ANCL School

In ANCL we have almost every week " teaching lesson"free of charge(a good point to remember everything is free in ANCL except the registration on the chessbase server).Most of the time the International master (IM) Petronijevic Zoran is the teacher( but also Christochess ,Euap,Javell did some)this is open to everyone,whatever your level  and every question is welcome ,so it is a very interractive  way to learn
here i will just show the beginning of the teaching if you want to see all ,including examples,quiestions .. go to http://www.anclchess.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11280
(Thanks to EUAP who allow me to copy his writing)

Techniques of Variant Calculations in ENDGAMES Though chess theory is much advanced nowadays and there are a lot of chess books and DVDs there are still some fealds that are yet not explained enough though there appear in every single game. One of the basic problems is how to calculate variations correctly. It’s a paradox that though in every single game we calculate there are no precise principles of how and how much we should calculate and when we should calculate and when not. This is also one of the most frequently asked questions by chess amateurs for chess proffessionals: how many moves can he see in advance, considering that it’s great master’s main advantageo. Great Reti made a joke once when he was asked this question:“ I see only one but it’s the best one“. The first player who started investigating this topic seriously and giving practical advices was a Russian GM Aleksandar Kotow who wrote a book „ Secrets of grandmaster’s thinking“ (1970). Since then, it has been written a lot of material on this topic. But, mainly Kotow’s method was criticized and nobody gave a precise method: how and how much to calculate (with the exceptions of some details). Many authors wrote this and I will mention ony two of them: Dvoretsky Mark and John Nunn. In their books and articles they gave many advices about how to calculate but neither they gave a whole system which would be valid in all possible situations. So, neither I have an ilusion that I will give a whole system of this topic (and this is not my goal) but I will give some practical advices that will help players to calculate better. It’s a little easier to me since my topic is Calculation in Ending, so, I can make some divisions and show on examples (of course, only on some of the possible ones) how, how much and when one should calculate. When we talk about the technicque of calculating variations in endgames we must keep on mind the following things: 1. With the development of chess the number of correct positions (the positions in which we can define the result of game precisely with best play for both sides) increased. That are, say, the positions king and pawn against king, rook and pawn against rook, queen and pawn against queen and many other positions. In such positions we must know the principles of playing, otherwise no calculation can help us (and even if it can help that would only be a waste of time) to evaluate precisely such positions. Such positions should simply be known and the knowledge about them presents the culture of a chess player. The more such positions a player knows the better player he is. I can give you the advice to work on this type of endings as much as you can because good knowledge about endings will improve your play significantly (and improve your results of course). I can recommend you, say the book “Fundamental Chess Endings” (2001) by Mueller, Karsten in cooperation with Lamprecht Frank though there are many good books/ 2. In the positions with more pawns or the ones where both sides have two pieces on the board (these positions are also considered to be endings) there are sharp positions in which the same principles of calculating are valid as in the middlegame. The calculation is sometimes very long and sharp and here there is no difference between the calculation in the middlegame and ending. I can say that often it’s even harder to calculate correctly in endings since the board is almost empty and there are more free squares, so, it’s very often needed to calculate the unique moves to get a good result. The thing that makes difference between the ending and middlegame is that very often in endings there is no need to calculate precisely and detailed all possibilities as in sharp positions. However, what we must have it’s a PLAN. Here, plan is often made according to the principle: „it would be good if my pieces would be placed, say, king on d4 and the bishop on c3“. Here, before any calculation we imagine an ideal set-up of our pieces and only then we look for a way to realize this (of course, there are many such positions in the middlegame as well but this is yet often seen in endings). Here, there is no concrete calculation but only thinking according to schemes and this way of thinking in literature is called just like that „THINKING ACCORDING TO SCHEMES“.

If you find all this is too complicated dont worry Zoran is a great teacher and even a beginner can learn a lot.