How To Calculate In Chess

Ladies and gentlemen, it's no secret that chess is a pretty hard game. And one of the most important skills is calculation.

Calculation is the process of coming up with good ideas for yourself and realizing your opponent's best move in the process. Going down a few moves, evaluating the position, coming back, and making a decision. Or, for my under 1000 players, it's not hanging a piece in one move.

In this video, I'm going to get you thinking on the right track about how to calculate better as a chess player, so you will understand videos like this. Here I take. If here I go check. If here I go check. There should be two. King E2, Bishop D2, King D2, B5, E3, G8. I take. I'll go to page six. Bishop D5. Look at me. You will learn concepts like the checklist, which is figuring out what your opponent wants to do, looking for your forcing moves: checks, captures, and attacks. And you will also learn the advanced concept of the process, which is coming up with an idea, finding a negative verdict with it, either fixing it or discarding it, evaluating a position, coming all the way back, and choosing between two options. Timestamps are on the video player. We're gonna do a lot of different fun things. Here we go.

So, we kick things off with beginners. And I don't really know what the rating cutoff here is necessarily. I'm just gonna say like the ceiling is a thousand, but some of the eleven hundreds and twelve hundreds watching might also benefit from this. We're going to start introducing the concept of the checklist. But as a beginner, you need to minimize your one-move damage. You need to evaluate what's under attack and what you can do of the one-move nature for both yourself and your opponent. And let's introduce the checklist. Two of my subscribers volunteered. Shout out to Mango. We're gonna look at their games, then we're gonna solve some exercises based on this kind of stuff. So here we go.

E4, C6. First, we have the opening stage. Mango plays the Caro-Kann Defense. All good. D4, Knight to F6. Not the most accurate move. It's slightly better in this position to play E6 so that you don't get hit with this move E5, but still not a blunder as far as I'm concerned. This is totally okay. Now, Knight to H5 is kind of the first inaccuracy, but it's still. This is still the opening. Knowledge. Understand. Listen to me. Opening knowledge and understanding how to get out of the opening is not calculation. You need to have a good opening fundamentals. Okay. Here, Black is able to kind of mitigate the fact that they don't have a such a great position. Okay. But now, here we go. One-move attack over there. This move drastically weakens this knight. So the first thing that I'm thinking of in this position is to bring in this bishop because that pins the knight and it's very difficult to defend because, for example, if Queen to D2, how do we apply more pressure here? Queen to A5 and the game is just over. Like, you take the knight and then it's like this, and this is all falling apart.

Now, what's harder here is what to do after Bishop to D2. This is where it gets a little bit tricky, and this is where we start applying that checklist. Number one, what does the opponent want? Well, the opponent is just defending their knight. Okay. Do I have any checks? No. Do I have any captures? Yes, I have this, but that doesn't do anything. I also have this. What does that do? That on defends the D4 pawn, which is hard to see, but that will add an attacker to this and to that, and that's bad news. Now, what does this do for the opponent? This is where it gets hard. This is where you have to pay extra attention. The knight is hanging, but if I look at one more forcing move, I attack their knight as well. If they take my knight, I take their knight. We've emerged with an extra pawn. But even better, we're probably gonna win a second pawn, and there is even a chance that we win a rook. Okay. And potentially a second rook. Potentially not if they defend all the best ways. So when you have these one-movers, beginners, you can like immediately swarm weaknesses if they are available. That, that is like the immediate calculation. We will do positions later in this video which are not this simple. Okay. That don't have these immediate ramifications. Okay.

Black plays C5. Not like, not a terrible move, but Bishop B4 was obviously a lot stronger. Now, here, you take, take. Now, what's hanging here? Okay. What's hanging? The knight. Okay. That's how the position changes. But Black finds a move, kind of following along with their plan, which attacks the knight on C3. That's perfectly good. That's a good bit of calculation. Okay. Now, White plays Knight to A4. Your knight is hanging. Your queen is hanging. What do you do? You have to save the queen. But how are you going to save the queen and the knight? Oh, by giving a check. Oh, I like that. Okay. So you're not going to save either of them. King moves. Now, this is a problem. So what do you do? You give another check. Now, White in this position had just moved the king, right? So White ended up moving the king again. But this is wrong. Why? Well, the knight is still hanging, and you're in check. So how do you make sure you can win the knight and it's not going to go anywhere? By just bringing the bishop back. Because now the queen hangs and the knight is hanging. You see what I'm talking about? That is how you would do it. By moving the king. This gives Black a full move to play this, and now Black safeguards their knight. They can still lose a pawn. They can still lose a pawn, but that is how these one-movers work.

