Tactical Play. How to Improve Your Tactical Skills

There is an ambiguous statement that tactical style of playing is a characterization of a talent and even if you endeavor and devote hundreds of hours to your tactics practice you will not claim high levels unless you are naturally gifted.

Nevertheless, one of the greatest chess coaches Mark Dvoretski did not give the benefit of the doubt and persistently clung on the opposite idea to persuade everyone that tactics are pivotal for your chess career and regardless that you have a poor tactical vision you have to put everything aside your chess board and start excelling your tactical vision.

Ostap Bender, the protagonist of the famous novel of Ilf Petrov “The Twelve Chairs’’, gave a speech to the chess lovers: ‘’Have you ever by any chance asked yourself who is a better chess player: a blonde or a brunette? Blond man always plays better than brunette and no any pieces of training can alter this condition.’’

Even this fictional character is delightful to mention that it does not matter who you are, how much is your salary or are you able to distinguish dry and wet: you are able to clinch wise minds if you really want to do so. Thus, try to solve as many tactics as you can and you will instantly notice the promotion of your tactical skills.  

On the other hand, it is crucial to get your hands on advanced tactics. We will try and frequently analyze that sophisticated chess brawls so your practice will become tangibly simple.  Looks like that everything is set for Dolmatov to abolish the game. Dolmatov was preparing for his final attack and he chose the perfect time to accomplish that.

19. Rxg7!! Kxg7
20. Rg1+ Kh7
21. fxe6

Here is a huge threat for black. Bishop’s diagonal is going to be opened if Beliavski did not block pawn’s promotion.

21. Ne5

Dolmatov has to be very attentive and utilize all the opportunities; otherwise, he will lose his hard-acquired initiative.

22. Rg7+!!Kg7
23. Nf5+ Kg8
24. Qxh6 1-0

Seems quite simple, doesn’t it? And that is what you have to achieve in your pieces of training. Just simplify everything. It is clear that Beliavski did not have a clue about that Rg7 tactical move when he sacrificed his G pawn prior to this attack. This is what you can call tactical vision. This will be obtained easily if you practice a lot. In this case, you will be given that precious tactical scent which will allow you to guess tactical opportunities dozens of moves before and conquer chess world.