The BEST Way To Calculate in Chess

I have always thought that one of the hardest things in chess is knowing what to calculate sometimes I look at a position and I'll be like should I move my queen side pawns or should I defend my king or should I attack my opponent's king and I sometimes get so overwhelmed that I'll just spend so much time without really getting any plan in at the end just losing on time if that resonates with you guys then today's video hopefully will be very helpful in figuring out a good system for how to place your thoughts when

it comes to calculating in chess this is what I was taught when I was a little kid and my parents were teaching me how to play chess and this is the the advice that I want to give to you guys you should first calculate all checks in a position even the most stupid ones because there might be a hidden tactic then you should calculate all captures in a position and after that all the attacks that you have and those attacks could be something like a fork or you know threatening to do a fork or um

you know threatening to do a certain check any sort of threat the reason why I think this calculation method is so good is because it makes you see all the forcing moves in a position okay so what I'm gonna do is that I'll be playing a 10 minute game which will give me enough time to talk through my moves and tell you exactly how my thought process is so typically in the opening what you want to do is that you want to know kind of what you're doing just to save time over here I would

say though that if you're under uh 1200 you definitely should not focus on Theory or anything you should definitely focus on you know tactics or other parts of the game but I think that just learning a few moves in the opening when you're when you're starting uh helps you at least feel a bit more comfortable when you're starting a game of chess so I'm right now I'm gonna be playing let's see I'm gonna go D5 I'm just gonna play a Queen's Gambit Decline and I'll probably set up my my position into uh until it a

little triangle the Little Triangle slab um so yes right now I'm not really thinking a lot okay so my opponent went Bishop F4 so this sort of I mean this is the London Bishop basically Bishop looking towards C7 what I'll do is that I will go I was thinking of going C6 you know what I'll go C6 just like I was thinking but right now I'm not really thinking a lot about calculating this is not the point of the game where I want to calculate this is the point of the game where I want to

develop my pieces so because I sort of know what I'm doing I know what squares I want to put my pieces to I know my Bishop should go to E7 I know that you know now that my Pawn is over here okay my knight needs to go over here I know basically what I'm where I'm putting my pieces and therefore I don't need to spend time here and I can just focus on developing and not on calculating or anything so definitely I think that's something that I haven't said yet in the video but calculating is

something that you should do in the middle game and end game generally not in the opening at least unless like your opponent like play something very very very very very very very very very random but um I feel like it's always good to develop all your pieces before you do that because the more pieces that you have developed the more you know you'll be able to bring those pieces into any sort of attack or anything so yeah but obviously like if your opponent is threatening one of your pieces or something like that you know you

should you should be thinking about this um but yeah I mean right now there's not really any checks the only capture that there is at this point is going on night takes or Bishop takes here which I know is not good yet although I'm actually now that I'm thinking about it just because I started thinking about it I realized that I can actually maybe set up a trap for my opponent which is that I could maybe go H6 the idea being very sneaky that if I go Bishop takes Pawn takes then E5 would be trapping

the bishop which is what's happening right now it's just that now I've realized that after this and this the bishop might go here I will be getting my Bishop back but then my opponent will be getting an open file but you see guys I was literally telling you dude you don't need to do this in the opening but the moment I started to actually look through the captures I realized wait there might be a tactic in this position and all of a sudden I see the position in a different way like okay this sounds like

so deep but um I see the position a different way because I see that there's actually all these tactics because my this bishop doesn't have that many squares that it can Retreat to as my opponents but all their pawns on dark squares so I'm choosing right now to not really do anything about it but I'm keeping this in mind now I need to develop my light squared Bishop there's the last piece that I need to develop but I'm trying to think about a good way of doing it you know my all of my pawns aren't

light squares so what I'm going to do is that I'm gonna go B6 to try to develop it through either B7 or A6 I'm just gonna try to put it somewhere over here so in this position I can tell that this bishop is my bad one because all my pawns are on light squares and this one is my good one because one thing in my posts are light squares which means that this bishop has more movement okay now more things are happening in the game alright now we're at move 10 all right you know almost

all my pieces have been developed and now all of a sudden my opponent is going G4 and my opponent is going to go for an attack so this is the moment where I need to start calculating okay I know so do I have any checks in this position no there's not a single check do I have any captures I can capture on G4 but that would not really lead me to anything because I would just be losing a piece so that is a bad move and I can also capture on C5 with my knight my