Bishop back to E2 is a very difficult move to play considering White has already moved to F1. But that is, you need to be cerebral enough to pick this stuff up in game flow. Like, "Oh, I can win the knight. I can win the knight because it can't move anywhere." But it can be protected. And if I just move my bishop back to block, by the way, blocking checks is a big blind spot for beginners. Like, they they often move the king when it's check, or, you know, they don't want to trade queens. Now Black safeguards. Now White plays this move. That move doesn't make any sense. That move is designed to prevent me from castling. Black just develops. And now White plays G4. Oh, turns out that that move did have an idea, and it was to trap the knight and not let the knight escape. Uh, well, there you go. That's a very tough move to see. I don't actually know if that was the full extent of White's idea, but credit to, uh, to White because I'm not gonna lie, I didn't even see that in the middle of the game flow. So there you go. Very tricky idea.

Now, Knight takes pawn. Free pawn. You see, we're picking this up now. Ladies and gentlemen, why is Queen takes pawn bad? Why is Queen takes pawn bad? Like, let's say you were playing with the White pieces here. You want to play Queen take spawn. Oh, I'm pinning the knight to the rook. If the knight moves, I take everybody. Because, and I can flip this just to show you. If Queen takes pawn, Knight takes Bishop, it's check, and you lose your queen. You play this move because you see this, but you forget your queen is guarding your bishop. These one-movers happen all the time, and that is something that we have to pick up on as beginners. But this game concluded with the knight getting taken. A trade. Long castle. Now, long castle. Stop protecting the F7 pawn. Okay. Queen F7. And now E6 is under attack. So Black plays D3, just pushing a pawn. Not really, not really sure what's going on there. Queen takes pawn, check. King B8. Now White plays C3, attacking the bishop. You cannot take this, right? But Black plays another really nice move. Not moving the bishop, counter-attacking the queen. Danger levels. Rook D8. Very nice move. Activating the rook. Queen moves out of the way, and now the bishop comes back. Trade of bishops. C4. Okay. Queen B4. Queen D1. And remember that at this point, the players are in a little bit of a time trouble. Um, so obviously, like, one-movers are getting overlooked.

Now, one last thing I want to draw your attention to in this game. What is the softest spot in your Black's near the king? This. You have a rook there, right? And it would be really nice if you could take there with the queen, but again, one-movers don't work because the knight is right there. So that is how you would calculate in the span of a game. Right there would be this kind of constant evaluation process of, "What is it that my opponent is doing? What is weak? What can I capture?" We're gonna try to apply this in another beginner game. Shout out to the longtime supporter, uh, of my, uh, of my Twitch channel in particular, uh, rated 759. Now, this game begins with the, okay, a Sicilian Defense. But at 670, there's no such thing as a Sicilian Defense. There are some opening mistakes. Okay. Queens are traded. Black can no longer castle. Great. Uh, White should probably push the pawn in the center because White goes here and forgets that even at this stage, there's these one-movers, right? These one-movers. Okay. Knight takes. Now, White trades and takes with the king, which it's not a bad move, but you have to justify it. And actually, White does. White finishes developing and now brings the rooks to the middle. This is all very, very smart. Rook D1, Knight D7, and castles. What's known as by hand. It looks like White has castled.

