Grandmaster Tips to becoming better at chess calculations | GM Jacob Aagaard — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00hi guys how you doing um I'm finally
2. 0:03home from a lot of traveling and I have
3. 0:06a free moment
4. 0:08to uh make this uh this little video
5. 0:11about solving positions and also having
6. 0:14six positions to solve this is a follow
7. 0:17up from the calculation Camp I did in
8. 0:21Mumbai here in February
9. 0:232024 and and then right after I went
10. 0:26toland did a camp there which is I'm
11. 0:29only able to the the video video now um
12. 0:33so when it comes to solving there
13. 0:36there's a sort of a a few things I
14. 0:39wanted to say the first is that you want
15. 0:42to try to see if you can solve every
16. 0:46day um there there are many works on on
17. 0:50habits and habit forming stuff there's a
18. 0:54lot of the internet will tell you that a
19. 0:56habit takes 21 or 28 days to form which
20. 0:59is
21. 1:01bogus um reality is that easy habit can
22. 1:06take a week or two weeks to form
23. 1:10like I don't know if uh you
24. 1:14know you you're not good at brushing
25. 1:16your teeth remembering to always brush
26. 1:18your teeth okay will require some work
27. 1:19in the beginning but since it doesn't
28. 1:21require a lot of effort it's very easy
29. 1:23to work into to be in a habit or I don't
30. 1:26know whatever simple habit drink a glass
31. 1:29of water in the morning was one I saw
32. 1:32from uh from scientific paper uh while
33. 1:35more difficult uh demanding uh habits
34. 1:39like let's say Sol for at least 20
35. 1:41minutes every day that requires a lot of
36. 1:45energy going forward for a long time
37. 1:48something like three months usually But
38. 1:53after those three months you are not
39. 1:55really relying on motivation and energy
40. 1:58anymore it becomes the part of who you
41. 2:00are and what you do even though it can
42. 2:03still you demanding and should be
43. 2:06demanding to at times to to to help you
44. 2:09get
45. 2:10better um we have created a habit and
46. 2:13it's it's it's just Neutron you know
47. 2:15it's
48. 2:16physics uh an object in motion tends to
49. 2:19stay in motion and object stand is still
50. 2:21will require a lot of energy to get into
51. 2:23motion so if you try to solve three
52. 2:26times a week it's like uh stopping every
53. 2:30every 100 meter on your bicycle and then
54. 2:33not understanding why it's so
55. 2:34tiring um no you need to get into a
56. 2:37rhythm of doing something continuously
57. 2:40it's much more difficult doing something
58. 2:42once a week than to doing it every day
59. 2:45uh it it just is a a very different
60. 2:48skill uh the other reason why doing
61. 2:50something every day is is really
62. 2:52valuable is that you learn when you
63. 2:53sleep so if you're doing good work you
64. 2:57want to spread out as over as many
65. 2:58nights as possible
66. 3:01so you'll benefit from it
67. 3:05um so there's a few other things I want
68. 3:08to say about first of
69. 3:10all um when you're
70. 3:13uh you're solving the can have different
71. 3:16names let's say here we this time we're
72. 3:19focusing on uh on tactical uh aples
73. 3:23these ones that I that I have selected
74. 3:25here with the remaining six I I put out
75. 3:28in the camp that we didn't get time to
76. 3:30look through um they're challenging
77. 3:34puzzles and therefore calculation deep
78. 3:37calculation um but I wanted to mention
79. 3:40simple tactical puzzles first so whether
80. 3:44you're a very strong player or you a
81. 3:47player early in your development you
82. 3:49want to be able to um to solve simple
83. 3:53Pils with with great level of
84. 3:56accuracy
85. 3:58but for a long time let's say
86. 4:02until uh 18 1900 at least maybe beyond
87. 4:06that it's just as much as about being
88. 4:09mentally aware of the pattern not after
89. 4:12you see them but before so you look at a
90. 4:14position and you see the Tactical
91. 4:16patterns very very quickly and to do
92. 4:20that quantity is a huge
93. 4:23factor and if you want quantity you have
94. 4:26to inevitably be guessing and allowing
95. 4:28yourself to make
96. 4:30quite a few mistakes in this guessing
97. 4:32process uh because it's you want to
98. 4:35involve yourself you want to spend one
99. 4:36to three minutes maybe on simple fils
100. 4:39and
101. 4:40then uh you want to uh yeah guess to
