reciprocal Thinking" which is when you see there is an issue with one line, you look for ways of first solving that issue then continuing with the line that is winning. So I saw that the problem was the king getting away to a8 so I calculated any move that solved that issue and saw what'd happen. Have you seen that chessable course?
I came from about 6 years of Shogi before starting Chess in 2020, and attribute a lot of my tactical ability to the former game. Sacrifices on empty squares are a big idea in Shogi, you see it a lot at the top levels and by engines, so these are ideas I look for early in lines. Positional sacrifices are SOO powerful if you can find them.
Kinda glad your students struggled with the last puzzle. It tells me I'm not doing too bad, since it was really easy. You just had to look at the direction of ALL your pieces. ( Am I a skilled tactician? More like a blind man in his own house, after someone moved the furniture around ).
More good stuff, coach Andras! Believing doesn't seem to be my problem but this video brought to the surface a different, longstanding one. I basically got the gist of the puzzles except for the one with 1.Qd6. I paused and made an effort on two. I saw 1.Qa8 Bxa8 2.Na7# instantly, but I thought it was a forced mate and was shocked when you demonstrated 1...Kd7. I saw Rg4 very quickly but as the first move, and after a lot of unsatisfactory calculation was shocked again when 1.Nf6, which I'd seen as a potential second move, was the answer. So it it seems I have a different issue, some other kind of rigidity in thinking. Time to reflect. Thanks for another helpful video.
Once again, accurate and necessary. Do you have any suggestions for finding tactics without prompting (e.g. not in a chess puzzle, but a given move in a game)
Sometimes even before checks threats captures, you have to spend time thinking about the features of the position so you can work your way towards the solution using logic rather than guessing and checking
You have such a deep understanding of how patzers think. I believe also its also pattern recognition to a certain extent and bad calculation technique.
Great concept!!!! I think the problem of right mentality is not only in chess! Some people stuck on the job with with zero chances to survive, mainly because they dont believe in their success! As chess is part of our lives, so we take away bad things from life to chess!
Interesting concept. I approached all these puzzles from a different point of view by thinking about what i ideally want to do(e.g. I really want to play Ba3#), figuring out the enemy reply, and then trying to prevent that by any means possible. I will have to try incorporating this way of thinking into my repertoire as well.
Wow Coach this one is very good ! It's exactly me ! But now I call it C.C.T Check Capture and Threat ! And it immediately improved my game !! Thanks again !
As a 1100 - so I can't say much -, my best results playing chess often come from believing, intuitional sacrifices, and putting a materialistic mind-set aside. Had 2 brilliancies in one day and 4 in that same week playing like a maniac, for a life-time total of 5.
Most instructive 👍 I was stupid enough not to solve the second puzzle. Could there be another psychological obstruction? I did not consider to move the knight onto the square occupied by the Queen. I guess - as a mathematician - I am a non-believer. By the way, according to Stockfish Ba3 is better than Qa8. After the lesson in puzzle 2 I found Qe6 in puzzle 3 within a few seconds, but I probably would not have considered without the previous lesson - very enlightening, indeed.
How to be a tactical: 1. recycle many tactics until you find a one tactic that is works in long calculations 2. sacrife a piece that does these things: check, threats, capture, but don't sacrife a piece that does nothing of it 3. be a big beliver, despite it is seems impossible like to hang the queen but it does something which is to force mate threat
I feel that a big part of missing a winning sequence where a situation "looks" like it goes one way instead of seeing the correct combination where one piece gets captured is that: Upon mentally registering the capture, we don't FOLLOW THROUGH with the sequence. Case in point: Watching Grandmaster games, a lot of times I stop the video to guess their next move. Alot of times I'm right AND alot of times I saw the move but discounted it because of it being captured without finding out what could come next, unless it was obvious. Perhaps that could become video series....How and why sacrifices work. (Repeat to myself: It's a team effort to mate ALWAYS, when one team member goes down, what do the other teammates have to say about that? Can they take revenge? How would they move to get revenge. )
Not difficult examples once you allow yourself to look for the moves. I got stuck in half of them, but solved the rest very quickly. You have a point and this apply to variations in general and positional ideas - not only to tactics. Yesterday I played better than my opponent in the opening and got a tiny edge as black. I went on to play correctly strategically, but when the opportunity arose to get a pretty much winning advantage I rejected the correct capture because of fear: I didn't want to give him a strong outpost for his knight on c4 since I had no b- and d-pawns. Well, yes that's a big minus, but if I had allowed myself to look further I would easily had seen that I had either won a pawn and got a wonderful square for my knight on d4 or my rook would have pined his knight to his queen on the second rank. Easy stuff, but I was afraid and didn't look at the capture because of tunnel vision of his knight reaching c4. The same thing happened to me last week. My opponent's knight was on b5 pinned to his queen on e2 by my bishop on a6 and his rook was on f1. I won an exchange and a pawn and soon the game. But I had another move - a simple capture - that I didn't look at out of fear that he might escape from my pin. Had I looked it would probably not have taken me more than 20 seconds to caculate that the move won an entire piece instead of the exchange. It seems that I have fears over the board that I don't have when I make excerzises at home. Also, it feels like everything is a big important exam and I am constantly afraid of making a fool of myself and lose when I meet lower rated players. I that why I so often lose to them? I first losed to a 1591, then to a 1587 and yesterday to a 1677. When I play higher rated players I enjoy the game more and typically play much better. I am way more relaxed then. My rating as of 11-01 is 1873.
