Chess Strategy Guide | Think, Plan and Win in Chess

Name: Chess Strategy Guide | Think, Plan and Win in Chess
Rating: 4.0 (27 reviews)

Learn the most essential rules for chess learning, chess thought process, chess decision-making and success in chess

Created byIgor Smirnov

Last updated 12/2021

English

What you'll learn

Get clarity on how to play chess
Systematize your existing chess knowledge, so that you can use your full chess potential
Train the right system of thinking

Course content

4 sections • 14 lectures • 2h 26m total length

Introduction0:48
You are about to watch a recording of GM Smirnov’s live seminars that took part in India, in October 2015.

You’ll notice that some fragments of the recording were cut off. Rest assured you are not missing anything though. For your convenience, we cut off the translation of my English speech into a local Indian language.
Time to win - How to use your time effectively?13:38
If you are playing a game too quickly, there is a chance of overlooking your opponent's moves. If you take a more serious approach, you may think for a long time and get good moves, but at the end you will have little time left.

Proper time management is an essential skill for every serious chess player. In this part of the lecture, we talk about time handling at various stages of chess. We also discuss the topics below:

1. How to warm-up before starting a game?

Yes, you have read it right. Just like physical exercise, you need to warm up before starting your game.

2. How to plan your time?

It is common to see players waste most of their time in the early stages like the opening, only to end up in time trouble for the rest of the game. Here we learn an overall approach on how to plan your time for the whole game.
Time to win - How to use your time effectively? Continued10:50
In the second part of this seminar, we talk more about planning your time and also the following topics:

1. How to choose safe moves?

2. How to use your time to plan more effective moves?

3. How to control your time?

4. The MUST DO for EVERY move during your games

And much more
Time to win - Summary (Downloadable)8:00

The Right Thinking - Discover right way of thinking in Chess17:51
You may know a lot of chess rules, tactical motifs, strategic concepts, openings, etc. However, in a real game you need to make a move within a few minutes (sometimes in a few seconds). Hence, in order to play well, you need to have a crystal-clear structure for all your chess knowledge. Also, you need to develop the right algorithm of thinking while playing a chess game.

In this lecture, we analyze some chess examples and see how to think in order to find the right move in any position.

Why it is not good to think about only your own position?

What to think about after your opponent makes a move?

How to play more quickly?

Which moves are worth calculation and which aren't?

How to make sure that your move is safe?

Anti-blunder check
The Right Thinking - Discover right way of thinking in Chess continued16:32
In the second part of the Chennai seminar, we discuss the following topics:

1. What should you do when your opponent is thinking?

2. What kind of generalities should you consider while your opponent is thinking?

3. What are good and bad pieces?

4. How to secure your position?

GM Smirnov also provides answers to these questions from students:

1. Is the knight more powerful than the bishop?

2. What might be the gap between computer games and practical games?
3. How can I improve my thinking process, rather than relying only on intuition?
The Right Thinking - Summary (Downloadable)5:00

Smirnov Gambit - Finish a game, even before it was started!10:55
We call this part of the lecture the “Smirnov Gambit”. It has helped many of our students win against opponents but still remain unknown.
In this lecture, you learn a very interesting opening line which most chess players are not aware of.
Smirnov Gambit - Black replies with 4...e611:54
Part 2 of the Smirnov Gambit analyzes the opening line more deeply. Although a few moves seem to be complex, remember that they are complex for your opponent, too. But once you have finished watching this lesson, you will know what to do. GM Smirnov also explains:

1. How to protect your pieces while you play gambit lines?
2. How to counter attack?
Smirnov Gambit - Black replies with 4...g617:15
Part 3 of the Smirnov Gambit analyzes the variation “4.g6”. We also discuss:

1. The interesting and complex line d5

2. Developing your bishop

3. Preparing for a sudden attack
4. Building your pieces
Smirnov Gambit Detailed Theory (Downloadable)0:22

The Art of Planning - Basic of Planning Explained9:12
‘Planning’ sounds like something complex, but in fact it simply answers the question “What should you be doing in a given position?“.

Without a clear understanding of your plan, you may easily go along the wrong path. You’ll have to analyze and calculate a lot of moves, trying to figure out the best one. Without a clear guideline, it’s a really hard task, though.

In this seminar, we’ll analyze the right plans you should follow. We’ll go through all the stages of a game – opening, middlegame, endgame – and you’ll obtain detailed guidance for every moment of your game.

In this lecture, you will learn the following opening plans:

1.How to develop your pieces?

2.How to Castle?

3.How to connect the rooks

And more..
The Art of Planning - Simplify your Planning Process13:30
In this second lecture of the Seminar 'The Art of Planning', we will discuss about the following Middle game and Endgame plan.

1.How to attack in Middlegame?

2.Attacking opponent's king and weaknesses

3.How to promote your pawn?

4.How to capture opponents pawn?

And more..
The Art of Planning - Conclusion and Summary11:11
It's time for questions. In this lecture I have answered many of the student's questions about the topics that we discussed in the seminar.

1.How to make your army stronger?

2.Finding which plan to implement at which stage of the game.

3.How to track your opponents plan?

And more..

Requirements

Chess board/software might be required to practice some variations

Description

Imagine you have come to a shop to purchase a mobile phone. The shopkeeper gives you a phone with 10 books on how it works and how to use it.

The same process is followed in chess learning. There’s a huge difference between knowledge and skill. For example, you can read thousands of books about martial arts, but it doesn’t mean that you’ll become a great fighter. Apart from information, you need to train and acquire necessary practical skills. This is true just as much for chess.

That is why, in these seminars, GM Smirnov provides you with a very small user’s manual that has several items you can follow, one by one, to understand chess clearly.

Course Content:

The seminar covers four major lectures with practical suggestion. In each lecture, GM Igor Smirnov answers all students' questions and provides additional tips to implement in their games.

1. Time to Win

2. Right thinking in chess

3. Smirnov Gambit

4. Art of Planning

The course contains around 100 minutes of video lessons and a PDF summery for every seminar topic.

Igor is the founder of the “Remote Chess Academy" company that has helped thousands of students worldwide to improve their chess results.

GM Smirnov has developed lots of chess video lessons, articles, webinars and training courses, including the famous courses “The Grandmaster's Secrets", “The Grandmaster's Positional Understanding", and “Calculate Till Mate".

Who this course is for:

For students whose rating in the range of 1600 to 2000
For students who study chess without private coach
For students who studied lot of chess tutorials but their chess results are unstable

Chess Strategy Guide | Think, Plan and Win in Chess

What you'll learn

Explore related topics

Course content

Time to Win4 lectures • 33min

The Right Thinking3 lectures • 39min

Smirnov Gambit4 lectures • 40min

The Art of Planning3 lectures • 34min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: