ChessBase Support

Chess training for beginners

Answer

A basic precondition for high playing strength stems from the ability to recognise over the board the power constellations and to employ the tactical motifs which are present in the position. All our chess programs offer numerous possible ways to target your training of this important ability. The functions I shall describe present beginners and new users especially with a simple option for obtaining suitable training positions.

Under the heading Training the appropriate training functions are made available to you.

Attack training: here you need to mark with a click all those pieces which can be taken.

Check training: here you need to mark with a click all those pieces which with one move could give check.

Defence training: here the user must mark with a mouse click all those pieces which are unprotected.

Mate training: here the user must mark with a mouse click all those pieces with which a specific mate can be threatened.

Tip: All training modes can only work in combination with games databases.

Our programs are delivered with a large, representative games database, which you can use as the fundamental data for these functions.

Position databases which contain only fragments of games (positions) are not supported! In the dialog you can set not only the database you wish to use, but also the maximum solving time.

In its choice of the game position the program demonstrates a certain inherent intelligence and always loads a position which is particularly well suited to the selected training mode.

The following description of the procedure is valid for all four training modes mentioned. Activate for example under “Training” the entry Attack training.

What appears is the dialog shown previously. A click on the button with the three dots starts the Windows dialog for file selection. You now choose the database you wish to use. You can make use of any of our well curated databases.

Under “Next game” you specify the number of the game from which the games stored in the database will be loaded. This is especially useful when dealing with large databases containing many games. This setting is stored. “Minutes” defines the maximum time allowed for finding the solution. If, e.g., the value 1 is set, then after one minute the solution for the chosen exercise is displayed. If the exercise has been correctly and completely solved the program immediately loads the next game with a new position to solve. From the dialog box a click on OK loads the game position which is best suited to the exercise.

The choices made by the user are highlighted in green on the chess board.

After the expiry of the time set for the solution a dialog box is shown with the result of the tactical training and the solution. In the display of the results the program highlights in yellow all the possible correct answers in the given exercise.

Since the answers given by the user have been highlighted in green, you can see at a glance which possible captures you did not mark or overlooked. Wrong choices are highlighted by the program in red. Thus you can see at a glance what mistakes were made.

Result, tactical training

The program shows the results for all four training modes in the form of a dialog box.

Tip: If in any position wrong pieces are clicked on, then the program does not award any points for these. That is to avoid the user getting a better score by clicking at random (motto: just click, it might just be correct). In addition, this sharpens the concentration on the position in front of you. If you are not bothered about the points system, then after you have made your choices you can see the solution straight away with a click on the “Stop Process” at the top of the screen above the chess board.