A counterpoint: these are really just simple removal-of-the-guard problems that begin with an apparent absurdity. For me, this begins with a geometric pattern recognition with a "this, but for that..." analysis that removes the "but for." ...if I am a "believer" (I think I am) then it derives from an assessment of conditions that must change. I do not merely analyze poor-looking moves; I arrive at them from after-the-fact
Great tactics lesson ! thanks. That move looks impossible, well maybe it is possible. Even in the opening there might be a few crazies lurking around. hahaha. Been on look out for crazies for a while trouble is finding them. At the chess club once I noticed a queen sac combo for 2 rooks and a unstoppable mate threat. So I played the first move and my opponent just visiting the club for the first time said before picking up my Queen "'you can take back "' I replied "'no that is my move"' . He took it and resigned after another few moves !
Having stuck to a daily lichess puzzle regimen for months, my current hurdle is dismissing the obvious combination that wins a queen in favor of the obscure mate in 3 or 4. Frustrating!
I have just studied these puzzles, listened to you...and am not the same. Thank you dear. At elo 1600, my dream is to become an IM. I believe one day....just one day....i will be like you🤗
Excellent lesson. FIrst two no problemo, easily saw it. The sack the queen and sixth puzzle ummmm, not so easy. I will work on this, I cannot see why it would not elevate anyone’s game.
I feel like going with the attitude "it blunders, so it can't be good", means someone hasn't reached the stage of the game where one sacrifices pieces for a not so obvious advantage (here: mate). I'd definitely call that a skill issue.
Your examples and argument are yet another illustration of how I think every chess player owes it to themselves to work through Emanuel Lasker's Manual of Chess. In my opinion, Lasker innovated in practical play total awareness of the entire chess board, and that is the essential idea I believe he tried to communicate about combinations and when to look for them. In Lasker's terminology, when you try an obvious decisive blow and it is impeded, the opponent's piece or pawn that prevents that blow from immediately working has been assigned a function, and therefore its apparent ability to perform another function is an illusion. Today's books refer to such ideas as overloading. Another idea Lasker sought to communicate about combinations was the idea of a desperado, one of your pieces that is impeding, and which therefore can be used to lash out unexpectedly, to offer to immolate itself for the greater good. Emanuel Lasker was a self-educated philosopher, in addition to being a mathematician and a chess and other game player. His book therefore provides what is still the best account of why something should be true about a chess position, not just what is true.
My intuition is really good and i started looking at Qa8+ first but for whatever reason abandoned it after that not seeing the bishop controls the white squares
This brings up another psychological aspect of puzzle-solving training: that (for better or worse) it tends to condition us that there is always a tactical solution (mate, won material, perpetual check when losing, etc.) to be found when a position is in front of us. Not many puzzles have "nothing exciting can be done here" as the answer. So you'd think puzzles would train us to be "believers." On the other hand, if you play a lot of games, most of the time there's not going to be a crazy combination available, so that might subconsciously discourage you from looking during a game when there likely may not be a reward, as opposed to puzzles when there always is. Fascinating things to think about.
As Andras put it "no one is there to tap on you on the shoulder and tell you there's a forced win in an actual game". And we also get distracted by so many things during a game in comparison to puzzle solving.