102. 4:45some extent if you're not able to solve
103. 4:48it you want to guess it you also want to
104. 4:49train your own tactical intuition
105. 4:53so that's an important part of it but
106. 4:56the idea here is uh that when we get to
107. 5:00difficult puzzles and you're training
108. 5:02calculation and not pattern recognition
109. 5:05you're doing something entirely
110. 5:07different and what you're doing is
111. 5:09you're training good habits for
112. 5:11calculation and I have talked and
113. 5:13written extensively about what good uh
114. 5:16calculation is
115. 5:19and one if anyone wants to know more
116. 5:21about it I I did some courses for
117. 5:24killest training that for sale in the
118. 5:26shop uh there were live classes so they
119. 5:29will have that buing but they are big
120. 5:32courses and and generously priced I
121. 5:36would say um they also I did books in
122. 5:39the past or do books in the future on on
123. 5:42what is good calculation essentially the
124. 5:44most important thing it is is finding
125. 5:46what you don't automatically see so it's
126. 5:48the opposite of the pattern recognition
127. 5:50training with sample tactics where
128. 5:52you're trying to simply just recognize
129. 5:55patterns well in this case here you're
130. 5:57are trying to find unusual patterns and
131. 5:59unusual combination of patterns and
132. 6:02something that you don't find
133. 6:04automatically
134. 6:06um and and there's a lot of uh aspects
135. 6:10to that there's a lot of good habits to
136. 6:12that I wanted to here Focus specifically
137. 6:15about how you would practice this and
138. 6:19there's a few things first of all I want
139. 6:21you to be exceptionally clear on what
140. 6:23you're trying to achieve a natural
141. 6:27starting point for learning calculation
142. 6:28is make sure you don't miss any on move
143. 6:31one or
144. 6:32two care less about long variations make
145. 6:35sure that you see the options see the
146. 6:38option for the opponent and maybe they
147. 6:41reply to the option for the opponent not
148. 6:43necessarily longer than that the
149. 6:44positions I have here they're more
150. 6:46complicated than that but that is the
151. 6:48starting point for developing good
152. 6:51calculation make sure you don't miss any
153. 6:53options one technique I often
154. 6:57uh um recommend is to look at all active
155. 7:01moves with with all the pieces or pawns
156. 7:04just look at the Active moves and see if
157. 7:06anything is like worth having a second
158. 7:08look at be careful that you don't reject
159. 7:11anything quickly because the opponent
160. 7:13has some kind of move give yourself time
161. 7:15enough to look so that your brain can
162. 7:17follow the brain works in these three
163. 7:19second Loops so give yourself a chance
164. 7:21to actually
165. 7:23look um so that that's the first thing
166. 7:26the second thing is you want to be in
167. 7:28control of the process
168. 7:29now you can choose to follow my
169. 7:32recommendations of calculation or have
170. 7:34ideas of your own um since you're not
171. 7:37doing it for me I don't care but I would
172. 7:41recommend for you to always go so slow
173. 7:45that you are in control of the process
174. 7:48you will not be able to go slow during a
175. 7:49game that does not matter you are
176. 7:52training trying to create the good
177. 7:55habits the good thought processes in
178. 7:57your mind you have to be in control
179. 7:59control to do that so that they will be
180. 8:01automatic when you later are put to the
181. 8:04test have low time and and a big chance
182. 8:08in front of you you have to first
183. 8:09develop the technique you have to train
184. 8:12your brain that this is how we approach
185. 8:15these kind of problems so for example
186. 8:17one one very common problem is
187. 8:20constantly getting distracted and jump
188. 8:22all over the place if you've been to a
189. 8:23lecture with me you know that whenever
190. 8:25says something oh I have a question
191. 8:27about another variation I will always
192. 8:29say no if we're in the middle of
193. 8:32something because you need to stay
194. 8:34organized one thing at a time that is
195. 8:37the simple
196. 8:39uh explanation of what being organized
197. 8:42is in
198. 8:43calculation
199. 8:45um then also there there's the thing
200. 8:47about dealing with impulses it's very
