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Absolutely love this kind of content Igor, very insightful. I always learn the most from watching your video's. Thank you!

This is a great lesson. Really gets down to the nuts and bolts of finding good moves.

You really do need to make a lot more of these videos. They definitely help a lot more than most other chess videos as far as I am concerned

Thank you Igor,you are one of my best online coaches so far

► Chapters 00:00 Improve Your Calculation Skills in Chess 00:17 1) How a 1600 ELO Player Calculated 03:06 2) How a 2000 ELO Player Calculated 03:52 3) How Grandmasters Calculated 05:04 4) How GM Igor Smirnov Calculated 05:20 Grandmaster's Calculation Technique 08:26 Calculating opponent's forcing moves 09:37 What separates GMs and others? 10:28 Calculating the line further (actual threat/goal) 11:40 Summary: 3 Tips to Calculate Easily

Thank you coach Igor! I learned something brilliant again today!

Great content. I think the hard part of finding a move like Re7 is that you are threatening a capture or check on the 2nd move, not the first. For example, you are threatening Bxf7+ next move, and if Qxe7, then you push the pawn to d8 and queen with a check.

Love this concept!

Very interesting video, thanks

I did find the collinear move move of Re7, and that's actually pretty typical for me. Finding aggressive moves is no problem. What trips me up so often, though, is missing my opponent's resources.

Beautiful example for how to calculate explained by you sir ,Kudos to you ,hats off to you ,you are best teacher,guide,coach , mentor 🎉🎉❤❤

What I have learnt from your videos isn't some nasty opening traps or how to calculate. What I have learnt is trying to go forward with every move and interesting things might happen. Following this approach has seen me become a much more attacking player . I have learnt that as long as you go forward with a piece it's a good move as long as you don't blunder it .This way you can keep improving your pieces and your position and when your position becomes superior tactics will naturally appear .

Best teaching forever

The video I was waiting ❤

Amazing stuff!

One of the first couple moves I thought was Re7, and I'm not that high of a player. However, do love those puzzle rushes. Really nice one here. 👍

I am going to adopt your heirarchy of candidate move identification. That sounds awesome and more structured than just taking in the whole board.

Ok. I watch and enjoy enough of your videos, I’m subscribed now

This is a really good video, thanks Igor

This is super helpful

Nice idea ❤

Thanks for the tips, now I hope I will be able to think faster but also better

Nice and effective teaching, as usual.

Игорь, побольше таких видео, пожалуйста. можно еще задачки подбные ?

Great video. Your content has helped me improve continuously which is what I’m after

phenomenal channel, phenomenal content, best chess channel on the net

MAN! I'm so happy and proud that I somehow found Re7 in maybe 3 minutes or so .... being 1400 rapid elo rated .... on Lichess!! 🤣 I think solving puzzles really helped me in these case Thank you for your instructive and helpful content!

Best youtube channel to improve your chess

Amazing as always❤👏

My logic for rook to e7 was rooks like being on the second last rank 😅🤣🤣

Do more of these types of videos my friend.

Great video! You have to include the two checks into the candidate moves. In fact you will calculate them first - and find, that they are not winning, but they are candidate moves...

Thank you, Igor, outstanding content. One thing that made me choose Re7 was the desire to use his back rank against him. So while Bxf7+ looks exciting, Kxf7 frees him from the back rank and it looks as though you've thrown away a Bishop.

I also saw Re7 but I'm just 800 rated 😮😮

Thanks

Excllent Video

Really good explained 😉From where are you? Best from Germany 👍🏼

Thanks Igor, I will give this a go! But surely it is CCA X 2 IE. Are there any checks, captures or threats from your opponents last move and then, if it is all clear CCA? The reason I ask is that I often get tunnel vision and throw away a winning position 😅😅

@8:06 Interesting video.. I stopped playing after senior high school but I started young as 10 and my grandma purchase a small chessboard for me and my brother. I did win our school sports event and we went district level, I lost but my team mate won, he was a 5th grader with dawn syndrome wearing thick glasses and barely able to move the pieces, this was in 1979. Thinking of it now he probably over 2000 ELO. Back to your content, I started to go back playing again so my brain will be active if I hit my 60’s and retire, the Rd8 came to me about 10min of thinking but did not follow up on it. I dont know my rating yet since we dont have it when I was young.

when considering checks/captures/attacks, before this video i never thought to examine each of my pieces individually from value highest to lowest. i just assumed looking at the board i knew all the moves i had available but i can see now how i probably have missed a lot of moves by not being more thorough

Sir the quality that you put in each video is amazing it's just drama and emotion. Stay humble though!