In my case, when I'm doing puzzles, I'm focused on locating forced wins. Because it's a puzzle. I know there's one. What I do not think about, is "how did I get here", "what was my plan", "did my plan work, or is this the result of some unexpected move", "am I even better here?", "does opponent have an attack/threat I must deal with?", ""how much time do I have left?", "is this going into the endgame?", and plethora more. And clock is ticking. I also don't have any lasting mental effects, such as being disturbed by misplayed opening, hanging pieces, not seeing a tactic early on till opponent made a move to shut it down, etc. When I'm doing puzzles, that is. I'm not tired after hour and a half of tedious maneuvering in an unfamiliar territory, or defending for an hour a "scary" position. Puzzles do not address that. Unless you do them for two hours straight, but how much will you remember from the last ones you did?
So unless all the variables are kept the same, I don't think puzzles can train us to be "believers". Too many things are too different between puzzles and actual games.
Even if one would start looking for tactics after every single move, most of the time they will fail to locate one. Because unless one got a better position with excellent coordination, there are none. At least not the medium puzzle level of "white/black to move and win". That eats away at conscience too, methinks. Failing too many times saps the energy to keep trying.
The thing about puzzles is that you know there is always a tactical solution, while in games you never know when such a situation is at hand. I think one thing we're meant to take away from puzzles is an instinctual awareness of when such tactical positions arise, but it's difficult because even though there might be similarities it's not as all tactical positions (even on the same "theme") are the same. Another thing is that many don't play games with long enough time controls to really find such tactical plays. Often discovering a tactic is simply a matter of time; time spent looking through numerous candidate moves and testing them out via calculation. With faster time controls so often it's just about avoiding major blunders and playing good-to-excellent moves, rather than finding the best move all the time or any kind of combinations.
To quote Sam Shankland: 'Even the most boring simple position has tactical elements'.
every game has hidden tactics and combinations,every game.
@@user-un-known This is more or less what I think. In an actual game, with the clock ticking, it is difficult to think as we do when training puzzles. But there is a good book about "signals" : Chess tactics Antena". I have been reading the book (almost finishing it) with a friend and we improved a lot. The author give us 7 possible signals to look at in a game, and it doesn't matter in what stage we are (opening, middle or end) to look for one of the signals.
Andras is a treasure and consistently presents some of the most compelling content, often a unique blend of chess knowledge and psychology, and this video is a 10 on both counts. Thank You!
Thanks Larry, very kind! Glad you enjoyed the video.
One of your very best lesson. It is filled with the way we can begin to see the “invisible” moves. This very much for teaching us these things.
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it!
And there is a marvelous book about Invisible Moves, by Yochanan Afek, the great composer of problems and studies.
Oh man, this lesson is amazing! Sounds like an idea from "The Art of Learning," but phrased so masterfully. Love the idea of being in the "believer" group 😁
The Qe6 one is ridiculous!
But using your idea, of playing a move that goes for mate in one, I solved the last one with Nf6 then Rg4!!
Both moves threatening mate in one, by putting pieces on squares that are not captures.
Thanks for this insightful strategy.
Qe6! Just wow! I will remember this!
I am now a believer of impossible moves!!
The problem with the second puzzle seems to me less about unwillingness to sacrifice the queen and more about board vision. Basically you need to see that moving the knight both opens the file for the rook and the diagonal for the bishop, otherwise the tactic wouldn't work at all. For someone who can't visualize, this is a very difficult thing to see.
Is it wrong to play Ba3?
Out of Checks, Captures, and Threats, Threats are the hardest to spot. Great insight here, chess puzzles rarely feature them.
What's crazy about these tactics is that they don't demand insane calculations abilities, just a bit of out-of-the-box thinking.
Great lesson.
Spot on sir!
What a Lovely , Lovely video , i was a Puzzle 1 at the start of the video , i was Rook to - > g4 Believer by the end. Took me about a good 5 & half minutes to figure it out by pausing the video. I kept thinking about what the Rook battery can achieve & then i realized keeping with the theme of the lesson , that'd actually be a futile line. So that's when i realized the Rg4 move , didn't realize the Nf6 move had to come first , i did ponder that , the g7 pawn needs to be dealt with somehow so knight at h5 would handle it. Only fo find out there was more. Love such lessons. Thank you Mr. Andras!
The pleasure is mine! Happy you liked it!
I solved all of them and their variations, no one would believe me but I squeezed my mind like a true believer especially in the fifth one ! it's not about about rating but about believing and wanting a certain motif to happen. Btw I'm under 2000. I have to also thank Charles Hertan for writing "Forcing Chess Moves" which you recommanded btw. Actually its exercices are easier than the exemples, but I always start solving the exemples before the exercices instead of just reading them. This serie of amateur's mind helped me laugh at myself in which concerns decision making based on fear, overpass some myths, push my calculation further, look for dynamic play, be flexible in planning... I'm very thankful to you Andras, also keep doing this type of instructive content !