bishop and my Pawn okay with these two I will lose a piece because my opponent will just capture so what happens if I take with the pawn okay if I take with the pawn if my opponent takes back then I'll be able to uh take take this with my knight and I will win a pawn but then my opponent will go G5 okay I need to do some calculation here what happens if I take here and my opponent goes G5 immediately this is a pretty scary move that I'm seeing right now because by going G5

my opponent will be able to exchange this Pawn for one of my Pawns in front of the king and as we all know the Pawns in front of the king are the most well I mean not the most important ones but your king is your most important in piece in the sense that if you lose it you lose the game so I don't want to lose my defense in front of the king I'm kind of worried about it um so I'm gonna try to figure out a good way of stopping this so what I am

realizing right now is that I will let my opponent go G5 but that is only because I have realized that after G5 I will be able to move my knight somewhere and when my opponent takes this then I'll be able to block okay I know there's a little bit maybe complicated um but I've started you know looking at all these captures and I'm seeing my opponent's attack I'm looking at the attacks in this position but I'm coming to a conclusion that I'm not scared of G5 so I'm gonna go ahead and take on C5 which

was the initial capture that I wanted to take that I wanted to do and now my opponent is going G5 just like I predicted now I definitely do not want to take this Pawn in G5 because then my whole H file is gonna get open and then it's very easy that my opponent will Checkmate me so I will go ahead and let my opponent take my pawn and I will just try to block the whole position I'm going Knight H7 I'm going back over here because my knight doesn't really have any other good Retreat scores

if I go 98 well then my knight will be blocking my rook and my queen which I don't really want so and now there's a really good theme to remember now that my point is taken on H6 I'm gonna go G6 okay I analyzed in my brain very quickly what happens if I take over here but I immediately didn't like it because I realized that um what's going to happen is that my my this file over here is going to get open so actually right now this Pawn right here is helping me guard my king

my opponent's Pawn is helping me guard my king right now okay this is right now still a pretty complicated position what I'm gonna do once again no checks okay what are the captures there is this capture you know what I actually quite like it because I am gonna be now a pawn up and as long as I am not getting checkmated I will just stay up on up so if the queen takes back here then what I'll be able to do is that okay there's no checks there's no captures but what attacks will I have

okay I will have Bishop F6 and I'll be able to place my Bishop on this beautiful diagonal I'm attacking the queen uh but um but most importantly I'll be placing my Bishop in this in this beautiful diagonal but why do I think about this move okay because I'm thinking about how to attack my opponent something right now okay I can attack this piece for instance why did I choose to go here and not to go to C5 because I want to put this bishop on a long diagonal because my Bishop will Thrive here my Bishop

will have a lot more movement here than it would have had on C5 where this Pawn would block it so let's go ahead and see where this queen goes now we also need to keep in mind that after a queen moves somewhere I will have this capture I need to think okay do I want to capture this Knight truth is that I don't because if I do I'll lose my beautiful bishop and this bishop I believe is better than this Knight as this Knight doesn't really have any good squares to go to so what I'm

going to do is I'm going to think about checks no checks captures I don't like this capture attacks what other attacks do I have okay I can go Knight C5 am I tagging the queen and I like this attack because I'm bringing another piece to the center of the board and I'm threatening the queen so basically I'm forcing my opponent to make a move now so the queen goes back to D2 okay Queen goes back to D2 and now once again I don't like this capture there isn't well there's also this caption H4 but that

just loses a piece so what I'm going to do is that I'm going to do an attack what attacks do I have what attacks do I have I could maybe go yeah what attacks do I maybe I could go E5 to maybe go D4 but I don't really like this because I'm blocking my Bishop but one attack that I really like is moving this bishop to A6 because I'm threatening to go Knight D3 check and I'm also developing the last piece that I wanted to develop now all my minor pieces are developed all my Knights

and my Bishops I only need to get my queen and my Rooks you know into the system working and now it'll be great okay now I actually have a check alright I did have this check before but okay I was losing a piece but now I have this check 93 check and I created I won Bishop A6 developing this piece but also creating this Knight D3 check attack this is an attack wasn't an attack because after I go here I'm stopping my opponent from castling my opponent now after this attack will not be able to

