in this video we're going to be talking about a skill that is extremely important for you to
master as you look to improve at the game and that skill is visualization what that means is
noticing what squares and pieces your pieces see what squares and pieces your opponent's pc
and ultimately looking ahead into the future changing the position in your mind and bringing
it back to the present to decide whether you should make a move or not i've broken this video
down into three parts in the first we'll have a basic intro to the squares and kind of how you
should visualize the board then we will do a few visualization exercises and in the last part i'll
do three examples from live games and ask you questions it's going to be a very interactive
video i encourage you to pause when i say pause and try to solve these things on your own so
kicking things off here with the central starting position of the game
with the coordinates on white begins the game on one and two blank begins the game
on seven and eight the bottom right hand corner for both players is a light square
so if you have a chess board at home and you like to practice you should write on little tape
or sharpie if it doesn't have the coordinates already it'll help you practice and visualize
uh the board in its entirety when you play with black as i clear out this board here
remember that on your left side you have h and on your right side you have a right so a it goes a b
c d alphabetically and you count down as you look up the board so eight seven six five four
if you flip it to white's perspective things are a little bit wonky on the left side we have a on the
right side we have h and up the board we count up one two three four right so you wanna start
identifying the letter first and then going up or down and thinking of it that way it takes time
don't think it's a skill you're gonna master but it's like reading a map all of us have to do it
at some point or another although now we have google maps and waze and all these other apps
we don't actually have to do that stuff at all now let's try to put this into practice okay
what this looks like but before we do that i am going to remove the coordinates from the
board entirely this is going to be one of the few videos i ever record where there's no coordinates
we're gonna have to figure them out together so we're going to begin right here and the rule is
that we've got the white knight on what square by the way if we're playing with the white pieces
a b six b6 the knights on b6 we need to rescue the knight from the territory that black is standing
in and get to this square there are two rules number one we cannot get captured number two we
cannot capture anything you can pause here try to visualize how you would get to the e4 square i'll
give you a few seconds to do that and then i'm going to kill the dead air with random nonsense
and then i'm going to spoil the answer like i am right now you cannot go to any of these squares
they are completely occupied so the only free square you can go to is a4 that is why the rule
is you cannot take the rook i said no captures so it would be one two three four and five
those are the only ways you avoid the enemy pieces controlling the squares right that is how you
think about this the rook controls all of this well technically all the way down there uh the
queen the bishop they have their control as well fun exercise as a bonus you can try to visualize
how many total squares black controls in this position it's an interesting debate because
squares obviously can be up for grabs by both but this rook has five squares this way nine and five
up right that's 14. this row controls 14 squares of course the queen will always control more than
anybody else one two and then you count all the diagonals in this way and this way and this way
it's a lot of squares black very well could control more than half of the board in this
position which would be 32. for this next one i want you to think about something else
okay first of all if we are playing with white let's say we're playing white we're looking at
this from white's perspective where's the knight what square is the knight on b2 abcdef one two
three four five so the queen is on f5 okay now let me ask you this does the queen ca6 or is a6
does the queen ca6 no
no it does not it does not it would need t it would need two turns to get there now here's
a little visualization visualization exercise for you now the knight wants to take the queen
how many squares is it going to take for that to happen and how many routes to the queen do we have
pause here if you'd like i'm gonna spoil it in five four three two three squares to take the
queen and uh three paths to it one two three okay you also have this this this so working backwards
and how do you get to this square you don't have to go this way you can also go this way
so that path for the knight there's a few different ways you can get to that queen
before chomping it from d6 or the e3 squares that is d6 given it's on the sixth rank
and this is e3 given it's on the third and this is how you practice this the easiest way to learn
visualization is to deconstruct get all the pieces off the board and set this up yourself literally
that's how you do it might sound boring might sound impractical you want to get better at
the game and stop hanging your pieces look at all of the little mental arrows that you
can draw from the opponent's position that is what you have to do draw these little arrows
