Rapid Chess Improvement
Mate in one exercises
ChessCalisthenics Product description
Purchase ChessCalisthenics Volume 1
Tactical Training Without the Guessing
Rapid chess improvement can be attained by structured training exercises. The problem, up til recently, was that the available material was focused on the student "solving a position." Most of this chess training material is not suitable for class-level and beginning players. There is a more efficient way to master chess tactics and to learn chessboard visualization skills. ChessCalisthenics is a system of training exercises, without resistance, without any guessing: you simply replay the chess combinations of great players. Our system of training delivers thousands upons thousand of positions for tactics and visualization training.
ChessCalisthenics is inspired by DeLaMaza's key insights into chess tactics training: 1) there is great value in practicing with structured repetitive exercises and 2) this type of practice leads to tactical mastery. Our system of tactics training is based on this insight.
See DeLaMaza's Article "400 Points in 400 Days: Extremely rapid chess improvement for the adult class player: A five-month program" 400 Days Part I 400 Days Part II
Most chess instructional material poses problems for students to solve. The students, for their part, very often resort to guessing at the solution. For many, this is a frustrating experience that takes away the thrill and the joy of the game. We propose a totally different approach of tactical training that we refer to as "exercises without resistance," or ChessCalisthenics.
We present the student and the chess enthusiast with a specific tactical sequence, and ask him/her to simply replay as many examples as they need to master the tactical sequence. See this page for examples of ChessCalisthenics exercises. Our training CD's are in Chessbase format. You can download a sample file here.
With our CD's, each game is introduced at the specific position where the tactical sequence begins. An example of what we mean by a tactical sequence is a Knight sacrifice for two pawns or a two exchange combination that sets up a Bishop fork of the opposing King and a Rook.
Replaying combinations in a structured manner will build you a set of chess skills and create a store of chess knowledge without the drudgery of problem solving. If you take the leap of faith and try the exercises your game will benefit in many ways. Here are a few:
1) You will develop the ability to see more moves ahead than you can now.
2) You will more quickly spot certain tactical patterns.
3) You will develop your ability to accurately calculate potential combinations.
4) You will develop a deep appreciation for the relative values of the pieces.
5) You will be more disposed to evaluate potential sacrifices of material in your games.
6) You will more quickly appreciate why a certain sacrifice of material is a sound move.
7) You will develop the habit of scanning the entire board before you move a piece.
8) You will develop a better appreciation for positional concepts such as the overprotection of key squares.
Chess tactics training without resistance for rapid chess improvement.
A good way to improve your opening play is to review annotated miniatures.