Improving TACTICS

Training our tactical vision

 

The following set of tips may help train tactical vision:-

• Kotov in [1] suggested getting really complicated positions from games, and then doing a thorough analysis of those positions, and then comparing your analysis to that of the annotatators.
• It is generally acknowledged that solving chess puzzles from books/ magazines, [and chess web sites] helps develop our visualisation. Looking through games in one's head without using a chess set is also another method which may help improve our ability to visualise positions in advance.
• Serious tournament practice will force us to visualise moves ahead.
• Playing openings with are highly tactical in nature such as the open sicillian defence is also a good idea for practicing combinations and tactical ability in general.
• Having one's games analysed by a strong computer program, and then seeing the tactical resources the program has seen may reveal to us many possibilities that we completely missed.