The most important moment of the game begins right here. This is the typical middle game of beginners. Black plays the move E4. Obviously not bad. Now, White can either go passive with Knight back to D2 or aggressive with Knight to H4. That is a good move. Black needs to protect the bishop. Black does. Now, you can pause here and try to find this. This is not a one-mover. This is a two-mover. The the whole concept here is a two-move tactic. Why? Well, let's use the checklist. The bishop has been protected. Fine. Look around the board. Do you have any checks? Yes. Is it good? No. But your rook pressures the knight, and the king is on the other side. So what should that trigger in your brain? King can't move. King can't move. Okay, great. King can't move, which means that if we add another attacker to this, we can win it. Bishop B5. But who's guarding the knight? The bishop. You see how that thought process works? So, of course, you take, and now all you need to do is attack the knight one more time, and you're gonna win it. You see how the checklist will fail us if we're just, it was just not cerebral enough. But if you're 750 and you're playing a five-minute game, the chance of you seeing this in the game flow is lower because you're you're not that strong yet. But that's why you watch videos like this, okay? That you like, you improve by doing things like that. Okay.

King C7. Now we move out of the way. This is still a very good move because you're gonna fork, pick up a couple pawns. White checks, and now Black plays this one-move blunder, just forgetting the fact that there's this and this. White takes, backs up, and brings in the rook. Okay, great. Now, if you move the rook anywhere, it's a check, but it has to be good. If you go here, they just take you, right? Instead, what White does here is realizes that the bishop is hanging in the middle of all of this chaos, which is very good, by the way, and plays the move B3. Perfectly fine. I don't hate it. Knight to C8. What does that do? Attacks the rook. Rook moves anywhere. We win material. Rook takes F6. Fantastic move. King D7. Now, here, White gets a little bit of tunnel vision and takes this pawn. I don't hate it. But as you get better at chess, you pause on Rook takes F5 and you go, "Do I have any checks?" If I just bring one more rook to the party, the game is over. The game is over. You will swarm this king with your rooks and your bishops, and Black dies. Like, Black is dead here. It's made in four. Um, which, you know, is like this. The rooks come in, and you basically, you literally just ladder mate them in the middle of the board like this. And by the way, it's double check at the end, which is very nice. You can also play the very flashy Rook to G6, which is double check and mate. So taking F5 is fine. You're still completely winning. The whole point of beginner chess is to minimize your blunders. If you can minimize your blunders, you will be very, very happy. And here, what's funny is that after Rook and Bishop, remember a couple of moves ago, that's where Black blundered a bishop on D6. You see? Remember a few moves later, White, Black blunders the knight on D6, but White doesn't take it. But still, White is completely winning. And you get into some time trouble, but, uh, Bishop D6 is played, and, okay, Black just chooses to resign, uh, because I guess they're kind of frustrated with their position. But that was a great game. You see what White did? White activated their pieces down the middle, was cerebral enough to move the king out of the center, put the rooks there. That's why I brought the rooks, right? But still, if you apply that checklist, uh, you can figure things out a lot faster.

