I posed two questions on Monday, which demonstrated two of the skills you need to graduate from a 1000 player to a 1500 player.

How should White reply to Black’s (over-)ambitious 10… c5?

This is a question of judgement, assessment. It’s not so hard to see the possible exchange sacrifice 11. Rxe7 Qxe7 12. Nxd5, when you’ll capture on f6 and double Black’s f-pawns. But how would you assess the resulting position? This requires a combination of experience and intuition. Stockfish immediately tells you White has a winning advantage.

A sample variation: 12… Qe6 13. Nxf6+ gxf6 14. Qd2 Kg7 15. Re1 Qd7 16. Bxf6+ Kxf6 17. Qxh6#

It’s not really possible to analyse variations of this nature at club level so you have to trust your judgement. Would I have played it? Probably not, but then I tend to be over-cautious. Would you have played it?

A few moves later Black had a choice to make in this position.

This one’s purely about calculation. Black played 15… Qxd4 and the game was later drawn. He had a win here, but he needed to see a few moves ahead.

Both players had seen 15… Nxd4 16. Rxe7, which they’d thought was fine for White because of the rook on the seventh rank. You need to look further ahead, though. Black can continue 16… g5 17. Bg3 Nf5 with the dual threats of Nxe7 and Nxg3 because the f-pawn is pinned.

Not so easy to see, I think, at this level. But to reach 1500 strength or above you need to spot 3-move forcing sequences of this nature all the time. Did you find it here?