Moves Ahead 1: Vision in Calculating Mate

100 Exercises to develop visualisation and calculation skills.

Calculation by visualising the future positions is what will count.

(José Raúl Capablanca, Chess Fundamentals.)

Moves Ahead is course to take your time with. The course is comprised of a collection of carefully selected checkmate variations from games where both players have a rating of at least 2300.

The aim of the course is to develop visualisation and calculation skills by analysing a position with a given set of candidate moves.

[Visualisation] means looking in general terms at the near future: What good moves are available to you? What are the best squares for your pieces? ... Calculating is different from visualizing because you have to take your opponent's moves into consideration.

(Andrew Soltis, What it takes to become a chess master.)

COURSE UPDATE! Null Moves

The course includes one of the latest features of Move Trainer 2: Null move support. All those previously unclickable threat lines are now blue clickable moves. This greatly enhances the course by being able to play through those sometimes difficult to follow lines.

The Method of Study

For each variation you are presented with up to four candidate moves of which only one delivers the quick checkmate. The recommended method is to visualise each of those candidate moves on the board and to calculate all the possible moves that may, or may not, lead to mate. Learners are recommended to not click on a candidate move until a significant time has been given to solving the position and analysing all the candidate moves, even if there is a certainty that the moves to mate are known.

As a hint, should the correct move not be found, it is possible to click on each candidate move to show its position on the board. This will help with the visualisation of the position with the task again being to calculate the moves that may lead to mate.

When the student is certain that the correct candidate move has been found, the moves can be played through and later reviewed with Chessable's MoveTrainer. The main line and all the alternative candidate moves are explained in the analysis of the variation.

The method is simple,
         the task requires effort,
             but the results are worth it.

There are five chapters

♔ 2 Moves Ahead – 10 warm up mate-in-2 variations
♔ 3 Moves Ahead – 20 mate-in-3 variations
♔ 4 Moves Ahead – 20 mate-in-4 variations
♔ 5 Moves Ahead – 20 mate-in-5 variations
♔ Exercises – 30 variations of random length

Chapters 2 and 3 are also suited for beginners and casual players, but the difficulty significantly increases in the later chapters.

Again, this is a course you need to spend time on. It's not a rush through memorisation course, or a hit and miss course of randomly trying different moves, but a course to develop visualisation and calculation skills.

What users are saying about the course.

The method of using candidate move selection to approach concrete positions also has some useful side effects like not getting too emotionally attached to one idea, a willingness to continue looking after a reasonable move has been calculated and an appreciation for the depth of possibilities hiding behind the surface of a position. In short, this approach of multiple choice is excellent mindset training.

('comfortable', a Chessable user.)

From the forum…

This course is perfect for my needs. As a bonus, got to use very cool Chessable features that I was not aware of.

Another wonderful innovative course from AlanB, representing incredible value.

Excellent training and study tool to develop deep tactical visualization and calculation skills.

About the Author

Dr Alan Bester (PhD) resides on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast of South Africa. Alan is passionate about chess and while playing league chess in the mid-1990s was invited to give chess lessons to a group of scholars in the local school. The Chessable platform has enabled him to now share his chess learning experiences with a wider and an international community.

Alan is the author of the highly rated The Unexpected Mate, The Reversing Mate Series, Reversing and Forwarding the Tactics of Bobby Fischer, and the free On the Attack series which have together attracted thousands of students.

As Chessable staff, we'd also like to remind you that the high quality of Dr Bester's chess work has led to endorsements from leading coaches and players such as GM Alex Colovic.