Aagaard: Improve your calculation of variations in chess

Autor: Aagaard, Jacob
Verlag: Quality Chess
Erscheinungsjahr: 2007
Sprache: German

The clock is ticking. The room temperature is rising, as is the blush on your face. You know exactly: this position is won. Nevertheless, your thoughts start to circle around the same variations, over and over again. Finally, you have made your decision. With a shaking hand, you sacrifice a knight. You risk a fleeting glance at your opponent. Then you look into the audience. Among the spectators, you spot a friend who is now burying his head in his hands. Then your opponent presses the clock. Like a hammer blow, the click of the music box interrupts the silence in the tournament hall. You look at the chessboard again. Suddenly, you feel as if you have suddenly fallen into another dimension. After trying to understand your opponent's move, it slowly dawns on you: it has happened again! All your effort was in vain, and all because of a single, stupid mistake. While you are still angry with yourself, signing the score sheet and shaking your opponent's hand, half a dozen hands immediately reach over you and demonstrate how you should have won. You ignore these extremely helpful guides and wonder which one you should beat first and why you always blow winning positions.

Does this sound familiar? Well, it's true for many of us, but not all of us. Some people are better at math and faster than others, not because they have a God-given talent, but because they have learned the techniques needed to do it. You can learn them too!

In this book, Scottish national player Jacob Aagaard guides you through the most important techniques of calculation. He shows you with great clarity what you need and how you can develop good calculation skills. The book ends with 100 exercises. It is published as an accompaniment to the ChessBase training CD \''Richtig Entscheidungen\''.\r\n
\r\nJacob Aagaard, 33, was born in Denmark and now plays for Scotland. While working on this book in 2004 he achieved 3 GM norms in 5 tournaments. After devoting himself to building Quality Chess in 2005, he returned to playing and was able to achieve his 4th GM norm at the end of 2006 with a rating close to the magical 2500.