This intermediate-level chess course is perfect for students ready to move beyond just knowing how the pieces move. The course focuses on critical thinking, visualization, and planning. Players explore common openings with purpose, master tactical patterns, improve middlegame strategies, and gain confidence in essential endgames. Each session combines instruction, puzzles, analysis, and practice games to build tournament-level skills and mental discipline.

Ideal for players preparing for rated competitions or school tournaments, this course also teaches how to analyze one’s own games to drive ongoing improvement.

Key Benefits:

Master tactical tools like forks, pins, skewers, and sacrifices
Learn real opening systems with strategic depth
Build winning plans in the middlegame and endgame
Strengthen visualization, calculation, and decision-making
Analyze your games to spot patterns and avoid mistakes

What You’ll Learn:

Opening Principles & Systems

Central control, quick development, king safety
Explore: Italian Game, Queen’s Gambit, Sicilian Defense, London System
Opening traps and idea-based preparation

Tactical Patterns & Combinations

Forks, Pins, Skewers, Discovered Attacks, Deflection
Intermediate moves and tactical puzzles
Removing the defender and zwischenzug

Strategic Concepts

Piece activity vs material
Pawn structure, weak squares, outposts
Open files, diagonals, and planning
Prophylaxis: anticipating threats

Endgame Essentials

King & pawn vs king, opposition
Lucena and Philidor rook endgames
Checkmating with Queen, Rook, and Two Bishops
Triangulation and zugzwang basics

Calculation & Visualization

Variation trees and evaluation
Spotting tactical and positional clues
Exercises to improve mental board vision

Practical Play & Game Analysis

How to annotate and review your games
Learning from wins, losses, and blunders
Playing longer time controls for deeper thinking
Introduction to online practice and tools