201. 8:49easy to get a positive or negative
202. 8:52impulse in a variation like either be
203. 8:54excited or be um be disappointed and
204. 8:58then think that that is a way to make a
205. 9:00conclusion it is not you want to make
206. 9:03sure that you are going slow enough that
207. 9:05you're actually looking at the position
208. 9:06you're not missing something at the end
209. 9:08you cannot successfully end A variation
210. 9:11with a feeling okay I don't want to make
211. 9:14this more complicated than that if you
212. 9:16take notes of that or watch it a few
213. 9:18times that will already help you much
214. 9:21more than most of the sources uh I've
215. 9:25seen elsewhere let's do the positions
216. 9:28and then uh I'll do the solution so I'll
217. 9:31give you a warning when the solution is
218. 9:32going to come and then I'm just going to
219. 9:35show it quite quickly the first game
220. 9:38is against Nakamura from dorta
221. 9:422019 um so you should stop the video if
222. 9:47you want to solve it first um in the
223. 9:50game he played Bishop takes
224. 9:52F3 and then after Knight
225. 9:54D3 uh Queen D3 Rook E6 Queen F5 Queen E8
226. 10:00black
227. 10:01holds but after Bishop takes
228. 10:05F3 uh black play Knight C6 and here
229. 10:08Knight C5 one on the spot uh White's
230. 10:11going to be be a piece up so there was
231. 10:13not nakamura's greatest to the strongest
232. 10:17move is Queen takes
233. 10:18F3 uh black has to take on E6 otherwise
234. 10:21nothing makes sense White's even
235. 10:23threatening Rook 6 D4 the next check
236. 10:26here and now there's a very long
237. 10:28variation with Queen F7 that doesn't
238. 10:30quite
239. 10:31work
240. 10:33yeah a lot of lot of computer moves here
241. 10:36and this endgame I sort of click click
242. 10:38click clicked all the way and how
243. 10:40accurate that variation is I'm not sure
244. 10:43but it should probably be pretty pretty
245. 10:45okay stockfish says it's fine but in
246. 10:47this position the the important point is
247. 10:49to slow down and notice the options that
248. 10:52you might not see automatically here
249. 10:54it's very logical to think of a check
250. 10:56but Rook F1 is the winning
251. 10:59move um here this is threatening very
252. 11:02strongly a rook F7 check which would be
253. 11:04made in a few moves and after Bishop G7
254. 11:07there's Queen e Queen F5 check sorry
255. 11:10Bishop G6 Bishop E4 and even me as a
256. 11:13human so far far away as long as I got
257. 11:16to Rook F1 that here we have a very nice
258. 11:20check and F7 and the position is
259. 11:23winning
260. 11:25uh the next position here is uh is quite
261. 11:29it's between rakov and bov played in yav
262. 11:33in Russia in 2019 also uh I think it was
263. 11:37the Russian
264. 11:40Championship um so again you should stop
265. 11:42the video but now I'm going to give
266. 11:44first the game and then the solution so
267. 11:47in the game he played Bishop B4 and
268. 11:49after take take B5 black was basically
269. 11:52able to untangle himself uh the game
270. 11:55continued like
271. 11:57this
272. 12:03and there's a
273. 12:05Perpetual um but but much stronger was
274. 12:08to play Rook takes B7 so the challenging
275. 12:12thing here is not to see that the pawn
276. 12:15is hanging or see that we we should take
277. 12:17with the Rook not with the queen I think
278. 12:21after various moves like Queen A4 and so
279. 12:24on there's a lot of counterplay for
280. 12:26black and that's not so difficult to see
281. 12:28but the chall comes in this variation
282. 12:30here Bishop E4 that we take on E7 and
283. 12:33play Bishop
284. 12:34B4 uh if we go into an end game
285. 12:38here uh then white white should win this
286. 12:41end game King D2 King C3 B4 and he will
287. 12:44have pass PA on the queen side and if
288. 12:46there's check
289. 12:48here then there's a bit to to calculate
290. 12:51here that we take here so this slightly
291. 12:54long
292. 12:55variation uh most people would get
293. 12:58confused some where in this variation
294. 13:00but important part of uh solving is also
295. 13:03good decision making and you know they
296. 13:06say good decision making uh comes from
297. 13:08experience what does experience comes
298. 13:10from bad decision making and that's why
299. 13:12you want to solve a lot so that you can
300. 13:15make your bad decisions in the training