Now, I want to solve a few puzzles in Puzzle Rush Survival to kind of really hammer this home. Here we go. Okay. Now, for this part, the beginners are going to have a lot of fun. Um, we're just going to do the checklist, and we're going to try to get to 15 using just the checklist. Okay. Checks, captures, attacks. Rook to D1, um, and then take the rook, and it's checkmate. And puzzles are different because they are already structured for you to be winning. But again, this is just to get that point home. You don't need to calculate that much. Uh, every single one of these has been a one-move checkmate or a two-move checkmate. Okay. We seem to have our first kind of tricky one. Our knight is hanging, but again, apply the checklist. Queen to H5. They can block with either of these. The queen just will just take. Or if they go King to D8, what you will do is you will jump in here with the knight, attacking that king and that rook, and on that square, you will be protected by the queen that you just moved there. You see? That's how calculation works. Knight to F7. Follow the money. Queen F7. Okay. This one, uh, well, I wanted to go there, but the only check we have that doesn't lose material is this one, and that also happens to be checkmate in one move. Beautiful. Okay. Well, this is an endgame. Um, I mean, this is kind of outside the realm of, of this, of this, but of course, you just push your pawn and, well, endgames are not hard. You need to go make a queen. Uh, okay. This is attacking this and this. Uh, all right. This is a combination of check and attack. We go Queen to E1. Let's say they take our queen. If they don't, we have the exact same tactic I will show you in a moment. Uh, and then we take King H2. Now visualize. Rook is down here. King is here. You have a dark-squared bishop. The king and the queen are on the same diagonal. How do you win them? By putting the bishop on E5. So we play Queen E1, and the second that the king arrives on that square, we have Bishop to E5. How does the brain pick up on that so fast? Pattern recognition is a massive part of this. That's just the reality. If you've never seen this before, you need to memorize it. It will come up in future games. The escorting of the king and then winning the queen. You will have a rook versus bishop endgame, and you will be better or winning, right? Okay. Knight, queen teaming up on the same F7 square that we just saw. Queen to F7. Queen to H7. Boom. Uh, this is, uh, probably some sort of checkmate. It's, uh, Rook F5. Probably Rook H5, and then Rook back. This is a weird rodeo that you do with the rooks here. H4. The everything gets taken. So Rook F5. I think I'll go up to 10. I don't want to waste a huge amount of time, um, just solving puzzles. Okay. Knight is attacking me here. If I take, they take back. Do I have any queen checks? All of that is occupied. Oh, but I can go that way, and that's actually just mate in one. And you see in this position, I'm like dead lost. But if you look for checks, it's all there. Queen A5. Very nice. Uh, we'll do this one because this is a very famous queen and rook. You go here, and then the back rank checkmate. The king has no escape. Same thing. See, sacked the queen on the back rank. We just saw that a couple puzzles earlier. Um, this is probably some checkmate. Yeah, like Knight C2 or or something. You have like some checkmate here. Knight C2, King D1, and visualizing that the king is no longer protecting the bishop, and Queen E1 is mate. Yeah. So this is checkmate in three. Knight C2, boom. And, uh, around here, they stop being checkmate. So let's pause here for now. But you see how we apply this.

Let's move on to the intermediate and advanced concepts. Okay. So, intermediate and advanced players watching this, the most important thing for all of you, beyond the the basic tactics and and all these kinds of things, the most important thing to get better is to begin proving yourself wrong and identifying your opponent's best moves. Stop only calculating for yourself. So you need to find an idea. That's called the process. Find the negative verdict of that idea, and either fix it or abandon the idea completely. If you find an idea and five things about it are good, and one doesn't work at all, there is not a five out of six chance that it works. It means it doesn't work. I don't care how many positives you see. And I will show you this in the following example. I had a blitz game the other day, okay? And this was my position. I'm playing with the White pieces, and here I am, completely winning. Uh, in in case you can't tell, my attack has clearly succeeded. I would really love to play the move Queen to H8, hunt the king down. And the move that I saw here to create a box, by the way, feel free to pause and try to find the move. Um, the move that I saw, and also while evaluating, my opponent has no counterplay, is Bishop to F6. And the idea of this move is that while it just attacks the bishop, if they take, take, the king is just can't escape. The only move here is King to E8, right? Again, only move because otherwise it's mate. They can sack the rook on C3, but only move. Then I was going to go here and hunt the king, right? And then once I get here, I get in with my queen and my rook. The game is lost. I mean, the king is just lost. But I started coming up with some crazy ideas. I was like, "Can I sack my queen?" And the idea of this move is to go here, check. If the king goes to the back rank, it's mate. So King G6. Okay. And now I wanted to go Rook H3 with the idea to go check and mate, ladder mate. That was my big idea. I was like, "The king has no moves and there's no checks. I'm so smart." And I spent like 30 seconds. My chat was yelling, "Do it, do it, do it, do it." I was like, "Well, how does, what is Black gonna play here?" Well, they have to stop my idea by playing the move F4. And then I was like, "Well, I'm so smart. I'm just gonna move up one square and go to G4 and G5 instead." And then I had a brain blast. And the craziest thing is, I had this brain blast back here. That's the thing about chess. You can't play the moves and then do. You have to think. And I was like, "Well, take here, here, here. Rook H3, F4, Rook H4." Visualizing. And a lot of you asked me how to get better at this. Practice. That's it. Just practice. And I was like, "What about E3?" So the pawns are here, and the king will run out on the light squares. And you know what the craziest part is? After that entire sequence of moves, oh, I apologize. After this sequence of moves, that is literally the refutation. Black plays E3 and escapes, and it's actually a draw if I find like some insane computer move. But I discarded this because I saw this, and instead, I played the simple move Bishop F6, and I ended up winning the game some while later, although I hung a rook in a time scramble. But again, time scramble aside, that is how you find negative verdicts. And the thing is, the most important thing is, um, I will show you one more example really quick of a Daniel Narodisky calculation, which you probably saw in the intro. Uh, you have these positions which are like on the verge. You are on the verge of winning and losing. So it's a bunch of only moves. Take a look. Six. Queen F8. Bishop G7. If Queen F8, King F6. Queen H8, King G5. F4, King G4. H3, King G3. Queen takes D4. Rook D2. Mate.