Comment for the algorithm. I miss a ton of winning mates when I have a solid advantage. Main problem is playing too much bullet and have no time to think. In slower controls I would probably do the same thing because I’m too focused the current plan and am too materialistic. After every game I review them and then I catch the misses. Have a good week.
Yeah, you have to just trust your gut in bullet and can't possibly go through all candidate moves. We probably build a lot of bad habits by playing too much bullet! 😅
Holy shit I solved the last one. I need this to be a longer lesson. This was absolutely amazing Andras 👏
There is actually a missing piece so maybe you found THAT or maybe you found it unconsciously.
Do you know if you figure out more or just did it with belief?
Reminds me of Hans Tikkanen (The Woodpecker Method): "one conclusion I drew from my reading was that a tremendous amount of activity happens unconsciously, below conscious effortful processing, and that this should reasonably be reflected in my approach to chess." It seems like for most of us, moves like Qe6, Rg4 etc, are filtered out by our subconscious mind, and thus never get to be calculated. We need to retrain our brains (which have been conditioned by general principles, the piece relative value system etc) by doing lots of repetitive puzzles, automatic pattern recognition etc, so that these moves are more open and intuitive to us.
I invite you to read Valeri Beim's books, and incorporate one of his brilliant contributions to the theory of calculation and so-called "candidate moves". Beim came up with the concept of "resultant candidate", which implies that oftentimes a good (or the best) candidate move can only be arrived after we have "tried" other candidate lines which seem not to work. In the case of the Qe6 puzzle, for example, Beim would say that you can arrive at Qe6 after "seeing" first, and then discarding, the Ba3 or Qa3 lines, when d6 by Black simply blocks the mate. So the Qe6 idea (distracting the Black d-pawn from the d6-square comes to mind. Since Qe6 also includes a mate-in-one threat, it is doubly powerful. In the end, we can arrive at Qe6 after checking the combined work of all the pieces in the attack, checking what and how many squares they take away from the King, and then combining harmoniously their roles -- regardless of their material value.
Great video. One thing that's really helped me is remembering to see moves THROUGH pieces. That second puzzle is a good example. While I'm sure that there is indeed a psychological block for some against losing material on open squares, it's also hard for many (myself included) to see that the a4 Bishop is controlling the black king's d7 escape square through the knight, and the b1 Rook is controlling the b file through the same knight and black bishop. If the b5 knight and B7 bishop weren't there, white would have all of the black king's escape squares covered and just have to deliver a check. So if you start from there and then ask yourself "is there a way to move these pieces so that I can control all the escape squares and then deliver check mate?" I think it becomes much easier to see the queen sacrifice. This "seeing through pieces" is something we're supposed to learn from pins/skewers, discovered attacks, etc., but for some reason it can be harder to recognize when we're talking about those pieces just covering escape squares.
Coach Andras: *trying eloquently explain mental blocks in tactical thinking.*
Me, a Poet: "and then I saw checkMATE... now I'm a BELIEVER!!! And not a trace.. of doubt in my mind!"
Awesome man, glad you have been converted!
A friend of mine got into that kind of "impossible move" and the next thing ya know a book came out on that very subject.
After taking CM Chua’s course, I think it also has to do with the fact that the CCT approach skips some of the foundational tactics. If you first identify all x-rays, vulnerable pieces (hanging, unprotected, semi-protected), interference, deflection, decoy opportunities, forking squares, potential for skewers and pins …… THEN look at checks and mate threats, you’re able to see real opportunities that you might have dismissed had you just looked at checks first.
Case in point on the first example with Qa8+ … if you saw the rook x-raying the b-file and the bishop x-raying the king’s escape square, you’d see a trapped king. You might even see Na7# if the queen and bishop weren’t there, which makes you think about deflection opportunities. That’s all caught with a methodical approach evaluating the position through the filter of those tactical themes BEFORE you start looking at checks and mate threats and calculating your candidate moves.
This is not a fast approach, but it is thorough. And speed will come with practice.
This is brilliant. I'm impressed by all your videos, Andras, but this one blew my mind. Thank you for highlighting the need for creative thinking in chess. This fundamentally changed how I look at the game.
Glad you liked it!
Looking now at the mindset regarding 'empty, outrageous squares', l now am solid chess believer! Thanks so much Andras!
In the second puzzle, the obvious queen moves don't work because of the enemy queen and rook. So the bishop move attacking them both, trying to draw the queen away, was easier to find than the queen move.