Hi very good Thanks

Funny thing, I'm a beginner, but I watch Igor's videos regularly. And Re7 was almost the first move that I thought about. It was like ok, if I can't attack right now, then let's make some support for a bishop and check on the next move

I saw RE7 in 2 minutes and I am 1350 elo.

5:45 - computers actually don't consider them most of the time either, because they find the much better attacking ideas a lot faster

I foung rook e7 in 4 minutes as 1500 currently

Adam's laughter should become a viral meme. It's totally infectious.

This really helped me. Thank you for the amazing content!

Really nice example. At an in-between 1800, I found the representative evaluations to be spot on. To find Re7 (as a TT problem), I fold in what I call an F/U move as a supplement to CC&A. These moves crop up a lot in training problems where your initiative is so strong that it opens the door to a square that normally otherwise would be rightfully/easily dismissed. These kind of moves are super disrespectful...often involving squatting all up in your opponent's business. So if you're struggling for a solution to a tactics problem, see if an F/U move isn't the way forward.

you: only GMs can find this move me: rated 1300 and still find Rb7 in 3 minutes

Re7 found in like under 30 seconds. 1200 USCF. I dismissed Qd5 and Bd5 at first partially because the video thumbnail and partially because I wanted to look at something more forcing first. Looking two ply in and it just looked lack-luster. I looked at the position to see what was going on. I see the pawn on the 7th with the rook on the adjacent file. I also saw the bishop’s pin. From there, I looked at aggressive moves that exploited these aspects. Quickly dismissed Re8 within seconds and Re7 was the second move I looked at.

“Create some devastation” 😂

@4:21 hehe Adam's laughter is contagious! 😂 nice humor Igor!

I first thought of the move Qg5, pinning the knight with 2 threats: 1. Sacrifice the queen for the knight with a back rank checkmate 2. Re8+ And after the knight recaptures you take the queen and mate soon too But then i realised i just blundered the most crucial pawn

very helpful advice thank you, look for the most powerful move first, i am a 500ish player😀

dang i calculated very far down the bishop d5 line, thought i had a checkmate but didn't see that darn knight still stopped my rook from coming down with the final blow. i also gave up on qd5 pretty quickly after seeing the black queen could take the pawn and defend all. the rook move never occured to me because i didn't realize the queen couldn't capture it, never considered the pawn queening on the d file.

I found rook e7 in about 5 mins and i cant express how happy am i as 1800

Ngl i only thought about luring the queen with re7 but yeah the other line is good aswell

This video was kind of confusing to me, I was waiting for the explanation but it was never explained. I saw Re7 after about a minute, then I assumed Qxe7, you promote the pawn on d8, but then what about black Qf8? There’s so many places to blunder after that move.

tbh, I think it's only practice and experience. I play chess since 4 years, am rated 1780 FIDE. One year ago I started studying and got a coach. Winning combinations are usually my homewrok studies as well as some endgames. One year ago, I might not have found Re7. Today it took me 3 minutes. First I tried, Re8 and Qd5 lines. When they didn't work, I found Re7. The more you expose yourself to moves like this, the easier you will find them. I think, that's pretty much it

Wow.. It's amazing.. I'm 1466 and found the move Re7 on my first try !! And the exact line after the move....

I am 1600 rated player: I found the queen move for less than a minute then I stopped the calculations on this line.I considered it kind of ok line.Because I knew there should be better move I kept looking for it and found the rook move for 3-4 mins.Thanks for the video

I'm 1900s and I found Rd7 in about a minute or so. I also considered the possibility of Rc1+ by black but after QxR QxR Qc8+ wins.

