10 Takeaways from Chess Cognition

Chess Cognition with nine short episodes is one of John Bartholomew’s YouTube channel playlists. In each episode, he features a key position from one of his competitive games. After explaining what you should be thinking about, he provides opportunities for the viewer to decide on the best move. He will then review and explain the pros and cons of several possibilities, he shows what actually happened in the game.

In the comments section, he provides a link to the PGN for that game. Even though I’m a fairly low level player, I understood his commentaries. Here are my take-aways from this series:

1. When you have a good idea for a sequence, consider changing the order of moves.
2. When assessing a position (when you’ve not seen the previous moves), count the material on both sides and consider the safety of both Kings.
3. Use what you learned (how opponent could defend) from lines you calculated and rejected in your next plan (thinking backwards).
4. Always consider undefended pieces that are “tactics magnets”.
5. When your piece is captured, stop and consider moves other than an immediate re-capture, such as a check or other in-between move.