THIS!
This is the lesson of the year.
Thank you.
Where can I find puzzles that focus on solutions like these to practice “Find the Threat”?
There are plenty of the normal sac-sac-mate puzzles….
But puzzles that require us to be Believers… using a Threat to move the opponent’s pieces… wow.
I need to practice this.
Hey, thanks for the kind words! I prefer for this type of exercise full games rather than puzzles. Hellsten's opening strategy is a good starting point!
@@ChessCoachAndras Thanks Coach!
Incredible video!
I think another issue with adult improvers is not only sacrificing on empty squares but also Piling up (with more attackers than defenders) on empty squares.
Even if it's fairly obvious, like a Back rank theme, if there is high amounts of tension in other places on the board and pieces with big scope move around the board, it's so easy to limit yourself to calculate "future moves" that attack "something" rather than an empty square. I missed an empty square tactic OTB recently, and now when solving a puzzle I tunnel visioned on the 7th rank when there was an obvious 8th rank weakness to be targetted by 3 pieces, but it was empty (!), and there were pieces and pawns that looked more attractive to attack (everything except attacking the empty square loses the advantage of course) so I successfuly solved the puzzle but without actually seeing the follow up (targeting the 8th rank empty square weakness with 3 pieces). So in essence it's a failed puzzle!
These are great tools to have presented in this video! Mate in 1 threat is to be categorized as a "must calculate" and just as much forcing as some obvious sacrifice. Also believing and being curious about chess during the game and not dismissing moves because they look crazy
Wooow!! Incredible lesson! You're a very good teacher. Thank you so much and greetings from Mexico
Thanks man and welcome to the channel!
very instructive and valuable idea. Nice to see such rare tressures are given for free. a lot of thanks for that.
Glad you liked it!
I've noticed a substantial improvement in the quality of your videos Andras. Fantastic work.
Thanks , it is a result of a conscious effort and a lot more time invested into presentation
@@ChessCoachAndras Perhaps I should also have mentioned that I've always thought the content was absolutely top-notch, and when I said "quality", I was mainly referring to the presentation. It's clearly the result of a lot of conscious effort on your part. Big respect from me!
@@wreynolds1995 Thanks, I knew what you meant and I am glad the difference is noticeable!
The believers in Caissa ;) Very intuitive guess about adult mentality.
But honestly, I don't think it is really a matter of believing. Empty squares seem difficult to consider because:
1 - you are too much trying to make work a mating motif that will not to allow your brain to try another one...you have to go backwards and kinda "mourn" quickly what you really thought would work.
2 - your right about the fact that empty squares seem strange to conquer because...it does not seem you are conquering anything
You definitely got a point about: capture, check....and threat to consider. Never forget the last option.
By the way, I did not find the Qf6 but solved the last position!
When Andras! Just tell us when are you going to take students again :) Isn;t there a coach that you can advise that have the same school of thought?!!!
Great video! I solved every single one of these puzzles but only after I was forced to think "creatively". Unfortunately, if I were to have these in a game, I'd be too reluctant/ underconfident to be a believer.
Great video. I’m a non-believer, but I’m trying to become a believer.
hey Andras, great video as always. not exactly what I expected though. fair warning this is a bit of a wall of text. anyway I agree this is a big hangup for adults. But Id like to offer if not an alternative something that has helped me play a lot more tactically in my own games, a relatively recent transformation. For context, Ive started playing chess as a >30 y.o. adult. For a long time I was doing (and still do do) tactics puzzles like a madman; in fact I sometimes feel like I prefer doing puzzles to actually playing. But it really wasnt showing up in my games, and I was sort of convincing myself "well maybe I just need to rely on my positional play to compensate" because I felt like tactics weren't "showing up in my games" (I know, I know). And I know many 'serious' adult improvers either fall into the 'only tactics' or 'openings courses' study and I was definitely the first category. Anyway, what I think was missing for me was is that the combinations are super important, but they are NOT the atomic unit of a tactic. The atomic unit are the tactical elements and I simply wasnt seeing them; if my opponent blundered super hard into one I could see it, but I wasnt able to pressure my opponent in a way that created tactics because I wasnt recognizing the signs. Anyway, not that this is the only book or course that did it, but I got the book Chess Tactics from Scratch and instead of just showing a few puzzles or interesting patterns, it showed how the tactics developed. This, and actually your video about the French and some of the resulting tactics from that opening have been a massive help, I would attribute the switch flipping to this more than anything, and now I feel like Im just seeing tactics EVERYWHERE now in my games. I have done so, so many tactics puzzles and the thing that helped me see them in my games was simply... starting earlier. Dunno I feel like this is a big oversight in adult chess improvement; the failure to link piece activity and tactical themes to the resulting pattern we need to know so instantly our hand plays the combination. JMO. Again love your videos and I hope you do many more openings videos where you show some middle games and common tactics that result from them as Ive found that super helpful in terms of helping me play tactically.