I finally got it! My FIDE rating is supposed to be (I'm 1203 by the way): Classical: 2500 Elo Rapid: 1800 Elo Blitz: -2882 Elo

If you still have room in your title, I could be the 1200 Elo player

10 Minutes played Rook E7 also, but I doubt I'm a 1400 lol! Enjoy your content always, you are a great teacher, thinker, and player.

I found out Qd5 isn't amazing since knigth can retreat and cover mate, but still didn't find Re7 or anything better. In a game I would have played Qd5, Qxd7, Qxd7, Nxd7, Re7 and white's position seems slightly better

Re7 is quite a shot; bravo

I'm 1830 and I found it in 30s 😌

RE7 found in 4 mins @ 1300 elo. Can't believe 1600 and 2000 rated players didn't find it. It takes a bit of thinking but it's not that hard to find. I don't do puzzles and 1300 is my chess plateau atm but I've only been playing blitz, maybe I should go back to playing rapid, maybe I do have potential.

1000 rated player. I spent about a minute and found queen takes d7 as a refutation to bishop to d5. I also saw that the knight covering d7 also prevents bishop takes f7 from working as a tactic to win the queen. I never saw Re7 as a candidate move. My solution was bishop to a4 to place it on the same diagonal to see e8. My full calculation was 1. Ba4 Rc2, 2. Re8 Nxe8, 3. dxe8Q Qxe8 4. Bxe8. At the end of the line, you are up material with a queen and bishop for a rook and pawn.

I saw it after few minutes and it judt came like an "cool idea" which turned into "oh I can win something big if I play this"

The roooock

Playing chess since three weeks online and rated 1300 found the move rouge to E7 in about 5-10 Minutes but i often lose to other 1300 - 1400 rated guys. In a real chess match you only got a small amount of time.

It’s so annoying, I’ll play chess and I’ll find the moves brilliant moves in like 10 seconds and I’m good with taking risks. I’ll know the sequence for the brilliant moves but when it comes to middle/end game I just can’t see the obvious moves, it’s like my mental energy just dies. My rating was 1650 and dropped to 1350. What’s causing this? Like where I see the extremely complex moves but struggle with the simpler moves.

Great video Igor! I'm USCF 1889 and here's what I did over 2-3 minutes ... I first considered 1. Re8 but saw that after 1...Nxe8 none of the tricks seemed to work (2. Qd5 Re6, or 2. Bxf7 Kxf7 3. Qd5 Kf8) I considered 1. Bxf7 and pretty quickly dismissed it. I looked at 1. Qd5 and was pretty happy. I saw 1...Qxd7 2. Qxd7 Nxd7 3. Re8 Nf8 and tried to make it work. I then saw 1...Qxd7 2. Qxd7 Nxd7 3. Re7 Nf8 4. Bxf7 Kh8 5. Re8 which looked very strong. I also saw the intermediate 3...Rg6 and saw that it didn't do anything. (I see now that 5...Rf6 refutes everything.) I didn't spend too much time on this one because I thought 1...Re6 was the stronger reply. I then went with 2. Rc1 Qxd7 3. Qxd7 Nxd7 4. Rc8 which wins. I also considered 2. Rc1 Nxd7 3. Qb7, and at this point I got kinda lazy, I figured Rc8 should work, or Rc7 if the black rook went to the 8th rank. I felt like I put in enough effort and that 1. Qd5 was "probably" correct. When you said Adams rejected this move because of 1...Qxd7 I was very surprised because that seemed like a weaker reply than 1...Re6. As the video kept going, and after you gave the hint of looking at moves on the opponent's side of the board, I asked myself "does Re7 work?" -- so I'm proud of myself for at least seeing it later :) So I think my areas of improvement are: 1. Once I find a candidate move that looks really nice, my search is basically over. I don't take new candidate moves seriously anymore and only consider the ones I already thought of. 2. If I find a move that looks nice, and things start to get murky, I convince myself that it's gotta be correct and engage in some sort of wishful thinking. 3. I'll do an exploratory non-committal search, then look at other things, and then mistakenly believe that the earlier search led to a definitive conclusion.

1600 elo: My thought process was that the pawn on d7 has two attackers. So, we need two defenders. The only logical responses are Re7 and Rd1 to defend the pawn. Re7 is positionally better as you wouldn’t lose the queen first recapturing.