Castle because the King has to move somewhere and after you moved your king once you cannot castle and you know my opponent doesn't want to take the Knight so let's see where whoops I'm not gonna pre-move that guys make sure to not have your premiums uh well you should have your premise on when you're playing Blitz but that was very scary okay so King D1 all right so now I need to think again what checks do I have I can go check over here but Queen takes and I lose a piece so I'm not a

fan of that but um what other captures do I have okay I can take this I can take this but I don't like any of those moves because I'll just be exchanging uh good material for bad so what I'm going to do is that I'm going to create another threat I'm gonna go Queen B6 and I'm gonna be threatening to take this Pawn on B3 now I'm just trying to get my pieces out and threaten pieces okay and threading my opponent's position now if my if this Pawn goes to B3 we can see that this

bishop on F6 will be even stronger because now this Pawn will not be defending the Knight anymore so okay my opponent decides to move the Knight instead okay so now I have a few different options but what I will do is that I will create the seven threads as I did before but I will go Queen B5 and threaten this Knight at the same time all right did I have Knight takes B2 Chuck winning a pawn I probably did and this is what happens when I get a little bit low on time and I don't

go through the checks captures and attacks this is why everybody you should always go through text captures and attacks I believe that maybe Knight takes here was the best move in the position and I missed it so guys this once again I should have gone you know guys it's so easy to forget about the stuff that you're talking about and following your own method but um anyways now I'll remember checks captures and attacks Anna what checks do you have you have this one terrible check you lose a piece you have this one not a terrible

check why because Queen is defending this if the queen takes you're going to take it back okay you're checking the King has to move somewhere and you're gonna be getting a whole Pawn so let's see where the king ends up going let's see where the king ends up going if the King goes to C1 maybe I have another check if the King goes to B2 or sorry is the King goes to C2 then maybe I can go Queen B4 and put some extra pressure on this night I will have two pieces you know threatening it

and I will also be threatening Bishop D3 check lots of attacks going on but once again checks captures and attacks okay here we go so what other checks will I have I'm just thinking about it right now I only have two minutes in my time so I'm just really trying to think right now what checks will I have um so after King here okay I will have this check once again checks captures and attacks the first check that comes to mind this night over here between here just loses a queen any other track I can't

see it okay captures I have this I still don't like it I'm gonna go for the chuck all right let's see where the King goes now if the King goes here then I have maybe Queen B2 check and that will really be a check to consider so the King goes back okay so now is the time to think checks I have this check but then the king will just be able to come back I have this one but we already know I don't like it I have captures which could be to take this I could

take this Knight and then I could check because then I'll be taking out this Defender and my queen and my Bishop will be working really well together but I kind of have the feeling do I I'm thinking if I want to attack the piece said the queen here Knight probably has to move night checking here okay I'm gonna go for this I believe that this attack is better than getting rid of my Bishop because I believe that my Bishop is really strong right now also now now I realize that the night moves I'll be able

to take in The Rook um so yeah um I got feeling was right I just want to attack a piece I just realized I was trying to go too much for like some sort of Checkmate but there is no chalk mate so queens before I decided to go for an attack because I didn't like the capture I'm going for an attack I'm threatening this Knight and now in the night go somewhere I'll be able to take the rook and there's no way for uh for there's no way for for The Rook to defend without getting

lost the queen is already offending but I have two attackers and if the King goes ahead and tries to defend then I will have a check a really nice check and if the King goes to the same diagonal as my Bishop well then that just feels like it has to be really bad so my opponent is going Bishop F1 to put some pressure on this Knight but there is nothing I can just take on C3 with my queen and um my Bishop is the fan ending this night beautifully so now I'm taking this piece with

my queen um it was uh we've already covered the checks there's was this capture and this capture already looked good so I went for it so now when the queen takes back I'll be able to take it back and I'll be threatening this Rook at the same time as everything is defended so my Bishops are now gonna be amazing they're gonna be doing wonders in this game hopefully so um let's go ahead and let's go ahead and see what my opponent chooses to do there's not really a lot of things that my opponent can do

maybe my opponent can go something like Rook B1 and to be honest I really wish I could get my Rooks into the game but I can't really do it because this bishop is stopping me so that's a little bit annoying but I think my Bishops are very annoying too so okay The Rook probably has to go to B1 and then I'll be starting to analyze the checks again uh because you know it's it's time now to analyze the checks the position has changed and when a position changes you need to see it with a new