Okay, so I literally, I have the game here in front of you, the of the clip that you just saw. And Daniel Narodisky here was calculating Rook F2, check, King E1, Knight D3, here, and rather than checking, weaving a net around the king. And this move threatens Rook D2 as well as C2 checkmate. All he had to calculate here was the checks. You understand? Like positions like this where it's very clear what the opponent can do to you. That's it. And he calculated Queen H8 here. If here, Bishop blocks. If Queen takes, that doesn't stop the checkmate. Okay, great. Does that mean you play your idea? No, because he needed to also calculate Queen F8. And now the king cannot run to H6. So the king has to go this way. Now the queen gives this check. Only move, King G5. And what happens if the pawns attack you? He said F4, King G4, H3, King G3. King is safe. Doesn't matter if the, again, because the bishop is not involved in the checkmate attacks, right? So then he calculated H4, and then he was like, "Oh my god, I think that works." And it did. He was a hundred percent right. Rook F2, check, all the way back here. He had to calculate Rook F2, King E1, Knight D3, King D1, C3, Queen F8, King F6, Queen H8, King G5, and then the king runs away. However, ladies and gentlemen, what if, what if I edit this position by just one move and I move the H pawn forward? Does Rook F2 check work now? Rook F2, King E1, Knight D3, King here, C3. No, it does not. Why? Feel free to figure out what the difference is. The difference is that I give you, uh, this check. You have to go here, and then I give you this check, and you have no escape because my H pawn is covering G5. You see that? When the king is on F6 and Queen H8, the king has no escape because every pawn is covered. I mean, every pawn is covering the king's escape squares. The major difference there is the positioning of this pawn. And therefore, you would rule out the move Rook F2. And you know what the crazy thing is? This position's still winning for Black if Black plays King H6 voluntarily and just goes for a run, just goes for a run. Position is still completely winning, which I find fascinating. Um, and for example, if G4 here, trying to prevent the king from escaping, then this does work because you have now softened up the F3 pawn, so I can checkmate you by force with this, this, and C3. And the same idea because again, you will block. That's the major difference. So, uh, well, that was the Daniel Narodisky calculation.

