Kingscrusher's Chess Tactics Training - Volume 1
What you'll learn
- Be able to fit in tactical training in your schedule. Lectures are usually relatively small but add insight a little bit at a time
- Be able to find chess tactics and combinations without a clue of the specific tactical method to help simulate uncertainty in real chess games
- Be able to practice visualisation and calculation skills especially on the "play and mate" - like Beth Harmon in the Queen's Gambit Netflix series looking up and calculating variations!
- Be able to see the philosophy behind tactical combinations to apply to a wider range of positions
- Be able to find the most effective solutions for key positions in a variety of different pawn structures
- Be able to train from the core foundation course of Kingscrusher the tactical methods recommended
- Be able to understand the solutions through Kingscrusher's annotations and general insights
- Be able to take takeaway points from each puzzle to apply to a wider range of positions
- Be able to appreciate "pawn programming" concept in many examples - pawns don't go backwards - and captures count towards this aspect!
- Be able to appreciate "Super-limiting" as proof of "Super-forcing" and work that way around for finding truly forcing moves
- Be able to often search the underlying game to see how the positions arose and which openings used
- Be able to learn from relatively short instructive and fun "challenge lectures" where you are encouraged to work out the solution as much as possible in advance thus heling also your visualisation skills for looking ahead
- Be able to practice core skills including Visualisation, Calculation and Evaluation
- Be able to see the real beauty of tactics and combinations
- Be able to visualise clearer and clearer if you really try hard to visualise especially the "Play and mates" fully from the earliest challenges. By the end of the course your mental chess board clarity will be much stronger and clearer
- Be able to practice Magnus Carlsen's Evaluation tip with the "Play and wins" - ensuring your final position visualised is steady for playing from
- Be able to practice tactics that involve exploiting pins
- Be able to practice tactics that involve decoys and deflections
- Be able to practice tactics that involve back row mate related issues
- Be able to practice tactics than win material
- Be able to practice a variety of mate in x puzzles ranging in difficulty from relatively easy to relatively hard for most club players
- Be able to practics tactics that involve X-ray attacks
- Be able to practics tactics that involve creating mating nets
- Be able to practice tactics that involve quiet key preparatory moves
- Be able to practice tactics that involve exploiting loose pieces
- Be able to practice tacts that involve exploiting a number of potential downsides of opponent's position
Requirements
- Knows the basics of playing Chess
- Ideally student would have studied the Kingscrusher tactics primer course "The complete guide to Chess tactics"
Description
Structure of the course
Kingscrusher presents hundreds of challenges in these tactics Bootcamp to help sharpen your tactical skills and help you find winning tactics and combinations in your real games when you play them with the clock pressures. The Bootcamp features two major sections - play to mate or play to win. Play to win maybe winning a piece in some cases but also does not exclude the possibility of mating the opponent. The first 100 of each section are relatively easier in general than the rest of the section to help you get some confidence and reassurance before getting into the really tough positions.
No pain no gain!
In this Bootcamp, it is advised to spend as much time as you can to really exercise your visualisation, calculation, and evaluation skills with the view of maximum accuracy as a priority.
Revisit as required!
Later when revisiting the exercises you can try and speed up your ability to find the solutions but try and maintain accuracy. Additionally, one should try and get as many valuable philosophical points and takeaways from each exercise as possible to give a better sense of intuition and direction when playing one's own chess games later.
Core chess skills trained
Visualisation
Calculation
Evaluation
It should also be noted that a cynical and brutal winning perspective should be employed when using these skills in real games when there is pressure against the clock. For example, playing practical moves is often a requirement in real games until one really senses there is something there and then it becomes more justified to find a winning combination.
Who this course is for:
- Chess beginner and intermediate players
Course content
- Preview05:37
- Preview04:25
- Preview05:21
- 04:31Woodpecker training method for this course
- 03:15What is "spaced repetition"?
- 05:38Why is this course structured by difficulty and objectives?
- 08:26Skills: "visualisation" "calculation" "Evaluation" "Cynical winning perspective"
- 05:44On the "play and mates" - push your visualisation to its limits like Beth Harmon
- 04:52Look up the game references - can appreciate more context of position
- 03:56Play and win may sometimes in fact be a forced mate - uncertainty of real games
- 04:59Why I like congratulating you on these - don't be intimidated online etc
- 09:48In real games a lot of the challenge is knowing if tactic is present
- 07:11Magnus Carlsen's - evaluate final positions- max cynical of to win
- 04:48Final position eval - at least opponent killer common squares vs you having them
- 06:18Final position is like the contract you will have to live by after
- 09:13Don't cooperate opponent - stretch resourcefulness and visualisation skills
- 05:39Don't cooperate especially on mates - stretch visualisation
- 08:10Enjoyment vs torture and Chess legal stuff
- 08:58Create most difficult virtual opponents - push your visualisation harder
- 07:05Play longer time controls to encourage greater accuracy
- 10:20Subtle preparatory or quiet moves often missed in fast time controls
- 13:37"No pain - No gain" (as long as no permanent damage!)
- 09:33Kasparov once said he spent maximum clock time in his early games
- 05:55What happens when you change move orders - why it can work?
- 08:28Why sleepless nights analysing might improve visualisation
- 05:34Be like Columbo - chase up and tie up loose ends - checks/ m in 1s
- 06:19General Advice Epithany : Giving the Queen special superpowers!
- 06:07General Advice Epithany: Really come hard on relative pinner pieces!