Chess Visualization Course - practical training exercises for tactics and attack on the King to improve your chess vision!

What's New:
Book 2 (ebook) is now available for purchase!

1) To read about Book 2, click here.
2) To purchase the ebook, click here.
3) For the hardcopy version of Book 2, click here.
4) To learn more about the Chess Visualization
Course, please continue reading below.

This Chess Visualization Course consists of a series of books designed to help you improve your chess visualization skills. All of the exercises in the books are taken from real games, most of which were played by international masters and grandmasters in tournaments located throughout the world.

The focus of this course is specifically on chess visualization. Just as a weight trainer strengthens his body by working one particular muscle group at a time, this Chess Visualization Course is designed to strengthen your chess by working your chess visualization muscles.

We currently envision four books in this series (see the table below). Only Book 1: General Tactics and Book 2: Kingside Sacrifices and Combinations have been completed and are available at this time. Research is well underway for Books 3 and 4. A description of all four books appears below the table.

Title

Date

Exercises

Length

Book 1: General Tactics

7/07

    800

  5-11+

Book 2: Kingside Sacrifices
    and Combinations (with
    Preparatory Positions)

1/11

    880

  5-15+

Book 3: Broadening Your
    Visualization Skills*
TBD

    TBD

  TBD

Book 4: Adding Depth and
    Breadth*
TBD

    TBD

  TBD

About the Table: Title refers to the titles of the books; the titles of Books 3 and 4 are tentative. Date is the date of publication. Exercises refers to the number of visualizatio exercises in each book. Length refers to the number of half-moves (ply) that you are asked to visualize. Book 1 was published in July, 2007 and contains 800 exercises, most of which run from 5 to 11 ply, although about 100 of the exercises are 12 ply or longer. Book 2 was published in January, 2011 and contains 880 exercises, most of which run from 7 to 15 ply. TBD means "to be determined".

Book 1: General Tactics gives you the opportunity to practice visualizing variations that run up to 11 ply (six moves for White, five moves for Black) and beyond, within the context of the tactical themes given. In Book 1 you are asked to visualize only one line of analysis. Sub-lines (branches) are given in the footnotes to the exercises and are not an integral part of the visualization exercises that you are asked to perform. A typical analysis tree for Book 1 runs from 5 to 11 ply and has the following format:

Book 1 (11 ply): w--b--w--b--w--b--w--b--w--b--w

Book 2: Kingside Sacrifices and Combinations (with Preparatory Positions) gives you the opportunity to practice visualizing variations that run up to 15 ply and beyond within the context of typical kingside sacrifices and combinations. It is similar to Book 1 in that you are asked to visualize only one line of analysis, but the lines in Book 2 are typically longer than those in Book 1. The ebook version of Book 2 includes 1800 preparatory positions to help you visualize these longer variations. A typical analysis tree for Book 2 runs from 5 to 15 ply and has the following format:

Book 2 (15 ply): w--b--w--b--w--b--w--b--w--b--w--b--w--b--w

Book 3: Broadening Your Visualization Skills (tentative title) will contain exercises that ask you to visualize variations where the main line of analysis (the trunk of the analysis tree) splits off into two, three, or four branches of varying lengths. A typical analysis tree runs from about 7 to 17 ply and a visualization exercise with three branches has the following format:

                                           b--w
Book 3 (15 ply): w--b--w < b--w--b--w
                                           b--w--b--w--b--w

Please note that the development of Books 3, 4 and 5 are on hold due to the apparent lack of interest in Books 1 and 2. If you would like us to continue to develop the Chess Visualization Course, please show your support by purchasing a copy of Book 1 or 2.

Book 4: Adding Depth and Breadth (tentative title) will contain exercises that ask you to visualize variations where the main line of analysis (the trunk of the analysis tree) splits off into two, three, or four branches of varying lengths, and one or more of these branches then split off into sub-branches. A typical analysis tree with three branches, one of which has three sub-branches, follows:

                                           b--w
                                                                b--w
Book 4 (23 ply): w--b--w < b--w--b--w < b--w
                                                                b--w--b--w
                                            b--w--b--w--b--w

Book 4 may be combined with Book 3 into a single volume.

Book 5 will either be something like "Visualizing with Alekhine", "Visualizing with Fischer", "Visualizing with Kasparov" or we may develop visualization exercises from a recent tournament.

Layout of this website:

The links on the left provide information about the Chess Visualization Course, Book 1 and include the following: a list of 10 great features about the book (see the Introduction), FIDE Master Paul Whitehead's thoughts about how he improved his chess (see the Foreword), a table of contents, a detailed description of the book, 24 sample exercises taken from the book, and some comments we have received from various people regarding the Chess Visualization Course.

The links on the right include purchase information as well as information about the author, including a separate description of how it all began, a sign-up sheet if you would like to be notified when new visualization materials becomes available, some links, and our contact information.

Click the "Next" button below to read the introduction to Book 1.

Visitors since November 17, 2009.