set of eyes so um I am a piece up so I'm feeling good about that but like I said I need to I need to see this position from A New Perspective okay my opponent just Blended a rook and because I'm seeing this through the checks captures and attacks immediately I'm analyzing the capture it captures to take the Rook I like it I'm a broke up there's nothing that my opponent can do I'll take the Rook I'll take it and I'll say thank you so um I don't really need to analyze any attacks because taking

the Rook is just better okay my kid my opponent's king is now going over here uh there's a threat right now on this night and if I move the Knight and I'm not careful I might lose my Bishop because the bishop is attacking this so checks captures and attacks I see that this check um is both tracking but also defending this bishop so I'm gonna go for this track I'll go ahead and take over here before anything else because I'm scared of losing my uh my bishop and um right now I have to make a

choice I will have to lose this one because um otherwise I mean I can't keep both of my pieces but I'll still be a lot of material up I believe I couldn't keep both my bishop and my knight I may be mistaken but I don't think so so I'm gonna go night over here because now there's no attack anymore the Queens are exchanged and now it's time for me to I'm just gonna play this pretty fast just to you know uh just to get this going but at this point basically I just want to get

all my pieces in I want to exchange as much as possible because I am a lot of uh material up so what I will do is that I will just go ahead and go night up threatening my Bishop this night I'm getting it now into the game because as the queen Star Exchange there's no more attack I'm gonna have to play very fast now so I'm I'm gonna try to cover everything that I'm doing as good as I can but right now I'm threatening this bishop the bishop will have to move somewhere and I already

know that I want to attack it okay this is a free Pawn I'll take it I'm not scared of this being opened up anymore takes and takes and I'll put the Rook on B8 because I want to create as many Discovery checks as possible I want to put my rook in the same file as the king so I'm gonna go Knight back over here and now I'll just try to go for some checks okay guys now we're very low on time I have 15 seconds my opponent has one and a half minute so like I

said I'm gonna have to go very very very very very very very fast okay we're gonna go for a check I see immediately that if King takes here I have a fork and I'm winning The Rook there we go I'm doing this in super extra speed right now but um I'm now for the Simplicity for sake of Simply simplifying things I'm just gonna hope that my the Knight takes a rook just because it's gonna be easier to just play with a rook I'm gonna go ahead and do a few premiums over here like this check

and then I'm just gonna go back all the way over here just to take the uh remaining pieces so simplest way right now of playing this is simply by promoting this last Pawn so that is what I will do I'm just gonna try to promote my a pawn and I'll just be moving this back and forth and then we will be trying to go for a checkmate so I'm just going to cover up as many squares as possible I'm gonna go for the check this is a check and I'm immediately seeing that after there's this

a Checkmate okay guys I'm very sorry that it went so fast at the end like I said I got very low on time um as you guys saw I gained 50 points of raining like I said this is a speed run account it's a certified wine by chess.com so I haven't played much on this but that is why I'm getting so much rating but basically what I was trying to explain at the end was that I was just trying to simplifying as much as possible uh my opponent didn't have a lot of pieces left so

I just wanted to get rid of all of the pieces that could trick me with a little time and just exchange them now in a way I was constantly trying to go for checks captures and attacks I mean here I was going for a check simply because I knew that no matter where the king went I would have a really nice Fork uh King went here then maybe I could have gone for some more checks maybe work here King here maybe bringing some more maybe even another Chuck I mean this just looks really good this

and Chuck and all of a sudden this almost looks like it could be a Checkmate soon I mean this and Rook B8 and am I crazy is this a chalk mate I think it is it's calculating is hard and um yeah I've tried my best to explain how I would calculate in a chess game and you know I forget all the time about checks captures and attacks like I forget about it all the time and if I remembered it when I'm playing chess like I really think that I would see things clearer and I would

understand my positions better because you guys saw at one point in the game I had forgotten about it and I had a much better Meal which was to just go Knight takes B2 check and because I was just focusing on like defending my queen I missed it but that is why you need to always think about checks captures and attacks anyways guys I do hope that this video was helpful at least in understanding you know my thought process hopefully you can bring something into your own games and hopefully you learned something from this video I'll

see you guys all in the next video once again don't forget to like And subscribe if you did enjoy it and have a wonderful day see you in the next one also tell me if you like this instructive sort of games down in the comments down below wait