301. 13:17room and get experience from it next
302. 13:20game is also from
303. 13:212019 uh this was played in vik C the
304. 13:25game between Duda and Richard report and
305. 13:29s to play and you should stop the video
306. 13:32now okay welcome back I only now realize
307. 13:37that my board is only a little bit
308. 13:42uh inside the screen hopefully this
309. 13:45looks better for you I'm very sorry I'm
310. 13:47not going to re-record the this free
311. 13:49video so first of all uh here are the
312. 13:52options so why can of course go into
313. 13:54this end game Rook end game and and most
314. 13:57likely draw it but it will be a tough
315. 14:00ride um but that's not the the thing we
316. 14:03want to calculate the one thing we want
317. 14:05to calculate is whether we can play
318. 14:06Queen d8 and this case here this was the
319. 14:09Trap because after check here and queen
320. 14:13F1 and queen C3 here black can actually
321. 14:16hold with with Queen E1 Queen
322. 14:18C3 uh just holds um but in the game he
323. 14:23played F4
324. 14:25check if you take with the pawn then I
325. 14:29have Queen E1 check and Bishop E6 check
326. 14:32and mate will follow quite swiftly so
327. 14:35white took with the King then came check
328. 14:38here and check and here and looks like
329. 14:42he's out of checks and he almost is he
330. 14:45has this Rook C8 move this is the key
331. 14:46move of the exercise the game continued
332. 14:49like
333. 14:52this and uh White resigned so the
334. 14:55solution is on the first move to play
335. 14:58Queen B2
336. 14:59after this we have a just a
337. 15:02draw uh here black can take this point
338. 15:04white takes this point and it's it's
339. 15:06simply a draw um so this was a a bit
340. 15:10more challenging uh calculation exercise
341. 15:13I hope you enjoyed
342. 15:16it okay here we have an ingame uh and
343. 15:21again stop the video
344. 15:23please great so the point here is that
345. 15:28you want to be able to
346. 15:31uh to think a little bit
347. 15:34ahead
348. 15:36um and one of the big uh big obstacles
349. 15:41to calculation is people who focus on
350. 15:46only one move Only One Direction and
351. 15:48then they're trying to make it work it's
352. 15:50like the square pick trying to force the
353. 15:52square peeg into a a round hole um in
354. 15:57the in the little kitty game I don't
355. 15:58know how how uh well known that is in
356. 16:01India but you can see some uh there's a
357. 16:04funny Levis at I'll see if I can can
358. 16:08make a link to it
359. 16:10below um so in the game here between
360. 16:13David Anon and uh and Falco vedric from
361. 16:18the European Championship
362. 16:202019 white play Queen C7 which looks
363. 16:22very natural and after King E8 takes
364. 16:25takes takes and queen d8 there just
365. 16:29isn't any win so white play check here
366. 16:33here here black tooken D6 he later lost
367. 16:36the game much much much later it was a
368. 16:39wild game um but here in this position
369. 16:41Queen A8 simply draws on the
370. 16:44spot
371. 16:46so the correct way to continue is Queen
372. 16:49C6 which is a bit of surprising move
373. 16:51it's a profilaxis moves keeping
374. 16:54control I have two lines I want to show
375. 16:57you but I don't think I don't want to
376. 16:59give you the understand misunderstanding
377. 17:01here that you think long lines would be
378. 17:04the answer to uh to the calculation the
379. 17:08the correc thing is to see that there
380. 17:10was this queen d8 defense the queen C7
381. 17:12does not work and therefore key control
382. 17:15here black cannot move the queen because
383. 17:17then very quickly the the deponent
384. 17:19becomes a candidate and after King F7
385. 17:23and King f8 just
386. 17:25waiting we can see that white can uh
387. 17:31play like this this is of course a
388. 17:32little bit of silly variation but just
389. 17:34if black doesn't do anything I black
390. 17:36does do something the position is not so
391. 17:40comfortable we see here for example in
392. 17:42this
393. 17:44line uh the white has achieved a much
394. 17:47stronger pass porn Here Rook endings a
395. 17:50porns are are not good pass pawns
396. 17:52usually uh but in this queen ending it
397. 17:54really really
398. 17:56is okay
399. 17:59uh this is a a game from Dubai Masters
400. 18:032019 between uh puya anani and Iden
401. 18:10Suman I'm sorry I'm so bad at
