Improving Your Tactical Awareness
Make Sure To Always Keep An Eye Out!
Many players want fast and stable improvement in Chess, yet most of them never do any work or fix their work ethic to achieve such goals.
What’s the main problem? In most cases, poor tactical recognition.
If you don’t practice tactics enough and actively look for them in games, the chances of closing the games out drastically decrease.
Recently, I’ve been reading Michael Adams’ great book, where he shares 100 tactically rich positions, ranging from easy to difficult.
I’ll give a couple of examples, so that you have a chance to explore your tactical prowess more and understand what needs to be done.
1. Warming up — Anna Muzychuk — Ori Kobo (Variant)
Here, Black just played Qd3+, seemingly trapping White’s King and planning a brutal attack.
However… White’s completely crushing here and is the one checkmating Black. Can you see the brilliant move?
The move is Bd4+!!
Simultaneously blocking the check and giving a discovered check with the Queen on g1. Black is getting mated in 3–4 moves.
If you felt that this was too easy, let’s spice it up.
2. Easy Difficulty — Dmitry Andreikin — Sergey Karjakin
After the opening, The Russian Grandmasters reached this position.
After Karjakin’s last move, 7.Bxd4 (taking Andreikin’s Knight), he got brutally punished by an unexpected but crushing brilliancy.
Can you find it?
Andreikin played 8.Qxd4!, sacrificing his Queen for checkmate (If 8.Nxd4, 9.Nf6+ Kg8 10.Bh6# follows). Karjakin must’ve been shocked when he saw this.
Sergey played 8.O-O to try saving himself, but after the moves 9.Nf6+ Kh8 and 10. Ng4+, he resigned, as it’s the exact same mating threat. Even in the worst case, White’s up a full piece and completely winning.
3. Medium Difficulty — Klaus Bischoff — Mark Quinn
Here, it’s Black to move. Seemingly everything is fine, but Black has a killer move to guarantee a game-winning advantage. Can you find it?
The answer is the brilliant Re3+!! Guaranteeing to win the Queen, regardless of where the King goes. Let’s see how.
- Kxe3 Nc4+ wins the Queen, 1. Kf2 Nd3+ also wins a Queen, 1.Kd1 Re1+ also does so and 1. Kf1 Re1+ mimics the third option.
This is one of the moves that makes you proud when you see it.
4. Hardest Difficulty — Fabiano Caruana — Ruslan Ponomariov
Here, it’s obvious that Fabi is better, but if he doesn’t make the best move, his advantage is only +1.4. So what’s the best decision?
If you said the stunning brilliancy Re7!!, attacking the weak c7 pawn and utilising the bishop’s poor placement, you’re correct!
Black is pretty much forced to take, and after the second brilliancy, Ba6!!, Ponomariov played it out like a gentleman: Kxa6 and Qa8#.
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As always, happy playing!
