THOUGHTS OF A CHESS ADDICT

 So we've come to the final session tonight! The past 4 sessions was productive in getting the content across to the enthusiastic participants, with good questions on the related topics. Of the 4 sessions, most had challenges in visualisation which was not covered in most chess literature. It is always easy to read about it, watch videos to show how its done but nothing like practicing it regularly to see progress in the games. This effort takes a long time to master but the dividends are worth it. The next challenge came in on Playing Online for Improvement. When reviewing the games of the participants, most preferred to spend time on shorter time controls  probably owing to lack of time. However, it is better to accumulate spare time to solving puzzles if there isn't enough time to play a minimal 10 5 or 5 3 game. Anything less than that would not work towards chess improvement. Lastly I urge my participants to try and play regularly over the board. Committing 2 hours a week...

 Finally, with 6 registered for the class, we started at 8 pm Nov 3.  It was a good mix, with retirees, 3 enthusiasts and 1 student. We started on the topic of visualisation. Few spared time training for this aspect of chess but little do they know of the potential benefits in improving visualisation of the pieces on the board, especially when they perform 3-6 ply calculations. Having the ability to keep track of the changes per ply can be a daunting task but yet so critical as one mistake can alter the choice of candidate moves. No we are not learning visualisation for the purpose of playing blindfold chess. It is mainly to allow us to see into the future the result of our calculations and evaluating the right picture. As each ply is added the visual clarity of the board and pieces becomes unclear. After 4 ply it is even a challenge to note which piece has cleared a path or expose another piece to attack or threat.  What then are the building blocks of good visualising h...