KMKY 9: Visualisation practice

White to play

Yusupov - Kasparov, Linares 1990

This, as you can see, is a position from one of Artur’s own games. He went on to lose but the game but he certainly went down fighting.

If found it in Boost Your Chess, Chapter 9: The Use of Traps. Coincidentally it was the chapter turned out to be next on my list the day after I saw a tweet from Neal Bruce talking about the importance of resilience in chess ... but that's only half the story.

I've been trying some blindford work recently, and, well, we have to do something whilst we waiting for Say Chess's book to appear, don't we? As it happens I didn’t have access to a board when I was reading through the chapter so I thought I'd use it as an opportunity for a more practice.

In the game Yusupov tried

1 f5

hoping for 

1 … Rxe4?

after which he would have had

2 f6+ Kh6, 3 Rxe4 Bxe4, 4 e6 Bd5, 5 e7 Bc6, 6 h4 g5, 7 h5=

First: I tried to visualise the whole line. I didn't worry about why the moves are being played, I didn't worry about finding alternatives, I didn't worry about why the final position is a draw. Just try to follow the moves to the end in your mind.

It took a few repetitions, but eventually I got to a point where I got all the way to the end.

Then I started asking myself some questions.

Q1: Why does Yusupov have the Black king going to h6 on move 2? What’s wrong with going to the back rank?

In Yusupov’s line, Black plays 4 … Bd5 and then 5 … Bc6.

Q2: Why go back to c6 at all?

Q3: Since the bishop does head to c6, why not move there straightaway? Why stop off at d5?

Q4: What should White play if Black tries 6 … Ba4?

And finally,

Q5: Why is the final position a draw?

All of the above presupposes it’s possible to visualise the whole line. If this sort of exercise is new to you, it may be very tricky. Don’t worry. That’s not a problem. It’s how everybody starts out. It's certainly how things were - and still are - for me.

There’s a simple solution. Just make up your own exercises. 

From this position, look three moves forward then try to set up the board and see if you’ve got it right. Or two, or even one if necessary. Who cares? If that’s what you need to do then that’s what you do.

Whether you use these exercises are make up your own it really doesn’t matter. I also use positions from Pandolfini’s Endgame Course. Again, if you want to start with KP v K it doesn’t matter if you use that book or any other.

The only thing that’s important is that you make a start. If you find it difficult, don’t worry. Whatever you might think, visualisation is most definitely is a skill you can get better at with practice.