Calculating chess puzzles and positions can be difficult and sometimes not rewarding. Chess is a hard game, and calculating can sometimes be even more difficult. These techniques should help build advanced calculation skills or at least strengthen them.
This idea is to reduce blunders in your calculation. You should still calculate if you have any counter-play afterwards though, as it can lead to missed sacrifices.
Imagine a French defence that is played like this.
When black played 5... Bd7, they were planning to take the pawn on e5 with the knight. However, because white played 6. Nc3, it stopped the tactic because of the fact that the white bishop is now protected.
Another example is in the Philidor's defence.
This is probably the most well-known example of this idea, and even its simplicity doesn't tell its importance to calculating a pattern. In this example, if you understand what changed, you can do something else.
You can see how much was saved by that simple, h3 move; it completely changed the game!
If they check, does it ruin the tactic?
This simple idea will save you a ton of games due to calculation errors made by you or your opponent.
Here is a position that could probably happen in a real game.
Instead of going into this line, you could take the rook on f8 with the bishop. If the rook takes back, the tactic comes back to life with Rb3. The position has transformed into a checkmate in 11 moves for white.
There are many more positions where this idea saves or ends games, so here is another example.
What if I do it anyway?
I don't remember who made this quote, but it is important to the game.
This is allowing a proper arrangement of Candidate moves. Candidate moves are a way to visualise what moves work and which moves don't.
I read about this position in a Murray Chandler book when I was 11. The goal is to get a draw as white.
Another tactical idea shown in the same book, is during a middlegame, here is the position.
You would like the queen to not be protecting e7, so you can fork the bishop and king. You will see if the queen was there instead, you would win an entire queen. If you look at the rook, it is staring at the bishop. So now you would get to a point where you might think, what if I did it anyway? 1. Rxc8 Qxc8 And then 2. Nxe7+ and you win the queen.
2. Is it defended or easy to defend?
This technique, also known as prophylaxis, is an idea to reduce calculation in games which may happen due to attacked pieces, pawns, or even checkmating threats. You can also use this to make attacks from absolutely nothing.
I played this game shortly after reaching 1500. My opponent made a quite a lot of errors that cost him the game.
It is surprising how much the technique isn't applied and then you lose the game. This is a game I played at the time of writing this.
The rest of the game is me checkmating my opponent with 2 bishops you can read my blog about it if you want to learn how to do it. Just click on the picture.
3. Changing arrow colour for visualisation.
This technique is about visualisation of threats, tactics and positional games.
Click on the box and it will show how to change the arrow and square colour.
Regular squares and arrows
To make the regular squares and arrows, drag from a square to another to make the regular yellow arrows or click individual squares to make red squares.
Blue squares and arrows
To make blue squares and arrows, hold the ALT key and then make either arrows or squares.
Green squares and arrows
To make green squares and arrows, hold the Shift key and then make either arrows or squares.
Yellow squares and red arrows
To make yellow squares and red arrows, hold the Control key and then make either red arrows or yellow squares.
You can pick which arrows you will use for different circumstances, but here is how I use it.
As you have seen from previous examples, I sometimes use red squares for undefended pieces/pawns. Blue squares for "can be lost without consideration" Aswell as for a nice background to brilliant moves! I use green for safe pieces/pawns.
However, there are a lot of uses for arrows. For yellow arrows, I generally use it for basic calculation or the start of a combination with a decent number of responses. With red arrows, I use it to indicate threats, and a response that they could do. I don't really use green arrows the most, but I use it to indicate another response against what they can do. Finally, I mainly use blue arrows for tactics, pins, and another response for what they can do.
It definitely isn't the best system, but it is best for longer time controls like rapid and classical.
4. Changing move order.
When you are doing a tactic, sometimes it is more beneficial to change the move order rather than keeping to the one you have got planned.
With that example, it was better to allow them to take the rook on A8 then for me to take the rook immediately. Another example that could happen in a real game is this position.
You can see how fast the entire game changes...
5. Is there a better place for the piece?
Here is a game I played today. It is actually the exact same game for the previous example, but it is a different position.
You can see why Nxe4 worked and Nxg4 didn't because of that singular Ke2 move.
The best tip to use is the 2nd one. I gained more than 100 Elo because of that, to my highest rating of 1571 by the 27th of July 2025.
This isn't meant to be instructions, only a guide. It is meant to make it easier to visualise the threats the opponent is making. The easiest tips are already out there. It is these tips in the blog, that are simple but extremely effective.
I would like to thank the many people that have helped me make these 5 blogs, but that would be too hard to list them all. Many of them though, have come from Blogchamps. People like VOB96 and many others have done a great job to help me as well as everyone else. Thank you.