Thanks for your valuable insights!
wonderful video Andras. You're making me a believer.
Welcome onboard amongst the believers!
"WAIT A TICKARINO!!!!" - LMAO.. I love how descriptive, original and hilarious your speaking style is. Its not that dry boring vernacular you often hear on other channels.
You are not only a great coach but a very engaging personality which helps maintain interest and focus. Another thing is while you have a fair following i believe you really should be a 100k sub's + channel so i wonder about that. I think its exposure quite frankly.
Thanks Coach! This is how GMs like Kasparov and J.Polgar (2 of my faves) in my opinion think. It looks complex, but the puzzles shown are forcing moves and therefore are simple. The fifth puzzle has happened to me sooooo much where I try to figure out how to remove a piece from a square, but don't take it to that level--> BAMN! (By any means necessary). Thanks again!
My pleasure!
I've been working my through a lot of your videos recently and I must admit this video could well take first place in terms of its clarity and it's impact.
Amazing video! The lesson I took from this is to think about squares you want to occupy more than anything else and try to ignore opponent pieces and pawns and place yours on the squares you want (even if they are protected) and then check if the tactics works!
That second puzzle I solved quickly actually because of going through the chessable course "A Complete Guide to Calculation for Club Players". In it he talks about "Reciprocal Thinking" which is when you see there is an issue with one line, you look for ways of first solving that issue then continuing with the line that is winning. So I saw that the problem was the king getting away to a8 so I calculated any move that solved that issue and saw what'd happen. Have you seen that chessable course?
The secret to becoming a great chess tactician is to watch youtube videos on how to become a great chess tactician 😁 Great video, very inspiring!
I came from about 6 years of Shogi before starting Chess in 2020, and attribute a lot of my tactical ability to the former game. Sacrifices on empty squares are a big idea in Shogi, you see it a lot at the top levels and by engines, so these are ideas I look for early in lines. Positional sacrifices are SOO powerful if you can find them.
I did not see the move in the 3rd puzzle though, definitely instructive!
Great video Andras, a good player should definitely check mate threats after checking CCT.
Thanks for making and sharing this video. Your insights and advice are top-tier and I eagerly await every new video you post.
Thanks Micah!
you are now my chess idol and i wanna play like you !
Kinda glad your students struggled with the last puzzle. It tells me I'm not doing too bad, since it was really easy. You just had to look at the direction of ALL your pieces. ( Am I a skilled tactician? More like a blind man in his own house, after someone moved the furniture around ).
More good stuff, coach Andras! Believing doesn't seem to be my problem but this video brought to the surface a different, longstanding one.
I basically got the gist of the puzzles except for the one with 1.Qd6. I paused and made an effort on two. I saw 1.Qa8 Bxa8 2.Na7# instantly, but I thought it was a forced mate and was shocked when you demonstrated 1...Kd7. I saw Rg4 very quickly but as the first move, and after a lot of unsatisfactory calculation was shocked again when 1.Nf6, which I'd seen as a potential second move, was the answer. So it it seems I have a different issue, some other kind of rigidity in thinking. Time to reflect.
Thanks for another helpful video.
My pleasure, glad you enjoyed it!
Great video. The idea of the last one is mate with the 2 Bishops, but we must be aware of that possibity.
Instructive and motivational. This guy was born to teach. Awesome video
Once again, accurate and necessary. Do you have any suggestions for finding tactics without prompting (e.g. not in a chess puzzle, but a given move in a game)
well put, thanks! gonna go look for the crazies :)
Sometimes even before checks threats captures, you have to spend time thinking about the features of the position so you can work your way towards the solution using logic rather than guessing and checking
Another great lesson. Thank you Andras
Glad you liked it!
You have such a deep understanding of how patzers think. I believe also its also pattern recognition to a certain extent and bad calculation technique.
Really loved this. Subscribed and going to watch lots more of your stuff
Welcome onboard!
amazing puzzles! i really enjoyed your psychological analysis, well done!
Thank you very much!
Wow!, your tips is very effective to me especially solving puzzles. Thanks a lot, Coach!
My pleasure! Enjoy the channel!
