Chess is a game of thinking. However, if you don’t take control of the thinking process, your mind can easily become overwhelmed by the countless possibilities, making it nearly impossible to think clearly.
This lesson is also available as an interactive lichess study:
Clarifying your thinking process is an essential skill and should be a top priority in your training. In this lesson, you’ll learn the three essential questions that form the foundation for understanding and improving your chess game.
We need to keep this process as simple as possible because the goal is to solve the problem, not create a new one!
An effective chess thinking method revolves around these three key questions:
- What’s My Opponent Up To?
- Can I Strike with a Tactic?
- How Can I Improve my Position?
Question 1: What’s My Opponent Up To?
A common mistake weaker chess players make is prioritizing their own ideas over what their opponent is trying to do. That’s why a simple and highly effective way to become a stronger player, almost instantly, is to develop the habit of understanding your opponent’s plans.
This is powerful because it helps you:
- Avoid tactical blunders by anticipating your opponent’s threats
- Neutralize your opponent’s good ideas before they become dangerous
Your ability to quickly grasp what your opponent is trying to do also depends on tactical vision and positional understanding, two other important skills that I’ll help you train.
Example: What’s My Opponent Up To?
In the diagram below, black just played Qh5. Ask yourself “What’s my opponent up to?”
Black wants to capture our knight, Qxf3, since the pawn on g2 is pinned by the rook on g8.
Now, continuing with the same position, you want to ask yourself: Can I strike with a tactic?
Question 2: Can I Strike with a Tactic?
Once you understand what your opponent is trying to do, you’ll be in a better mindset to look for tactical opportunities, while keeping their threats in mind.
At this stage, we aren’t just looking for moves that win material or deliver checkmate—but also moves that can disrupt your opponent’s plans. Your tactical vision is crucial here, as it helps you spot tactical possibilities that might otherwise go unnoticed.
To calculate these moves effectively, you will use the CCT method, a well-known and highly effective technique. CCT stands for Checks, Captures, and Threats, highlighting the types of moves to focus on when analyzing tactics. We will practice this method in future lessons.
We note that when Black moved their queen from e8 to h5, they left the rook on g8 undefended. With the king exposed, this creates a tactical opportunity for us: Qb3+ forks the Black king and rook. Another key point is that after Qxg8, the pawn on g2 will no longer be pinned.
In this position, we found a concrete way to gain an advantage. However, in most positions, there won’t be a tactical strike, and we will need to move on to the third question.
Question 3: How Can I Improve my Position?
After understanding your opponent’s ideas and recognizing the potential tactics in the position, you can shift your focus to improving your position. This step gets to the heart of chess and emphasizes the most important strategic principle: enhancing the activity and coordination of your pieces.
Remember, neutralizing a key aspect of your opponent’s position—such as limiting one of their active pieces—can often be more effective than advancing your own ideas.
Example: How Can I Improve my Position?
In the diagram below, White’s knight on d6 is clearly their star piece.
Neutralizing white’s knight will be even more effective than trying to improve the position of our own pieces.
Ne8! This move might look odd initially, but it’s brilliant—Black strengthens their position by neutralizing White’s best piece.
Improving your position is a challenging art that depends heavily on your positional understanding and calculation ability, both of which we’ll develop in the lessons ahead.
Key Takeaways
In chess, clear thinking is essential. The true value of the three questions I showed here lies in making them a natural part of your thinking. Over time, your mind becomes clearer and more effective, as you no longer need to constantly remind yourself what to focus on.
In future lessons, we will frequently return to these three questions, because all the other skills we train—tactical vision, positional understanding, and more—help you answer these questions more effectively during play.