The Secret to Becoming a Deadly Tactician

[@Hailmich10]

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!

[@ChessCoachAndras]

Thanks Larry, very kind! Glad you enjoyed the video.

[@irjake]

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.

[@josephoyek6574]

Is it wrong to play Ba3?

[@danno1800]

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.

[@ChessCoachAndras]

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it!

[@Grandcapi]

And there is a marvelous book about Invisible Moves, by Yochanan Afek, the great composer of problems and studies.

[@mahmoudkchaou1799]

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 !

[@paule4]

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.

[@jonathanhenderson9422]

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.

[@pramanverma6209]

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.

[@adammcallister5047]

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.

[@analogblues]

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.

[@ChessCoachAndras]

Glad you liked it!

[@sergeytitov8444]

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!

[@IsraelSilvaMonje]

Wooow!! Incredible lesson! You're a very good teacher. Thank you so much and greetings from Mexico

[@ChessCoachAndras]

Thanks man and welcome to the channel!

[@bixcs2]

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?

[@ТестТест-в3б]

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!

[@emregeylani]

Great video Andras, a good player should definitely check mate threats after checking CCT.

[@treasonouspigeonpeckers957]

What happen to the chicos and chicas

[@stevechoatie249]

I'm just not finding about your channel. Love this video and believe I can put this into practice. Thanks so much!!

[@SarveshKumar-zw8su]

Beautiful lecture by my favorite teacher

[@ChessCoachAndras]

Thanks for the kind words! Glad you are enjoying the videos!

[@nityaninadgroups798]

amazing puzzles! i really enjoyed your psychological analysis, well done!

[@ChessCoachAndras]

Thank you very much!

[@noxxtomaa]

funny, in the sixth puzzle I found rook G4 immediately, and only after Kf6, my problem is often order.. great content as always Andras!

[@elimwells6131]

Pay attention to what this fellow has to say and you will improve quickly. Best chess teacher I know of.

[@Ariel-px7hz]

Really loved this. Subscribed and going to watch lots more of your stuff

[@ChessCoachAndras]

Welcome onboard!

[@Chris-zf5jz]

Awesome lesson with awesome examples! Thx Andras! 😌🙏

[@bettynalwimba3669]

Talking of how you see the moves is the most difficult thing 😅😅

[@jefftheless]

Calculation: A Complete Guide for Tournament Players on chessable talks about never eliminating a line without calculating 3 more tempi from the place you decide it doesn't work. This seems like a related idea!

[@italo868]

I think One of the chess teacher around , thanks for the videos and valuable advice 😊

[@jonathansaxton9954]

liked and subscribed. glad i found your channel. great job.

[@ChessCoachAndras]

Welcome onboard!

[@davidweissmann8069]

Thanks a million , sage wisdom & yes i am an "unbeliever" type till i saw this.

[@stevesidare2493]

So the idea is to consider a Mate threat, not necessarily a piece capture threat. All part of thinking "what if."

[@TheChessViking]

Great vid and thoughts Andras! And some very nice tactics indeed.

[@b.1565]

You are great Andras 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

[@MrTheZephyros]

Dope, keep this amazing work please!!

[@NobodyNunya-x5z]

Sacrificial deflections are counter intuitive... but effective

[@gavinjones8543]

Great stuff man

[@donkassadin2014]