As GM Irina Krush usually says, it's not enough to look for checks, captures and threats, you have to look for beauty
Great concept!!!!
I think the problem of right mentality is not only in chess!
Some people stuck on the job with with zero chances to survive, mainly because they dont believe in their success!
As chess is part of our lives, so we take away bad things from life to chess!
Love this one. Great stuff.
I solved the sixth puzzle and it really felt nice ..thank you Andreas you are one of a kind!
Thanks for the kinds words, enjoy the channel!
I'm just not finding about your channel. Love this video and believe I can put this into practice. Thanks so much!!
Interesting concept. I approached all these puzzles from a different point of view by thinking about what i ideally want to do(e.g. I really want to play Ba3#), figuring out the enemy reply, and then trying to prevent that by any means possible. I will have to try incorporating this way of thinking into my repertoire as well.
Whatever works!:)
Beautiful lecture by my favorite teacher
Thanks for the kind words! Glad you are enjoying the videos!
Wow Coach this one is very good ! It's exactly me ! But now I call it C.C.T Check Capture and Threat ! And it immediately improved my game !! Thanks again !
Me after watching every video of you: "men this must be the best chess video I've seen so far"
Glad to hear!
As a 1100 - so I can't say much -, my best results playing chess often come from believing, intuitional sacrifices, and putting a materialistic mind-set aside. Had 2 brilliancies in one day and 4 in that same week playing like a maniac, for a life-time total of 5.
What happen to the chicos and chicas
7:00 A8 is not a forced win since the king can escape without taking the queen.
It is a forced win, Don't mistake forced win and a forced mate. Qa8 wins.
Brilliant observation re sacrifices on an open square!!
coach...as always.. excellent...."believe" in taking one more step, one more calculated risk..
Believe, indeed!
this was legendary. One of my favorite videos
liked and subscribed. glad i found your channel. great job.
Welcome onboard!
Most instructive 👍 I was stupid enough not to solve the second puzzle. Could there be another psychological obstruction? I did not consider to move the knight onto the square occupied by the Queen. I guess - as a mathematician - I am a non-believer.
By the way, according to Stockfish Ba3 is better than Qa8.
After the lesson in puzzle 2 I found Qe6 in puzzle 3 within a few seconds, but I probably would not have considered without the previous lesson - very enlightening, indeed.
Glad you like it. Indeed puzzle two had flaws but It models the idea very well.
Awesome lesson with awesome examples! Thx Andras! 😌🙏
How to be a tactical:
1. recycle many tactics until you find a one tactic that is works in long calculations
2. sacrife a piece that does these things: check, threats, capture, but don't sacrife a piece that does nothing of it
3. be a big beliver, despite it is seems impossible like to hang the queen but it does something which is to force mate threat
Thank you for this lesson! I'm exactly the person you described. I have a feeling that this will improve my thought process greatly.
Glad it was helpful!
Thank you so much
I feel that a big part of missing a winning sequence where a situation "looks" like it goes one way instead of seeing the correct combination where one piece gets captured is that: Upon mentally registering the capture, we don't FOLLOW THROUGH with the sequence. Case in point: Watching Grandmaster games, a lot of times I stop the video to guess their next move. Alot of times I'm right AND alot of times I saw the move but discounted it because of it being captured without finding out what could come next, unless it was obvious. Perhaps that could become video series....How and why sacrifices work.
(Repeat to myself: It's a team effort to mate ALWAYS, when one team member goes down, what do the other teammates have to say about that? Can they take revenge? How would they move to get revenge. )
Great vid and thoughts Andras! And some very nice tactics indeed.
Not difficult examples once you allow yourself to look for the moves. I got stuck in half of them, but solved the rest very quickly.
You have a point and this apply to variations in general and positional ideas - not only to tactics. Yesterday I played better than my opponent in the opening and got a tiny edge as black. I went on to play correctly strategically, but when the opportunity arose to get a pretty much winning advantage I rejected the correct capture because of fear: I didn't want to give him a strong outpost for his knight on c4 since I had no b- and d-pawns. Well, yes that's a big minus, but if I had allowed myself to look further I would easily had seen that I had either won a pawn and got a wonderful square for my knight on d4 or my rook would have pined his knight to his queen on the second rank. Easy stuff, but I was afraid and didn't look at the capture because of tunnel vision of his knight reaching c4.
The same thing happened to me last week. My opponent's knight was on b5 pinned to his queen on e2 by my bishop on a6 and his rook was on f1. I won an exchange and a pawn and soon the game. But I had another move - a simple capture - that I didn't look at out of fear that he might escape from my pin. Had I looked it would probably not have taken me more than 20 seconds to caculate that the move won an entire piece instead of the exchange.
