Earlier, I introduced a thinking method for players below roughly 1200 Chess.com / 1500 Lichess rapid rating that helps you decide what to pay attention to during a game without getting overwhelmed, identify vulnerable pieces, and know what steps to go through before making a move. If you are above this level, this analysis still might be useful for you if you sometimes feel you are unsure how to make a plan, or if you feel your board vision and basic threat awareness haven’t caught up with your knowledge yet.
Do you remember these steps and the color codes? If not, or you haven’t read the previous article yet, I’d recommend reading it first, because otherwise this analysis might not make so much sense.
I played the following game during a Twitch stream against a player in the same rating range mentioned earlier. You might not find the game brilliant, or particularly exciting, but many games we play don’t contain spectacular sacrifices or great attacks. That’s just how real life is, and that’s fine. I’ll show you how the thinking process helped me decide what deserves my attention, what I can ignore momentarily, and what I should do next.
During the analysis, I won’t color every piece, only when I think it’s necessary. Just like I’d do in my own games, I’ll always check out the moves that were made and the potential effects and changes they might have on other pieces. You may notice that I sometimes highlight a yellow piece and then remove the coloring a few moves later. This is intentional. I want to notice every piece that could potentially become relevant, but once I've checked that it cannot currently be exploited, I can take it off my mental list.
How can you decide if a vulnerable piece is irrelevant? You can ask yourself how likely it is that you or your opponent could exploit them within a reasonable time. It’s sometimes unclear though. At times we see ghosts and overprotect something; at other times, we disregard a vulnerable piece and blunder it. We all make a lot of mistakes in this, even at higher levels.
This method wasn’t meant to solve chess. My whole idea was to make you more mindful about your decisions by making the scanning process more manageable, and to help you notice vulnerable pieces, recognize what is urgent, and avoid overlooking things that could cost you material. And hopefully, by becoming more aware of these things, you'll blunder less often.
In the game I’m also not looking for the best engine lines. Honestly, I don’t care much about them here. I want to show you sensible moves that you could realistically find too with the color system and some basic principles.
Now that the opening officially ended, the next chapter is the middle game. Here it’s even more true that our main goal is to either checkmate or win material, everything else will be decoration for that.
I will slowly start letting your hand go with the extra explanations. I will still be thinking about the same things, but I will only express them if I find it necessary.
Hey, you! Instead of sitting so comfortably in the back seat, go through the mental list now! What would be your plan as Black?
STOP. Your turn! So far, we've seen positions where the weaknesses were relatively easy to identify. But what happens when there aren't any immediate threats, and our own King starts making us uncomfortable? I invite you to go through our mental to-do list, and try to come up with an idea for Black.
This time, we had to prioritize King safety before worrying about the opponent's vulnerable pieces. But once the Queens are off the board, our priorities change again.
In endgames, checkmate is often less likely to happen, at least with a similar material-count. So instead, we focus on creating passed pawns to promote, and of course, winning material is still on the table.
So what should we do in this seemingly less complicated position?
I think it’s really interesting to see how the thinking method in the “Board Vision First, Strategy Later” article was applied in this game.
Whether you are only paying attention to the red pieces, or both red and yellow pieces, the colors are basically a tool that makes the scanning part more manageable.
The colors also help you understand your and your opponent’s threats better. The red tags let you know what the immediate material-winning (or checkmating) possibilities are on the board. Don’t capture these blindly though, you will still need to calculate a bit. These are the things you very likely need to fix or exploit first before even thinking about strategy. If you can be up a piece, your strategic skills will matter less. :) You can also leave your own pieces red, but you have to be absolutely sure they will be okay if you don’t deal with them right away.
The yellow tags are a bit different in the sense that you don’t necessarily need to do anything with them, nor do they all require the same attention from you. BUT! It still helps you a lot if you spot them all (or at least most of them). There is more danger in not noticing them at all than in seeing them and deciding they aren’t that important. They can be used, for example, to improve a piece with a tempo (when attacking them), attack several of them at the same time (it can be hard to protect them all) or even to make a plan related to them, as happened in the game.
If there is nothing urgent to solve, that’s usually when strategy comes into the picture. Principles and strategic knowledge can help you with your decisions when the color system is not enough. The line is a bit blurry, because ideally you want to be aware of both strategy and the emergency events, and combine the two. But that can be overwhelming. So, first try to identify what deserves your attention before trying to understand the deeper positional elements.
Also, your opponent’s move can make your original plan irrelevant, or create a new or even better target(s). Keep your eyes open for these changes, don’t force a plan that no longer works.
Talk to yourself about these changes during the game (not out loud, if you are in OTB :)). I find it much easier to remember if I make a conscious effort. Also, concentration is crucial. If you don’t give your full focus to the game you’re playing, then you’re gambling, and no method will significantly help you.
In the future, I plan to show you how to navigate in more eventful positions with more red and yellow pieces present, since this game didn’t give us much opportunity to talk about those. So if you found this thinking method useful and would like to see more educational content like this, I’d love you to follow along! :)
If you’d like more personalized help with your chess, you can find more information about my coaching HERE. :)