Coach Andras with the utmost respect, I disagree with your analysis. However I do believe you have identified the problem very accurately, just the interpretation might need some refinement. Now, before responding hear me out. First of all, I had been introduced to club chess when I was 13 years old or so. I then quit for personal reasons at around 16 and have been on and off of it since. I am 28 currently. I am by all means an "adult improver", I buy a lot of books and as per your usual adult chess player I struggled to understand the dynamic features of a position (what they are, how do they work, how does it translate to winning etc). Your videos and my some staggering loses in my first otb tournament after over a decade of inactivity helped me tremendously in grasping some of the essence of dynamic play. I used to be what you call a "non-believer" and still am to a degree. You are exactly right on calling out the mental block of some players to sac pieces on empty squares and put pieces en prie. Your experience and mine align on this and it absolutely does happen. However in reading a great book on chess in Greek that emphasized the soviet school of chess and advanced tactics I stumbled upon the answer. The reason I believe that makes the aforementioned moves difficult to see and even more difficult to play is because they require the person to have a completely different understanding of chess, specifically the one Bobby Fischer talked about. It's about viewing chess not as pieces, but as squares. Squares that are and aren't controlled, squares that are and aren't occupied. Specifically at the 7:50 tactic, if you show them the "opening the diagonal" motif and allow the player to see the position for a long amount of time they might be able to reverse engineer the solution. Ofc you can then put the piece en prie, the square d6 is not really controlled by Black because of Ba3 mate. After the adult improver understands that the square is actually safe, then the move is able to be registered and given proper consideration. After that it does become gradually easier to figure out such problems, but as always the person needs to understand and learn these motifs from start, just as one does with regular tactics. Some of these advanced tactical motifs are for example: deflection, decoy, interference, freeing a diagonal/column/square etc. After training on these advanced tactical motifs the person will be able to look at the move Qd6 not because of any randomness but because they know it's a silent creeping move that's threatening mate on d8 and that the move is available because of the weak position of the black king. In my humble opinion it has little to do with faith but a lot to do with apt understanding of space and space control and manipulation in chess. All of this ofc I'm sharing because I really feel it will both help and steer a lot of people in the right direction towards making the next step in regards to tactics and dynamic play in chess.

[@ChessCoachAndras]

Thanks for sharing this with me. I for one totally dislike and have 0 faith in theories like this, but that is not to say that they can't help certain people. I don't work with geniuses like Bobby, I work with excited amateurs, to whom (and that includes me) this whole "think in squares, not in pieces" talk is way too far fetched and airy-fairy when it comes to tactics and calculating exact lines. Of course, my theory could just as well be "airy fairy" so each to their own, I guess:)

[@donkassadin2014]

@@ChessCoachAndras Thank for responding. Your videos have been eyeopening, especially the know thy classics series

[@Hakabas01]

oh no my mental block. CHECKMATE

[@theunlearnedmind7374]

Great stuff!

[@EdmundSouthgate]

Can we get some t-shirts with "believe in the crazy!" on them please?

[@jackm4457]

(note to self: "Consider the crazies.") got it.

[@adamsasso1]

I wanna be a Believer!

[@ChessCoachAndras]

You are cordially invited to join us!

[@hectorlobato6268]

Boy oh boy!

[@mutalederrickchelu]

I thought chess was had but now the impossible is possible

[@ChessCoachAndras]

Indeed it is!::)

[@kindmulberry7196]

Great video but was 5 notifications really necessary? 😳

[@loneranger168]

Great video

[@shnrrr]

You're doing God's work, Andras!

[@isaakvandaalen3899]

This is actually pretty inspiring to me. I managed to solve the last puzzle on my own and I feel like this has really drilled home a certain lesson. I guess the main idea is to just be entirely aware of every single one of your threats, and every single one of your opponent's weaknesses, and to identify how to utilise your threats so your opponent can't cover every single one of them.

[@kurtozan251]

This is so great and I love the tactics! Great video Andras!

[@RigMaster_]

Alternate Title: Crazy Man Teaches You How To Be Crazy!

[@ChessCoachAndras]

I am all for that!

[@tonyaldridge8917]

Way cool I’m joining the cult

[@kittysplode]

hm, why would anyone want to be deadly? your opponent should walk away better off and in awe.

[@kittysplode]

therefore the solution to this puzzle is c8 to e6. rather than plotting out a king chase across the board, you move from a dominant position into a stranglehold and give them initiative to lose the game.