okay draw them how many squares does this queen see it's a lot i'm a little bit too lazy to count
them on camera but you can count them at home how many squares the queen is so powerful right
the knight has to barely sneak up on the queen and there's a few squares on
this board that knight can never access you know uh for example if we take this square
right that square on c7 i'm not saying that we can't potentially access that square but you
got to work backwards where would that knight have to come from it certainly couldn't come from here
or here or here because the queen controls those squares but it can come from i get blue
on here oh my god that's amazing but the blue squares the knight could come from potentially
if we found a way to work backwards uh although well there you go actually here here here here
so c4 b6 a8 c7 and that is how you practice this okay i did say that for this middle part
we would do these basic visualization exercises there are so many of these that you can practice
uh i honestly i set up a position and then say like how many turns it takes for the
queen to capture every piece you know what i mean like set up a position like this where
you you you um you do an exercise where it's like okay the white queen has to take all the pieces
in the minimum amount of moves and you can add more pieces and it will help you visualize this
kind of a thing for the next three we're going to begin with situational exercises okay uh if
you've jumped ahead here as an advanced player welcome uh but we're going to try to kind of take
a look and uh make some decisions for ourselves so you're playing white here okay position is uh
roughly equal you both have two rooks they have two rooks and a bishop you have a bishop you're
down a pawn black has six pawns you have five now if you'd like to add a little bit of another layer
to this since you're playing with the white pieces name every square your pieces are on
f1 g2 h3 and so on so here's a visualization exercise should white play the move bishop c4 here
he's saying levy i have no idea please play the move on the board i'm scared
what where's bishop c4 abc 4. i'm saying should white play this move say well what does that
move do when you when you practice you better not move the pieces you have to visualize this right
and i'm going to tell you right now if the bishop goes to c4 black will take it rook takes c4
which is a check on our king the king takes back the rook so now we have a position
where the king is here and the rook and the bishop are gone they don't exist anymore so if the king
is here and the bishop is gone how can the black bishop check the king when it's on c4 okay again
you can pause if you'd like to try to slow this down a little bit but if the if the king is on c4
the black bishop can check us here and here because both of those moves attack the king one
of those moves is better than the other the bishop attacking us on b5 attacks the king and behind it
is the rook because the bishop is gone remember bishop c4 right but the rook protects the rook
right say bear with me but there's another check the bishop can go here
and when the bishop comes to c4 rook c4 king c4 and in this situation we we
lose the bishop for the rook but in this situation we just straight up loser rook
because the rook is not going to take and that is how you visualize in live action gameplay
you play bishop c4 you think should i play bishop c4 wait take take oh no that's bad that's what
they're going to do they're going to attack me that wouldn't work here white can play something
else like rook e7 for example which would attack the pawn and the king would no longer hit the rook
for this next one we're actually playing with the black pieces okay uh we're in check notice
so we're going to move our king as a first move to this square which is what if we're playing
with black a is on our right yes we also have seven and eight which means this is the sixth
rank sixth row of the position so if this is the sixth row of the position that means that
the king just moved to well you could go from this direction but obviously h g f f six king f6
white here plays the move a4 okay because that's a four if we take visualize what
do we stop protecting the pawn used to protect the bishop right if we take we lose the bishop
that won't be good in this position visualization exercise how can black check white in two turns
how can black check white in two turns okay no checks right now but on the next move
and so in the game black played rook e6 that's e6 because it's
right it's right next to f6 so it's e6 threatening rook to e1 check all right
and in the game white said well i mean yes this is coming but i'll just move and played pawn
takes b5 anticipating a recapture because now the bishop is under attack right the pawn is he
is here potentially hit but what white missed is that here black has check made in two moves
now you already know the first move but when the king comes out to f2 the king notice cannot escape
our pawn controls these two squares so if these two squares are completely mined from the king
so is this one and so is this one that means the only square the king can survive on is on f2 then
the king's got nowhere to go and king's obviously not going this way so rookie one king f2 rook f1
and a beautiful classic right triangle as hikaru likes to say a lot it's a check on the king the
king cannot go here because of the protection of the bishop even though the bishop is under attack