But let's now show the intermediate and advanced players how to calculate positions that aren't so dire, where you cannot clearly evaluate. You understand what I'm talking about? All of these positions have been right along the edge, but in many games, that's not the case. So let's take a look at what that looks like. So what I was, the line I was talking about was C5, Knight C3, Bishop B7, Knight D5, Bishop D5, C takes D5, Knight D4, trying to win the pawn on D5. D6, C takes D6, Rook D6, and then he had Rook Fv1 because if King F6, Knight E4, and King F8, then then my king and my rook are passive. So we'll begin the next few examples with me just saying that when a position is not so clear-cut winning or losing for both sides, you need a process. You need to identify, obviously, your opponent's plan, but furthermore, the concept candidate move, coming up with one, two, or three ideas that look good, finding the good and the bad responses for the opponent, and evaluating. Now, you'll notice with this Hikaru clip, that he says he wants to begin with the move C5, and the idea there is that he wants to have control of this diagonal. But he calculates that his opponent would play Knight C3. And here he calculates Bishop B7, check, Knight to D5, counter check, takes, takes, the knight jumps in to disconnect the rook from the defense of the pawn, but White plays D6, sacrificing the pawn because otherwise it was going to be lost. You cannot take with the king. Hikaru doesn't even talk about that because Knight F7, so you can't do that. And if you take with the rook, then he goes here, and Hikaru's really only move here, not to get a losing position, is to go back. And he says, "My position is passive." And the scariest thing is, he's completely right. He did all of that in five seconds. Every one of the moves he said was the top engine move, and he discarded the move C5 because of this, and instead waited and played Bishop B7 because then C5 would be pinning the knight and not allow that to happen. And for example, now if White plays back here, uh, well, potentially he just doesn't play C5. He'll play something else and he'll delay the move C5, maybe Knight D4 first or something, and then, and only then, play C5. Or if his opponent plays C5, well, then he abandons that entirely and just takes the diagonal. That is the way chess works. You have candidate moves, ideas, and people like Hikaru do them instantly. Literally, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

But let me show you a few examples from my own games. Okay. So let's begin with this example. I actually played this game about two hours ago. Was just hanging out here, and I played some blitz. Strong Armenian International Master, rated 2700. And by the way, in Armenia, did you know that chess is a mandatory subject for kids in school, like ages six and seven? In Armenia, it's pretty cool. Anyway, here we have a position where it's the opening, and I don't know the theory anymore. But from here on out, I'm basically just kind of playing solid and simple moves. And we go back to the principles I told beginners: be solid, be smart, and don't overthink things and get low on time. So I just played A3. It's like, I want the bishop. Okay, we traded. Now I have the bishop pair, and I wanted to put my bishop on A3. Wouldn't that be nice? So what did I play when my opponent played E5? Do I have to take? No. I evaluated this very briefly as bad for me. Why? I give myself an isolated weakness here. It's just not good. Why would I activate my opponent's pieces for him? So no, that's no danger to me. So I play the move A4 to try to play Bishop to A3. Right. Rook D8. Okay. I can play A5. Why am I playing A5? Softening up the structure. My bishop is very strong. I want to undermine. Prevent Knight B6 as well, right? And then here I had a very big decision, and I spent some time here. How do I defend my pawn now? Again, should I take? No, horrible, very bad candidate move. Throw it out immediately. Why would I trade my bishop for that knight? My bishop is so strong. But I did not, I could not figure out the difference here between this, this, and this. All ways to protect my pawn. And I figured I should move my queen. And you know, right? But I couldn't figure this out. I just, I just couldn't. I had no clue what the difference is between those moves because everything my opponent can do is the same, no matter what. And it's funny. I thought for a while, and I blundered. I forgot that this now is not guarded. So my opponent just went bang, bang, and took my pawn. And actually, White is still better. Why? Massive lead in development. Black's pieces are very cramped. And I ended up just focusing on the queen side. I continued with my plan. I jumped in. I attacked the weakness. And here is another very important moment in the game. My opponent is extremely passive. And using the nature of forcing moves, I really wanted to attack the queen. So I did that by with tempo. I attacked the rook first, then I kicked the rook away, and then I, I kicked the queen out, and then I just kept improving my position. I just went forward. I kept improving my position, and I ended up just overwhelming my opponent. I'm down two pawns, but it's dominant. I mean, my opponent cannot move the knight, cannot move the bishop. This is all soft. And I want to, but it got a little bit chaotic when we had like 20 seconds on the clock. But that is how it works. And sometimes you just don't know. Like, you just don't know. My my intermediate friends, advanced friends who are like 2000 watching this, you don't know. So just play a move. Just play a move, especially if it's blitz. You just don't know. Be solid. And I, I wasn't solid. I hung a pawn, but it ended up working out. Um, so that's one example.