[@keithlamm1126]

In order to be a successful tactician one must be a risk taking gambler

[@ChessCoachAndras]

??? There is 0 gambling involved in this as far as I can see...

[@keithlamm1126]

@@ChessCoachAndras gambling doesn't have to involve money. everytime you take a risk, you are indeed gambling

[@ChessCoachAndras]

@@keithlamm1126 I still dont follow your train of thoughts. Where is the risk in any of the above?

[@keithlamm1126]

@@ChessCoachAndras really? ok, the game of chess is all about risk/s. everytime you play you run the risk of losing. the only way to not risk losing is not to play. those that aren't willing to take risks have no business playing chess. someone not willing to risk would never look for those sacrificial combinations. fortune favors the bold

[@ChessCoachAndras]

@@keithlamm1126 Every single one of the examples were forced wins. I am sorry but you are trying to approach this from a philosophical angle, whereas what I am saying is, is that there is no risk in saying that 2+2=4. Whilst I agree that you need to be bold to look for these ideas, calculation eliminates all risk ( at least in the given cases).

[@SharpTern]

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.

[@user-un-known]

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.

[@jonathanhenderson9422]

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.

[@KeepChessSimple]

To quote Sam Shankland: 'Even the most boring simple position has tactical elements'.

[@tzkro]

every game has hidden tactics and combinations,every game.

[@Grandcapi]

@@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.

[@Arthas30000]

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 😁

[@WilliamJonesChess]

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!!

[@daneQuixote]

Holy shit I solved the last one. I need this to be a longer lesson. This was absolutely amazing Andras 👏

[@HerbMartin52]

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?

[@TheBigGuppy]

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.

[@irjake]

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! 😅

[@markhathaway9456]

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.

[@johndrake3472]

Out of Checks, Captures, and Threats, Threats are the hardest to spot. Great insight here, chess puzzles rarely feature them.

[@bedwarssweat6205]

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)

[@mwhite9298]

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!"

[@ChessCoachAndras]

Awesome man, glad you have been converted!

[@badhombre2484]

Hello to the chicos and the chicas - what happened???

[@nicoterradas]

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.

[@armansiddique4310]

very instructive and valuable idea. Nice to see such rare tressures are given for free. a lot of thanks for that.

[@ChessCoachAndras]

Glad you liked it!

[@RigMaster_]

Defs need to like comment subscribe people! It will help the videos and channel get more discovery/ recommendations to other people, because god damn it, this channel deserves more views!

[@noahz]

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!

[@MistaMasta12]

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!

[@SpaceCadet4Jesus]

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. )

[@luciengrondin5802]

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.

[@ChessCoachAndras]

Spot on sir!

[@SpaceCadet4Jesus]

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 ).

[@rickstermandude]

Great video. I’m a non-believer, but I’m trying to become a believer.

[@michealdufresne5509]

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!

[@ChessCoachAndras]

The pleasure is mine! Happy you liked it!

[@alexf0101]

well put, thanks! gonna go look for the crazies :)

[@TCMx3]

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.

[@ChessCoachAndras]

Thanks for your valuable insights!

[@screamingliner]

Don't reject a line just by appearance. Calculate!

[@DaydreamVacations]

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.

[@ChessCoachAndras]

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!

[@DaydreamVacations]

@@ChessCoachAndras Thanks Coach!

[@steveauguste4498]

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!

[@ChessCoachAndras]

My pleasure!

[@ТестТест-в3б]

Oh man, now I am beleiver!!

[@rainerausdemspring3584]

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.

[@ChessCoachAndras]

Glad you like it. Indeed puzzle two had flaws but It models the idea very well.

[@flodstromsconce]

wonderful video Andras. You're making me a believer.

[@ChessCoachAndras]

Welcome onboard amongst the believers!

[@knightofchess6900]

That's the good stuff!

