In this lesson I immediately want to introduce you to a very important psychological factor of chess that is very inherent to the game: the two-sidedness of chess. Chess is played with two players and if you don’t appreciate this factor you will never become a better player.

We are naturally not very inclined to reckon with plans and schemes of our opponent. It is much more fun to think up our own, right? Stronger players however have incorporated this factor of chess in their game.

This two-sidedness is very closely related to what Jonathan Rowson calls Egoism, one of the seven deadly chess sins. If you don’t reckon enough with your opponent he feels you are committing the “sin” of Egoism.

Now, I told you in lesson #1 that I would not give you chess thinking schemes containing lots of questions that you can ask yourself to come up with the right answer to each chess position. But one question you should really always ask yourself is:

“What’s the threat?”

So, if it is your move, take a moment to orientate yourself on that question.

In the video below we will train this process, which ideally develops into a Pavlov reaction for you!

You will learn to:

1. orientate yourself better
2. get a better feel for activity “coming from the other side of the board” (i.e. the backward activity towards your position instead of your own forward activity)
3. value threats and see them for what they are
4. defend yourself

Happy training!