One of the challenges of learning chess is learning how to quickly size up what's happening in the game and then reacting accordingly. The rules of Chess are rather easy to learn. Playing well is quite another thing and being able to "see the board" is a skill that must be acquired. As a Wannabe Chess Player I know this all too well.

In his book Chess for Dummies, Chess Master James Eade sums it up well. In the opening paragraph in Chapter 8 - Building Pattern Recognition he states:

One the great myths surrounding the game of chess is that you must be a human calculating machine to play the game. A certain amount of calculation is involved in any chess game, of course, but chess players primarily rely on pattern recognition (the ability to spot similar configurations of pieces and pawns) and on intuition to choose their moves. They rarely tell you this fact, because most of the time the process is subconscious. If you ask them why they played this move instead of that one, they often reply, "I just knew what the right move was" -- or something equally unenlightening.

What Eade also implies is that anyone with conscientious study and playing can learn to become a decent chess player. The ability to see ahead 5-10 moves really isn't necessary. So how do you get there? Of course, you can play a lot against good players. If you don't frequent a chess club and aren't surrounded by avid chess players (I'm not) there are other resources out there.

The age of the internet has provided us with a tremendous amount of resources. I've recently starting working through Chess Tactics by Ward Farnsworth. It's a detailed study of chess tactics. Beyond the excellent explanations it also has many examples which not only help you master the particlar tactic but also trains you to see opportunities that present themsevles on the chess board. It's an attempt to teach the student see by describing what to look for. It really does help.

As I contemplate the things I need to do improve my game I'm becoming increasingly aware of resources that are out there. Many of them deal with techniques to better see the board and the chess pieces. Seeing the board is definitely one piece of the puzzle to developing a decent chess game.

Jerry Kita