[@musical_lolu4811]

Until you can show me how to visualize the chessboard with near-perfect accuracy, I'm not interested. I've come to believe strong titled players have a conspiracy never ever to reveal the secrets of this crucial ability that everything in chess really depends upon.

[@ChessCoachAndras]

No secret there but the solution is just too plain : practise practise practise ( calculation skills mostly, by solving puzzles and simple endgames )

[@jonathanhenderson9422]

Yeah, board vision is a crucial skill that seems little commented on/talked about. I've noticed it being a weakness in my own game. One thing I want to practice to see if it helps me improve is reading through games and playing the game in my head for several moves before I move the pieces on the board to keep up. I think working on your ability to see the board in your head has to be an important skill and step towards board vision in general. I'm always amazed at players who can play entire games blindfolded. When I'm reading along with the book I usually find myself lost within 5-6 moves, but I hope it's something that can be improved on.

[@alecmisra4964]

7:00 A8 is not a forced win since the king can escape without taking the queen.

[@ChessCoachAndras]

It is a forced win, Don't mistake forced win and a forced mate. Qa8 wins.

[@ujjwalprakash3170]

I solved the sixth puzzle and it really felt nice ..thank you Andreas you are one of a kind!

[@ChessCoachAndras]

Thanks for the kinds words, enjoy the channel!

[@kevinwellwrought2024]

Tal was a believer!

[@neildiesta7222]

Wow!, your tips is very effective to me especially solving puzzles. Thanks a lot, Coach!

[@ChessCoachAndras]

My pleasure! Enjoy the channel!

[@micahwalton7510]

Thanks for making and sharing this video. Your insights and advice are top-tier and I eagerly await every new video you post.

[@ChessCoachAndras]

Thanks Micah!

[@wreynolds1995]

I've noticed a substantial improvement in the quality of your videos Andras. Fantastic work.

[@ChessCoachAndras]

Thanks , it is a result of a conscious effort and a lot more time invested into presentation

[@wreynolds1995]

@@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!

[@ChessCoachAndras]

@@wreynolds1995 Thanks, I knew what you meant and I am glad the difference is noticeable!

[@tigerspaw]

Great video

[@michaelkrailo5725]

OK you have identified the fact that I fall into the non believer group in general but how does one believe in something that can't even be fathomed in the first place. I mean I didn't even notice that d7 pawn could block what looked like a simple Boden's Mate. In that case it was failure to identify the root of the problem. But I do understand your point of trying the impossible just to see what happens if...BTW, I played out the version of the fourth puzzle when black responds with g6 instead of capturing the queen and ended up drawing. Yes, I know I should have won but with chess you have to be right on every move, not just most of them. That's what makes the game so difficult for us lazy calculators prone to taking shortcuts all the time.

[@oldsuitman7762]

this is good

[@timwoods3173]

Thx Sir

[@KoytchDJ]

Ayo. This guy is so fucking funny

[@ChessCoachAndras]

Thanks!🙏

[@concool770]

Another great lesson. Thank you Andras

[@ChessCoachAndras]

Glad you liked it!

[@jefftheless]

Love this one. Great stuff.

[@darrylkassle361]

"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.

[@fbzz64]

Me after watching every video of you: "men this must be the best chess video I've seen so far"

[@ChessCoachAndras]

Glad to hear!

[@foxmccloud6267]

My question about the second puzzle is if you go nd6+ and they take with the pawn doesn’t that block the queens vision on the rook on c5? So can’t I just take the exchange? (If I didn’t know I had mate in two?)

[@KeepChessSimple]

Do you think solving endgame studies can help with this? Like the recent course from Kostya on this subject?

[@chrisdacosta4182]

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.

[@a1-h8]

HOW DOES HE ONLY HAVE 27K SUBS

[@ChessCoachAndras]

YOu are about the 27000th person to ask it, and somehow the number hardly goes up....:(:(:(

[@Socrates...]

Thank you so much