It seems that I have fears over the board that I don't have when I make excerzises at home. Also, it feels like everything is a big important exam and I am constantly afraid of making a fool of myself and lose when I meet lower rated players. I that why I so often lose to them? I first losed to a 1591, then to a 1587 and yesterday to a 1677. When I play higher rated players I enjoy the game more and typically play much better. I am way more relaxed then. My rating as of 11-01 is 1873.
A counterpoint: these are really just simple removal-of-the-guard problems that begin with an apparent absurdity. For me, this begins with a geometric pattern recognition with a "this, but for that..." analysis that removes the "but for."
...if I am a "believer" (I think I am) then it derives from an assessment of conditions that must change. I do not merely analyze poor-looking moves; I arrive at them from after-the-fact
Youre a very very good teacher!! Better than many GMs (although most of them are pretty good too, of course!)
Thanks a ton! Enjoy the channel!
Great tactics lesson ! thanks. That move looks impossible, well maybe it is possible. Even in the opening there might be a few crazies lurking around. hahaha. Been on look out for crazies for a while trouble is finding them. At the chess club once I noticed a queen sac combo for 2 rooks and a unstoppable mate threat. So I played the first move and my opponent just visiting the club for the first time said before picking up my Queen "'you can take back "' I replied "'no that is my move"' . He took it and resigned after another few moves !
Great story! Glad to have you on the believers side!
2rooks for a queen is not a queen sac but anyways I have not seen the game.
I think it helps to identify or look for potential tactics before they are available.
Pay attention to what this fellow has to say and you will improve quickly. Best chess teacher I know of.
Some amazing insight here. Love the passion.
Having stuck to a daily lichess puzzle regimen for months, my current hurdle is dismissing the obvious combination that wins a queen in favor of the obscure mate in 3 or 4. Frustrating!
funny, in the sixth puzzle I found rook G4 immediately, and only after Kf6, my problem is often order.. great content as always Andras!
I have just studied these puzzles, listened to you...and am not the same. Thank you dear. At elo 1600, my dream is to become an IM. I believe one day....just one day....i will be like you🤗
That's the coach I would like to study with. Super stuff 👌🏻👏🏻
I like how some chess videos are sometimes just about my psycho and its actually changing my life possibly haha
Excellent lesson. FIrst two no problemo, easily saw it. The sack the queen and sixth puzzle ummmm, not so easy. I will work on this, I cannot see why it would not elevate anyone’s game.
I feel like going with the attitude "it blunders, so it can't be good", means someone hasn't reached the stage of the game where one sacrifices pieces for a not so obvious advantage (here: mate). I'd definitely call that a skill issue.
Talking of how you see the moves is the most difficult thing 😅😅
Your examples and argument are yet another illustration of how I think every chess player owes it to themselves to work through Emanuel Lasker's Manual of Chess. In my opinion, Lasker innovated in practical play total awareness of the entire chess board, and that is the essential idea I believe he tried to communicate about combinations and when to look for them. In Lasker's terminology, when you try an obvious decisive blow and it is impeded, the opponent's piece or pawn that prevents that blow from immediately working has been assigned a function, and therefore its apparent ability to perform another function is an illusion. Today's books refer to such ideas as overloading. Another idea Lasker sought to communicate about combinations was the idea of a desperado, one of your pieces that is impeding, and which therefore can be used to lash out unexpectedly, to offer to immolate itself for the greater good. Emanuel Lasker was a self-educated philosopher, in addition to being a mathematician and a chess and other game player. His book therefore provides what is still the best account of why something should be true about a chess position, not just what is true.
Yes, I am definitely guilty of this. I still discard moves from the start because the piece can be taken
9:03 lol that looks funny i did like see that this might be something but didnt stop at that there are also too many moves to consider
Dope, keep this amazing work please!!
I think One of the chess teacher around , thanks for the videos and valuable advice 😊
Don't reject a line just by appearance. Calculate!
This content is a blessing. Love the theory and other perspectives to this game.
My intuition is really good and i started looking at Qa8+ first but for whatever reason abandoned it after that not seeing the bishop controls the white squares
I am 75 and improving. Really appreciate your lectures.
@@althompson3085 Thanks! glad to have you on board! Believe it or not , I have 3 students around your age , and it’s jolly fun to see them improve !
@ChessCoachAndras ~Glad you are having fun coaching them.