There are three major skills in chess. If we possess one of the three we can play chess. If we possess two of the three we can play chess well. If we possess all three, to a high degree, we will become expert at the game. These, like all other skills, are honed with practice or ‘calisthenics’. Let’s look at each of the three, briefly.

First is memory. Playing mental games often hones memory, but few of us will use more than a tenth of this ability in our lifetime. In chess, the openings require memory. What is important is not memorizing the moves, but in memorizing the position arrived at by the moves. Let’s look at an example: A few months ago one of my students wrote and told me that he wanted to play the Semi-slave with Black; but his opponents were taking him out of the opening. He pointed to a game where the moves were: 1. d4 d5, 2. Nf3. He was looking for the move 2. c4, to which he would have responded 2. … e6. Because he was looking at the moves and not at the positions, he could be shunted aside by an unexpected move.

I wrote back, explaining that the ‘starting’ position of the Semi-slav could be arrived at by NINE DIFFERENT PATHS! In other words, if he had looked forward to the position, and not looked at the moves, he could have arrived at the desired position without distraction. Try it yourself. Here are the moves that lead to the desired position:
1.d4 d5, 2. c4 e6, 3. Nc3 c6, 4Nf3 Nf6.
There are eight other move orders that will reach this position. Can you find them? The key move is the timing of White’s Nf3. On that move, black must play Nf6. The sequence can be picked up after Nf6.
Here is that position:

Set up the desired position, then when you see an opponent move “out of order”, you can visualize the desired position rather than memorizing a series of moves.p

The only way to excel at end-games is to memorize the position. The same endgame can occur from a multitude of openings! Memorizing moves is almost useless. Even in the simplest endings, errors are made because one of the players does not recognize the position. Here is the most basic example:

With white to move, he must simply keep the opposition with 1. Kc3. Then, if 1. … kb4, 2. Kb3, kc4, Ka4. The position desired is:

If we simply can picture the end in our memory, the moves are simple. Here are the rules of the moves: a) The white king must control the square directly in front of the pawn, so that the black king cannot control it. b) The first move of the pawn can be to the third rank or the fourth rank, depending on favorable opposition. Just play it through a few times, and you will see the pattern and know the winning and losing positions when they appear on the board. Black can prevent the pawn from queening if he attains vertical opposition at the instant that white’s king is on the square in front of the pawn. The black king then may simply stay in front of either the king or the pawn and the pawn cannot queen.

Use your memory to memorize the board, not the moves. Your game can improve dramatically. Let’s look at a variation of the Noah’s Ark in the Spanish Game:

White has just captured the pawn: Nxd4. It is Black’s move.
The winning move is simply 1. … Nxd4, 2. Qxd4, 2. Pc5, followed by Pc4 winning the bishop. If White had simply committed the Noah’s Ark to his memory, he would have played differently. It is not the moves, it is the position that must be known.

Next is Reason and Logic: This is the ability to solve puzzles, to calculate a series of moves, to determine what the opponent has in mind. It is a vital part of the game. A world champion once said that the opening required reason and logic, but the middle game required observation. Picture a game in which you have a rook and your opponent has two knights and a bishop. Reasoning will tell you that you have a draw if you simply exchange the rook for the bishop. Two knights cannot mate and the game is a draw. Now you must see the way to make the exchange. If your opponent interposes the bishop to block check, you have your draw. If your opponent allows a skewer, where the bishop is behind the king on the same rank or file on which you can check, the king must move, and you exchange for the bishop or simply take the bishop. You can decide whether you want an open game or a closed game by your choice of opening, the choice depends on your reasoning. You can decide whether to accept or decline a gambit; that’s logic and reasoning. Here is a little example of logic to gain a win:

Use logic and your power of reasoning: White to move. Which is the better move for white, 1. Rg6, or 1. Ng6?

The third ability is perception through observation. I believe that improving observation is the quickest way to improve the player’s game. Opponents often tell me: “I missed your move.” When a blunder occurs, is it because of some reason other than failure to see it? Do youyou’re your own blunders before you make them? I watch players depend on mistakes by their opponents, at the same time that the opponent is depending on a mistake by his opponent! That may work up until elo 1700, but after that the game of He Who Depends On Blunders is compromised. With good perception, you can see the potentials and possibilities being missed by your opponent! You can see what is normally overlooked! You can relate the normally unrelated.

The difficulty is that the eyes of the beginning player are not tuned to the board, they are tuned to the piece. He moves pieces; he should be using the move to improve the board in his favor. To do that he needs to see the board, not the piece. Unfortunately, when we study chess we do so from game scores rather than from pictures of the board. Thus, Be4 draws our eyes to the bishop. Our eyes should be drawn to e4! When a young player’s hand hovers over a piece, I know he has not yet seen the board. Many years ago I removed blunders from my game by following four simple steps: After my opponent moves, I ask myself:
1.What lines on the board just opened as a result of that move? How does this affect the position?.
2.What lines on the board have closed as a result of that move?. How does this affect the position?
3.What squares is that piece now aimed at that were not aimed at by the piece prior to the move? How does this affect the position?
4.What squares have been released by that move? How does that affect the position.
Students resist this discipline. They believe that they already see everything. They also believe that it takes too much time during the game. I usually try to teach it during analysis.

The fact is that it only takes time when you first start doing it. Any new behavior takes time. As a player does this, the time required speeds up! I have no difficulty performing this on every move and still make time controls. At first, I needed more time. I believe that blitz chess requires good memory, sound reasoning, and thorough observation. I cannot do it in blitz chess, so I do not play blitz. I do not want to build a habit that will hurt my normal games.

How often does a player go wrong intuitively? Things are not always what they seem. Here is a sample of observation by a great master. The game is Taimanov-Kusminich, 1950.

White to move. If you are distracted by the pieces, you can miss the squares, files, and diagonals! Watch as open lines magically appear!
Here is the game from this point:
1. N-g6 N-h7, 2. Rxe6 Pxe6, 3. Qxd8+ QxQ, 4. Bxe6++
Did you visualize this mating position? At each move, did you see the changes to the board?

Train yourself to become an observer, not just a spectator. It is worth the effort if you intend to increase your elo. It is the thing that can break a plateau, a ceiling, that a chessplayer has reached.

Alfred J. Wood

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