Decision Making in Chess

The theory of the critical moment in a chess game was explained once by GM Dorfman, who suggested that every game has 5 or 6 “forks” at which the important decisions are made. Accordingly, all major erroneous decisions are made at these moments when there are multiple possible choices. Mikhalchishin describes different critical moments in detail and explains how to react correctly. Understanding the play at such a critical moment is the key to improving one’s results and general understanding of chess. Critical moments are characterized by the presence of between 2 and 4 different possibilities – the exchange of pieces, the calculation of a long variation, a positional solution or transposition into an endgame. Mikhalchishin shows how to perform correctly in the above situations. Video playing time: 3 h 26 min.

Adrian Mikhalchishin, a Grandmaster since 1978, is currently among the top 5 world trainers, and is FIDE Trainers Committee Vice-Chairman. He trained the USSR team in the 1980’s, the national teams of Slovenia, Poland and Netherlands, and was the trainer of Anatoly Karpov from 1980 to 1986. Mikhalchishin has also trained Zsuzsa Polgar, Alexander Beliavsky, Maja Chiburdanidse, Arkadij Naidich and Vasily Ivanchuk.

System requirements: Pentium-Processor at 300 Mhz or higher, 64 MB RAM, Windows XP/Vista/Windows7, DVD drive, mouse, soundcard