Improved Calculation

Hey guys! 

I am looking for some different input. I want to know how you guys improve you calculation skills. 

I have done exercises like blindfold games (I have even done a 3 game simul blindfolded before), but I want to know how you guys go about improving your calculation skills. :)

Any and all tips are appreciated!

Thanks,

Luke

I go through annotated game collections with a real board set up. I play quickly through the opening, and then cover the moves for one player and try to predict their moves each time before I reveal the move. If I was wrong, I try to figure out if their move was better and why. When the position gets complex or there's lots to think about, I'll spend 20 minutes or more calculating as far as I need to go. This has definitely improved my calculation and visualization ability.

Another thing that has helped me a lot is to do some chessity.com tactics on the "hard" level, which gives me tactics between 2000 and 2400 based on my rating there. Some of those tactics are really difficult, and I sometimes spend 20 minutes or half an hour thinking one of those problems over. This is similar to the "Solitaire chess" pratice described above for a single move, with the crucial difference that I know there's definitely a tactic there to be found, even when I feel like I've examined everything and there's nothing. When I finally do find the solution, I try to identify the reason that I didn't see it initially. Usually it's either that the move seemed intuitively wrong immediately and there were other more promising false leads, or I got the first few moves of the combination but then didn't see things clearly enough after a few moves to see the combination to the end, or there was a quiet move that I didn't see the point of at first.

Sapient, over how long a period of time did you spend going through annotated games before you started noticing improvement?

I noticed big improvements before I had completed the first annotated game book I worked through (http://www.amazon.com/Immortal-Games-Capablanca-Dover-Chess/dp/0486263339), which took me a few months to complete, but even after just a few hours of that kind of training, you'll start to find things easier than they used to be.

I figured as much. I am personally happy with improvement of any kind, even slow. As long as it is there. Progress keeps these cogs aturning

Yeah, Analyzing GM games is always a great way of studying. I love Bruce Pandolfini's Columb in Chess Life: Solitaire Chess. He gives a game and every move you try to figure out what the Master played, and for each correct answer he awards points. You add the points up at the end and it'll give a rough strength approximation. Super Fun!

Luke