402. 18:13pronouncing the names I hope none of the
403. 18:15players would take personal offense the
404. 18:16game was very very long it ended 70
405. 18:19Moves after this point but it really
406. 18:21should only have ended 10 moves
407. 18:23later um
408. 18:26so here you should stop and then come
409. 18:30back okay so at this
410. 18:33point white correctly played Bishop
411. 18:36takes D5 and that's actually not a
412. 18:38difficult move after takes Knight
413. 18:41E7 King B8 this is a difficult uh moment
414. 18:45here white probably thought he was about
415. 18:48to win in this position uh but the game
416. 18:52continued like
417. 18:54this and here the black position is
418. 18:58essentially holdable but of course white
419. 19:01is pushing uh and they played for yeah
420. 19:06for almost 70 Moves but if we go back we
421. 19:10take this position here White had
422. 19:12another move order which was Knight D5
423. 19:15now if uh Queen D4 check take take the
424. 19:19Rook will be hanging will win that and
425. 19:22if Rook
426. 19:23D4 will also win the exchange up end
427. 19:26game so for that reason
428. 19:29uh with a better move order the queen
429. 19:31has to come here and we give a check we
430. 19:35give another check and another check
431. 19:37here Knight B6 Rook D4 uh Rook takes D4
432. 19:41Queen takes B6 so Queen D3 Queen E3 and
433. 19:45we finally placed the queen on a good
434. 19:46square and we can play here now the
435. 19:49difference is that if you have Rook D4
436. 19:51now I have this little tactic the queen
437. 19:54is
438. 19:55defended that's a very important point
439. 19:57and if Rook E4 we have take take and we
440. 20:00can go for the D point and this is a a
441. 20:04winning ending there more moves to be
442. 20:06play but that's awesome how chess
443. 20:08is okay uh finally we have a game from
444. 20:122018 by OS
445. 20:16rousis who probably had taken his
446. 20:18compression socks with him to the
447. 20:20bathroom uh but didn't play the best
448. 20:22move in this position he playing against
449. 20:25Christina
450. 20:26Peta uh game was played in Czech
451. 20:29Republic
452. 20:312018 um so please stop and come back
453. 20:36okay so in the game he played
454. 20:38G3 uh def definitely didn't have a
455. 20:40toilet break before this
456. 20:42move uh so here the the best defense is
457. 20:45Rook C6 takes a knight E5 and and black
458. 20:48has some some drawing chances in this
459. 20:50ending or reasonable drawing chances uh
460. 20:52instead after uh this the white won a
461. 20:57piece and won the game
462. 20:59okay we can maybe avoid the rest here so
463. 21:02the strongest continuation here is a
464. 21:05very nice move it's uh King H3
465. 21:07threatening Rook G3 it comes
466. 21:11anyway and then uh there's a thread of a
467. 21:14night check on on
468. 21:16f8 uh and it would have been made and it
469. 21:19comes anyway a very very nice
470. 21:22combination by no means easy and uh to
471. 21:26forgive anyone to solve it but uh in
472. 21:30this case maybe there was a real chance
473. 21:33and also for you because I gave you the
474. 21:35hint that there's something here and I
475. 21:37gave you the instruction to spend a lot
476. 21:39of time trying to solve these things um
477. 21:44there was another question I just wanted
478. 21:46to address which is the one of
479. 21:48confidence in your moves
480. 21:51um I don't believe I get everything
481. 21:53right when I
482. 21:54calculate but one thing I have learned
483. 21:57with with absolute
484. 21:59certainty is
485. 22:01that I don't I don't have any better way
486. 22:05of making decisions I have to trust in
487. 22:08what I see so if I'm rechecking things
488. 22:11all the time I will run low on time and
489. 22:14I will make very bad mistake very simple
490. 22:17mistakes I'd rather make a mistake where
491. 22:20I miss something
492. 22:22complicated that was frankly beyond my
493. 22:25ability then I will do a really stupid
494. 22:28mistake that was well within my ability
495. 22:31not that I don't make plenty of those I
496. 22:33don't I'm a senior player now I don't
497. 22:35want you to jush yourself by my
498. 22:37standards to something better placee
499. 22:42um but you have to sort of trust your
500. 22:44calculation to some
501. 22:46extent like let's say there's a
502. 22:49variation we see and we it's sort of not