and the pawns take away the squares this game is won and lost by visualizing on the empty squares
where our opponent cannot move to and what squares we control so even though we were down material
we saw that we can go and attack the king and the king didn't have an escape
this position would be vastly different if this pawn was here okay because now these squares are
no longer occupied for us and the king can escape and hear white is playing for
an endgame win comes down to one square and the the reason i'm showing these practical examples
is because i want you to think about this in a game setting oh if i can prevent the king escaping
i'm gonna play f4 that's what i'm gonna do a4 i'm gonna play f4 and i'm gonna lock the king's escape
before i find this plan working backwards as we've been doing throughout uh throughout this video for
this last one this is the last visualization kind of practical exercise that i have for you before
we go i want you to pause the video not not yet i haven't haven't told you what i want yet
in the area of the center of the board what square on the board what square on the board does white
empty square what square on the board does white control the most it's a tough one very tough one
what square on the board does white control the most mental arrows d5 white controls that with a
pawn a knight and the bishop reinforcing the pawn from a distance the bishop doesn't see the square
but through the pawn it defends the d5 square if the pawn were to ever take it would be supported
by the bishop and by the way for black so it's the same it's corresponding square because pawn
knight bishop now in this position i've got a few prompts for you okay three prompts for this
one pause here on this next prompt how can black pin white's knight to their queen visualize that
how can black pin white's knight to their queen if you look around how do you do that queen g5
that visualizes that the knight is now pinned to the queen and i mean it can move but again
that's just the prompt i just want you to see the dynamics of the pieces on a full board setting
okay for this next one it's going to be a little bit easy okay how can black open
the vision of their rook the rook is stuck behind the spawn but how can black open that see levy
that's very easy is it pawn takes pawn okay yes pawn takes pawn relatively simple now the rook
stares all the way down there is it a good move not necessarily but again it's just the prompt
and for the last one what is the best move here for black it's a it's a tactic this is a this is
actually a tactic and at the end of this puzzle you will be guaranteed that you win material
so the most forcing move here that black has you got to look at it from a hierarchy forcing moves
are moves that our opponent has to react to check is the most important forcing move we cannot check
white a capture is the second most important and forcing move and we've only got one and it's this
and we've already said it's not the best move so you go down to attack attacking the queen
the rooks the knights the bishops the king is already up there check you can attack this knight
and you visualize this from the standpoint of but they just take me and i take back
oh but then they cannot take me again because my rook is protecting okay but so what take take
i attacked the knight the knight moves then what yeah but now your pawn is here and what happens if
you push it one square forward you fork the bishop and the knight and the rook is protecting the pawn
so you are guaranteeing that you win material with this sequence now the last thing that i
want to reiterate before we end this video a lot of things changed when these exchanges
happened and i want you to visualize that constantly be drawing mental arrows with
your knights bishops queens rooks everything in this case the pieces are locked behind their own
pieces frankly g takes pawn takes knight d5 when the pawn goes to f3 this bishop in all of these
exchanges now has vision down the other side of the board it used to not have this vision
right when you push this pawn you've opened the gates for this queen to have vision over here
it's not going to take but if black ever made the mistake of taking here black could get absolutely
destroyed because they lose something on that side of the board meanwhile this knight visualizes this
pawn it sees the pawn it's not going to take it because the queen is going to take it but that's
how you have to think about visualization and for these last few i wanted to include more practical
setting how you would do this in the middle of a game uh but overall i hope this was a helpful
video obviously you've got to get it all the way down to the basics right the absolute basics the
squares and how to constantly monitor them even if you're a beginner but it just you it just you
gotta grab yourself by the collar you know shake yourself a little bit and force yourself to do the
work blindfold chest chest where you can't see the pieces as you play it's a it's a beautiful sight
but it all comes down to that so do that practice that okay i compel you i have had so many people
ask me to make videos on visualization i finally did and hopefully this is a good introduction
of how to practice it try to play with no coordinates and maybe say pieces out loud
and you will get the hang of it i promise and then solve puzzles the same exact way
it takes time but you will see the results if you put in the work i'll see you in the next video