Now I'll show you another one. So this is yet again a blitz game that I played on stream like maybe a few days ago. Very complex game, relatively closed position. And what I mean by that is we both have seven pawns. We both castled queen side. I'm under a bit of pressure. You know, opponent has two bishops, I only have one. But notice I put a bunch of pawns on light squares to counteract my opponent's light-squared bishop. And here I played Rook D7. Why did I play this move? Well, I want to play Knight F5, but my knight right now is guarding my pawn. Okay, simple. So I play Rook D7. And at this point, I'm looking, can my opponent's sacrifice on E6 and take with the rook? They can't play C4, so there's no threats to my position. I play Rook D7. Rook E1. No threat. Knight F5. Now I am threatening to take this pawn. An opponent here trades. Now, of course, what do you take with? It's funny. Of course, it's to me, it's very obvious. G. You take with G because why on earth would you, would you open the red carpet for your opponent like this? Doesn't make any sense. Why would you allow the rooks to? No, I don't like that. Let's stick with the G pawn. Okay. Opponent plays B3. What does B3 do? You remember the very first example we looked at? I did this on purpose. I prepare for my videos, okay? So if you made it this far, I just want you to know I appreciate you, and you should appreciate that I prepare and I try to tie concepts together. It weakens this. The only way I can get to those pawns is by opening up my bishop with a pawn break C5. But I don't want this move to come with check. So I slid my king back, and they can't play C4 because D4 is super soft. Opponent played this, and well, what was my plan the whole time? And remember, I'm monitoring this constantly. It's a constant mental thought process. Is that possible? Is something there? Boom. C5. And the second that happened, I took with the bishop because they can't take there would be a fork with my knight. Then I glue in my bishop with my pawn, and then I transfer all my rooks, and I'm ready to go. And you'll notice as this game progresses, I completely shift my focus to this side of the board. Bring back the bishop. I end up winning a knight for a rook, and we had low time, so we shuffled a little bit here, but I ended up offering a kicking out the knight, activating my rooks, and I, I just, the game was completely decided on this side of the board, like completely. All because I softened it up with a pawn break. Now we go all the way back. Clearly, the move B3 was a mistake. My opponent should not have played the move B3. But it's also not easy to do anything. For example, if you play F4 trying to rotate the knight, it's not a terrible move, but I'm gonna continue to expand on this side because this is all shut down. No one's getting in there. No one's really getting in down the middle. So it's a free pass for me to just attack on this side of the board, attack on the queen side. That's it. That's what I'm trying to accomplish. And that is really how you calculate at the highest level. It's constant analysis of their threats, what they want, and what you can accomplish, and what based on your moves they are going to get in terms of opportunities.

Okay, so let's summarize. Full screen. Beginners, what you need to do: have some understanding of the fundamentals of the opening. Begin applying the one-mover concept to punish your opponent's mistakes. And constantly scan for checks and captures and attacks and forcing moves. But before you make a move, look at their possibilities to you: checks, captures, attacks for them. You will see a massive, massive, massive increase in your abilities. As you start traversing, you get to 1100, 1200, you begin applying this process in positions that are not so clear-cut. If there are no checks, there are no captures, there are no forcing moves, okay? Minimize my blunders. I'm gonna be solid. Improve my position. Make a one to two move plan, potentially expanding in the center or improving the position of my pieces or getting a favorable exchange. And that is where the middle game lessons start applying. But this is a video about calculation. So at the end of the day, what that means is I have three ideas, my candidate moves. Okay? Number one, I've evaluated to the end. Bad. Number two, looks good. Do I play it? No, let me evaluate. Number three, unless number two leads to checkmate, then you don't need to evaluate number three. Okay. I have ideas one, two, three. One is bad. Two is okay, not bad. Three also not bad. I can't tell the difference. That's where your experience comes in. Sometimes you will choose wrong. You will play the move, it's wrong. You were wrong. You were actually correct about playing the other move. That's chess. That's just how it works. So that is how you calculate. Sometimes it leads to checkmate. Sometimes it leads to a small strategic advantage. And sometimes four options look good. It's like being at a buffet. Everything looks delicious. What do you choose? I don't know. You can't really go wrong.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes this video. I hope it was useful. Please let me know if there are any comments in the comments section. I will happily address them. Uh, but this was a lot. So peace out. I'll see you in the next video. Get out of here.