503. 22:52working out for us but we our intuition
504. 22:55is that okay this is maybe not
505. 22:57necessarily bad bad one technique is to
506. 22:59go slowly through the variation look at
507. 23:02every move what did I miss did I miss
508. 23:04anything here no maybe here no maybe
509. 23:07here well actually could have missed
510. 23:08something there and then you look at at
511. 23:10other possible moves again it's all
512. 23:12about being organized and being in
513. 23:14control and I think this was the the six
514. 23:19positions I'm going to check my file for
515. 23:21a
516. 23:22moment
517. 23:24um I'm I'm I I've reached the age where
518. 23:28I can't really count to six anymore in a
519. 23:30in a reliable sense uh but yes that was
520. 23:34my six
521. 23:35positions um I hope you enjoyed this
522. 23:37video for those who came to the camp it
523. 23:39was really a great pleasure uh working
524. 23:42with you
525. 23:44and I'm very thank you a lot for your uh
526. 23:48your feedback there was a few people and
527. 23:50I always have this in every Camp there's
528. 23:51a few people who asked can we have the
529. 23:53PGN of material we really like the
530. 23:55material and there's a few reasons why
531. 23:59the answer is no and uh this the simple
532. 24:03uh reason is I don't want to have
533. 24:06material out there that comes from me
534. 24:10and any way is associated with me where
535. 24:13I don't have a real control of the of
536. 24:15the quality and I can tell you my notes
537. 24:18are they're not the the quality of
538. 24:21printed material what I do with my books
539. 24:25and uh and courses and so on is that I
540. 24:28choose the absolute best material I have
541. 24:32and I there's a lot of material I use
542. 24:34various places because for example I had
543. 24:38endless amount of great attacking
544. 24:40material uh from the last four year of
545. 24:43Kil chest training but some members of
546. 24:46Kill chest training was at the camp so I
547. 24:48had to use new material and I had a lot
548. 24:50of new material and some of it was great
549. 24:53and some of it after we looked at it I
550. 24:56maybe liked it a bit less
551. 24:58um but for us is a process of looking at
552. 25:02together it works very well we can you
553. 25:04can debate things and the interaction is
554. 25:07more important than anything but if you
555. 25:09write a book or do a course or something
556. 25:11like that and it's more one-way
557. 25:12communication you want to make sure that
558. 25:16the the material is is of high quality
559. 25:19then the instruction is of high quality
560. 25:22that the directions of high quality and
561. 25:24therefore I never give out PGN material
562. 25:28because I don't want it to reach third
563. 25:31parties who then
564. 25:33get um confused about it and think that
565. 25:38even if it's not a conscious but even on
566. 25:40subconscious level think that yeah I
567. 25:43seen something from this guy and it was
568. 25:45pretty um and it would be if it if it
569. 25:49doesn't have the verbal instructions
570. 25:50that I gave you and and all
571. 25:53the the discussions um for those of you
572. 25:56who would be almost everyone watching
573. 25:58this video who did not come to the camps
574. 26:00uh it was really great fun and the
575. 26:03feedback has been been fantastic uh you
576. 26:06know don't do this for money I didn't
577. 26:08didn't make any money going to uh to
578. 26:10India for two weeks uh but I had a
579. 26:13really good time meeting Friends meeting
580. 26:16students um and interacting with the
581. 26:19with new friends and new students and
582. 26:22some of them are member of the academy
583. 26:24and some are not some maybe will be in
584. 26:27the future some will not and it's not
585. 26:30really uh it's not really why we do what
586. 26:32we do we like chess we like
587. 26:35people we like uh helping people who
588. 26:38really want to uh Advance their skills
589. 26:40in their Sport
590. 26:43and that itself is very rewarding and uh
591. 26:47I'm hoping I'll be back in in
592. 26:502025 we uh I think we had a a decent
593. 26:53experience with the hotel and and the
594. 26:56venue so would be possible they would do
595. 26:58it again and and also with with Chess
596. 27:00Place
597. 27:01India and thank you for to them for uh
598. 27:05publishing this video on the site thank
599. 27:16you