CALCULATION in chess, is it really clear for us ??

There are numerous skills in chess that we used during the game, in order to achieves a goal, the more skilled you are in different aspect of chess, the more you are considered to be strong.

Speaking skills in chess, there are for eg :

• Attacking skills (principales of attack, including right patterns, right config of pieces, correct and rapid execution/ tactics ).
• Defensive skills ( Principales of defense, mindset when defending, ressourcefulness...)
• Opening skills (knowing variety of opening lines, various plans, have enough experience on them, and can recalled them rapidly and clearly)
• Positionnal skills (Fluid when playing positional chess, can find the right plan and right manoeuver easily)
• dynamical skills (Navigate into chaos and complication without difficulties, not overwhelmed, knowing principales of dynamical position, apply them correctly during chess game, have strong sense or intuition on them.)
• calculation skills (Capacity or habits to make in order several moves, vizualise them, give conclusion in each of them, compare them, and then,deciding the best one.)

1. Already what we can see here? most of time, our conclusion is always like , " i made calculation mistake here and there" , but not, i'm lacking skills for defense for eg.
2. it is know clear to us that, skills in chess are various, and in order not to blame so much our calculation skills, let me bring you in the world of calculations skills, what belong there, and what not, this is very important for us, in order to improve in chess, because, you can define exaclty/ correctly, wich aspect need to be rectified and trained.

ELEMENTS OF CALCULATION :

• Candidates moves : small list of initial moves that your intuition tell you when facing a particular position)
• Calculating: play some self- proposed moves in our head, pushing them a little bit, and give them conclusions, compare them, and play the best one after the process.
• Best reply of the opponent : trying to figure out what would be the most critical reply that our opponent will respond for the given candidates moves.
• Prophylaxis mode : using different perspective abording calculation, try to be in opponent shoes, what he wants to do instead of what i want to do.
• Method of inclusions, eliminations , best case/ worse case
• Evaluation : trynig to give a score for each branches, this, depending really on your intuition on the resulting position in your mind. (lots of things is needed here, like knowledge, experience, pattern reco, self believe and judgement, even your faith.)
• Last Checklist techniques and some self mental discussion : Some guide that each player invented in their mental process, in order to obtain a quality calculation outpout.

AND NOW? sample scenarios in chess :

If you for eg, playing with black, missed that in a rook endgame, you played Re7 instead of Re2, this is not calculation mistake, yes, you may considered the two as candidates moves, but, failing that in rook endgames, activity is far more important than protecting materials, so, your weakness is not calculation here, it is attacking/active play/rook ending principals.

If you calculate and thinking that A,B,C candidates moves available, A and B are refuted, its wrong to conclude that C is automatically the correct answer. Why, because, may be, you missed something in A or B, may be, you missed an D candidates moves. scenarios like, when calculation the C option, you found there refutation too. so you will be confused. Check all candidates moves calmly if you have more times

In chess, the winning variation is always hard to prove till the end than the wrong variation (this is very important, you can eliminate several candidates moves, just finding why they don't work.)

Visualization can be trained solving a lot of puzzles, sometimes, without a board.

Not knowing that pushing the pawn on h5 to attack g6, and creating weakness on diagonal h7-b1 in order to attack the black king, replacing then the fianchetod g2 bishop on e4, queen on f5, is not a calculation mistake, its a lack of skills in attack.

Chess is a game of pattern, each pattern is regrouped into a skills, so, if you are demanding, why i didn't see this here, may be, this is a lack of skills there, not by force, a calculation mistake.

Letting the haphazard do your responsablity when calculating is one the biggest mistake in calculation, hopping that i will have strong attack and i dont mind the rest.

Try as much as possible to be concrete in your calculation, try to give a net conclusion for each calculated variation.

On of the strange mistake in calculation is, turning around without giving conclusions. so, force yourself to give conclusion in each calculated variation. this can be trained, matter of discipline.