Jacob Aagaard's Calculation: somebody who wants to work with me through the book?

It is nice to have chess books, but will only improve if we work with them. I have much more books than I ever will be able to read. I would like to go through at least one of my books carefully, and I think Calculation by Aagaard is a good choice.

I propose here following project: if somebody has this book and wants to work with it, we can do this together. We choose a position of the book (it could be the first one on chapter 1, page 15), and we will try to find the best move for this position. Not only to make some superficial guesses, to write down the ideas we had, which were the candidate moves, what did we calculate, which candidates we exclude (and why), and how we evaluate the final position in our calculation.

 

As i said, we write down everything and compare our comments, and only them we are allow to check the answer. If we are happy with this project, we go to the next diagram.  Somebody interested? I am really not a strong player, but I am interested in ways how to improve my game, and I need badly some exercises in calculation.

 

If wold be useful to set the position on a physical board (to make sure we are taking the project seriously), and not move the pieces around until we worked hard to understand the position. After we wrote down everything we can begin to move the pieces around and see on the board what we calculate. Important is to try to play the position as it would be in a real game.

pay me 200 dollars

I'll work with you.  I WILL let you know when I have the book.  

Daniel, thanks. I think Everyman Chess sells a digital version of the book. I am looking forward to work on the first exercise.

Excelling at Calculation?

I have the book and the idea of working through it seems good. Let me know when you plan to start.I can't commit myself 100% because I don't want it to become a chore, but in general I like the idea of writing down all your thoughts and then check the answer.

Wait, you mean Excelling at chess calculation or Grandmaster Preparation:Calculation?

You are right, similar titles, the book I mean  is "GM Preparation: Calculation"

Cool. Then Im in.

Let's just start. However, I'm already past 13-14 puzzles. Are you on No. 1?

Everybody can participate, of course. Pvd, in this case you tell us where to begin, it doesn't mater really, as later we can go back to the first positions, okay? Just tell us which position in which page and we can start.

Let's start at position 26. Now how do we do this. We print out whatever comes into our heads or only if we think we have come up with the solution?

Okay, calculation is needed in almost every more complex and unusual tactics, right? We could also say that the best way to improve calculation is to solve endgame exercises. However, this is not the point. The most important thing is that an experienced author chose a lot of interesting positions to be used to improve calculation. Chapter one is on candidate moves. The process of finding candidates and evaluate them is extremely important in chess, doesn't matter if the positions are calm are almost exploding. Let's take the first example.

(For copyright reasons we will not publish here further positions. Two are okay, Quality Chess would probably not complain about them, as we are doing advertisement for the book, but not more. And of course we should not show the solution before everybody participating agree to do so. We should first work hard to find the right move.)

I know already the first example, so I will not comment the position. I can only say that I would never come to the solution. I would certainly play 28...Re2?, as in the game. I hope that after studying this position I would be able to use the motive in my games, if I would have the opportunity.

Deidre, I am afraid I don't agree with you. The author doesn't have to explain us things. He give us positions with highly interesting positions. By trying to solve the position and afterwards comparing with the solution, we will expand our chess horizon, learn to spend more time finding original moves. In he second example I knew that the motif has to do with getting the queen. Everybody who worked regularly with tactics will probably see it. However, how can I trap the queen without allowing her to escape to g3? And the obvious second problem is that we can not attack the queen with our queen. And here we come to a first attempt so solve the problem: we have to sacrifice something on e5, and if we do this with the rook we will at the same free e8 for the knight, trapping the queen! This is calculation, it is tactics, and it is about creativity. Of course the position is not finish, as material is almost equal after the exchanges, but black has the easy game.

In the last 20 days I had two opportunities to sacrifice a rook in a mating net. In the first OTB with success, in the second online I saw mate in two but I was wrong, but the sacrifice gave me coincidentally the initiative needed to simplify to a won endgame.

@ torrubirubi, I afraid you are putting the cart before the horse! You do a lot better in getting a tactical book ( 1001 combination and sacrifice by Fred Reinfeld) and working through the chess problems, within one year you will be much stronger player. Jocob Aagard calculation book is meant for very strong player, expert and above.

He would be much better getting Martin Weteschniks book, Understanding chess tactics.  As usual GM Aagard explains nada! and to think he lives five minutes from my home, the shame of it! I am gonna trick or treat him for this outrage!

It sounds strange, but the authors cannot explain you better than yourself when you work with a position and afterwards see the solution. You will have a lot of things to say about the position, the author should not take this job from you. The most valuable part of a book with challenging exercises (and this is such a book, it is not a theoretical book like his Excelling at Chess Calculation). Basically you should read carefully pages 8 to 14, where he explain how to use the book and give several excellent advices and information on how to approach the problems. If you don't like Aagaards book you will hate Willy Hendriks' book Move First, Think Later.

What Hendriks basically say is that a lot of prosa in chess books is absolutely not necessary. What we chess students need is to improve the ability to find string moves, and for this you have to solve problems. In his book he gives the positions in the beginning of the chapter, and you have to work with them without any hint or advice.

But what are we doing here? Discussing the quality of a book instead of spend time solving the problems? This is not exactly the purpose of the present thread :-)'Let's go back to the positions.

I do enough tactics, with Chessimo and some books by Emms, Seirawan, Polgar and many many others. Yureesystem, I disagree with you above Aagaard's books as meant for strong players.mIt is suited for everybody who is ready to go through it and work hard with the positions. There are very few books written only for strong players. In fact, all of Aagaard's books which I have are suited both for 1200 and strong GMs. An amateur able to understand the moves (and they will latest after looking the solution) with profit from the exercises as a strong GM will.

Great idea! I am in!

So, are we ready to begin.