Wow, this was helpful. I especially searched for this because I am 1600 kinda. Btw I did see Re7!

I saw the line bd5,Qd7,bf7, Qxbf7, Qd8,Qe8, QxQe8,NxQe8, RxNe8 mate. There are ways to win the rook or even the queen in some alternate move orders as well. For reference I'm 1100 and it took me around 11 minutes. I may be missing something though. I'd welcome someone to point out any errors.

Do more videos like this...but instead of showing a position...play like an online game and walk us through your thought process like...what move you are going to play and why you're playing that move and what are the considerations you take into account before initiating a plan into action....you can play from lower elos to higher ones... and make like a rating climb series.

I didn't find Re7, but I found Qd5 in about 2 minutes and I'm only 1100 - I don't get how it took 30 minutes to a 1600 player to find it... If it means my calculations skill is higher than my current elo - how can I identify what stopping my progress?

I did consider the move Re7 but dismissed it because Bf7, Kf8 and I couldn't go Re8 because after Nxe8, dxe8=Q, Qxe8, I am a Rook down... Turn out I totally forgot about the Bishop on f7 so I think I could calculate better if I somehow able to not forget about the pieces on the board

What about black queen takes pawn please calculate

I respect your opinion about attitude to play on normal players of chess but I think the problem is being in the moment like when I see this in game I would notice rook to e7 but now my goal is not there like I didn't made the past moves so I don't have plan for that situation

Didn't take me half an hour to figure out the variations. Took 3-5 minutes (wasnt timing). I am 1200. I considered the rook move first, a bishop sack on f7, that lead me to the bishop queen battery and discovery that the knight cant move. Considered if knight took queen and if rook e6. Considered rxe6 and if pawn takes e6 or knight takes queen again. Went to the point I could guarentee a queen king fork with the rook and knight having moved trom f6, or that the pawn had taken back on e6 and queen got a check. It is only when writing this comment (and not watching the video beyond @3:08) that I realise the bishop queen battery has more than Qe6+ to be the end of this as black has. Kh8 where white needs to dislodge the queen, else face a bishop v knight endgame or (Kf8 qf7# is an optimistic blunder). I can not calculate from the opening position to dislodge the queen un an effective time. I feel the best response is to push Harry to dislodge the g pawn from the knight defense.

I'm a 1200, but I still found the R-K7. This is because I saw this position as a Counterintuitive Position and I put on my Counterintuitive Thinking Cap. Suddenly, the move popped out at me.

Re7 was my first and honestly only move in less than 45 secs but I still find it difficult to get above 2100 in rapid chess games.

In only 400 but just thought of pigs on the 7th concept and lol thats the best move 😂

I was almost certain it's gonna be some weird move like king to h1, which "automatically wins the game" :D :D

queen df is the move i think in first puzzle but i am 300 elo not a gm

Hello Igor; I think you have to have a closer look at the Danish gambit; you were a bit taken astray. At one move you swop a knight for a knight on d2. Yet knight takes the pawn on d6 is much stronger. Can you consider this move and look once more at the Danish gambit. TH

I thought Ba4 was interesting but because I missed Qxd7 with the queen sacrifice, I played Qd5 without checking anything else. I completely missed Re7

Re7 was the first move I considered. I think when someone presents a position as a puzzle its easy to solve. The hard part is getting the pawn to the seventh rank!

1100 blitz player here... I actually found re7 in about 5 mins but admittedly I didn't see the full variation but i didnt see how they could defend the pawn so it looked good

I am thinking a move on Blacks perspective, The only way to save from this is to sacrificing rook on c8, if white captures and make queens , black queens takes and now white can't push back rank checkmate. Also, personally in this kind of position, I will definitely try to push my pawn to let my king escape in future.(Rating 550)

Oddly, my first guess was Re7, but I obviously couldn't see it all the way through from the starting position

Yes, I found QD5 move.

No way that a 1600 would take 30 minutes to find that move. And an 2000 would definitely find the rook move in the puzzle format

I have excluded Qd5 because of Qxd7, but I didn't find Re7 in 5 minutes.