Calculation Training

No doubt there have been hundreds of posts on this topic before but...does anyone have any tips on improving mental calculation? I seem to play reasonably well when I play the slower games and have time to use an analysis board. Without that I find I soon lose track of the variations and miss important factors. This leads to many more mistakes and a lower rating in live games. Any tips to improve this would be greatfully received. 

Leave that analysis board alone for a while.  Like any crutch it leads to atrophy. 

Playing over the board helps a great deal too, if you can find a sparring partner.

Kotov suggests that you take a game between GMs that is annotated in a book, move on to a position that looks tactically complicated, close the scoresheet and calculate and write down the principal variations, then check them with the annotations.

Of course, with the existence of superstrong engines, you don't need to find games that are annotated.

I humbly think a better way of training calculation is to try to solve difficult puzzles.

Good advice there thanks! The problem seems to be one of visualisation also one of predicting the opponents moves. Keeping track of all the variations is a fairly massive task anyway I guess. Perhaps I need to focus on understanding of positions before worrying about calculation too much? Massive blunders seem to be more of a problem to me during live chess I just seem to play far more carelessly. Maybe it's a time management issue? Probably all of the above need looking at. I'll just play more chess I guess.

Another thing that occurred to me...when you memorise openings. Do you visualise the position on the board or do you remember it in notation form? 

Concentration and calculation are two different skills (although you can't really calculate well without concentrating first). Visualization is another.

Live blitz is for fun, I at least don't concentrate at all and if I do it too much then I stop thinking during OTB chess as well. Use with caution.

For visualization I think any chess done blind works (replaying games in your head, solving things in your head). For calculation, the result matters. I think hard tactics puzzles work best (the ones that have an obvious solution that has a sting in the tail after six moves, and another not so obvious real solution).

You need a bigger brain my friend. Even if you have beaten my three times in a row ;)