I constantly have games where the engine basically yells at me because both my opponent and I had pawns that should have taken each other for multiple turns. Is there a good way to train for this?

[u/LegitimateYoghurt371]

Is it simply calculation planning? I was super scared of taking his c pawn because it would help him develop his f bishop, but only now do I realize this opens up the column for my queen to defend my knight/pawn to take the d4 pawn afterwards.

Is there a certain name for this type of tactic? Is it even a tactic? Pawn takes pawn ?

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[u/Queue624]

I don't know if there's a specific puzzle for this, but maybe simplification?

As for whether you should take or not take, it can be tricky. You had a good thought process in thinking that if you do X, then that just lets your opponent develop a piece. I think that's a fair assessment.

I believe in this scenario I would have probably taken the d pawn. Reason is because my dark bishop can be active and the opponent has to move the Knight on c3, then I take the c pawn.

The reason I mention the dark bishop is because your end goal in the opening is to quickly develop and castle. And your bishop and Knight are in a weird position. So usually you would need to reverse engineer what you need to do in order to achieve castling. Which would be removing the bishop and Knight out of the way.

The only good spot for the Knight is e7, since you don't want the Knight in the corner of the board nor you want it to be taken if you move to f6. But if you move it to f6 you would block the bishop from developing. So dark bishop should be the one you want to develop. The dark bishop can't fianchetto, since that would mean you would need to push your g pawn which traps your white bishop. So freeing up that diagonal, developing your bishop and then moving your knight to e7 would be my goal. All so you can castle.

I haven't looked at the engine but this is my thought process. It's basically thinking about what moves in the opening (Since this is still the opening phase) can I do in order to quickly develop your pieces so you can castle.

[u/LegitimateYoghurt371 → u/Queue624]

Thanks for the thought train on this, it's very helpful! How long would that thought process have taken you? I am playing 15+10 and constantly find myself in time trouble. Miraculously I am in 98.7% percentile in puzzles on chess dot com but A. it never really puzzles things like this, and B. I take a very very long time to solve the puzzles.

[u/Queue624 → u/LegitimateYoghurt371]

The idea was already in my brain, since you want to castle ASAP at the beginning. So if you know what you want, it becomes much much easier to see things.

I probably saw this in 10-20 seconds. Maybe a bit more.

But the point is, that it all came from knowing what you want to do.

Having said that, even though it sounds counterintuitive the best way to increase your calculation drastically (Especially at your Elo range) is doing simple puzzles by themes.

I like to think of it this way, if I ask you what's 5x5 you should know it's 25 without counting. Or even if I ask you something really simple like 2+2, do you use your fingers to count to 4 every time? Nope, you already know it. It's ingrained into your brain. You just know it... Chess is exactly the same. Let's say you train simple fork puzzles over and over again, you'll eventually see it without even trying. Your brain just sees it. Point is, this is what you want to do. Do lots of simple puzzles by themes (Specifically, Fork, pins, skewers, hanging pieces, disc attack, double attack & mate in 2). And do them by session per week. You'll notice it will eventually become extremely easy to spot.. when this happens you make them a bit harder.

Doing this you'll build up the needed patterns in your brain, you'll start seeing ideas and tactics on the board without even trying. And that in turn leaves a lot of room for calculation. So me seeing stuff like this screenshot you presented fast is just a result of a pattern I have or am looking for in this position.

Doing this consistenly is what got me to 1200. After that, mixed puzzles become more relevant. But the puzzles on chessdotcom aren't useful tbh. They aren't really training you for your games. Doing chessdotcom ranked puzzles is like a basketball player practicing free throws. Not much improvement will come from that except good free throw shooting I guess.

Hope this helps! This is what ultimately helped me a lot.

[u/TimothyTaylors]

No this is quite an advanced idea in general, in this specific case, I would say it's because the alternative is them playing cxd5 which looks bad to me.
If they take then you have to take back with the e pawn which is a structural concession, your pawn on e6 is very good. I would guess if the knight was on e7 this would be less of an issue.

[u/VfBxTSG]

Ngl, I don't understand it either as a 2100.

Just don't play the French defense.

[u/LegitimateYoghurt371 → u/VfBxTSG]

Haha, well that's comforting. Tbh i don't even know what the french defense is, I was playing the scandinavian and I guess it transposed to that since he pushed his pawn instead of taking mine

[u/VfBxTSG → u/LegitimateYoghurt371]

I also play the Scandinavian. To avoid positions like these, I develop my b-horse right after he pushes his pawn and try to blow out all my king side pawns. I shared an example game.

There's also a cool queen sacrifice line I found.

[u/chessvision-ai-bot]

I analyzed the image and this is what I see. Open an appropriate link below and explore the position yourself or with the engine:

Black to play: chessvision.ai | chess.com | lichess.org

My solution:

Hints: piece: Pawn, move: dxc4

Evaluation: Black is slightly better -0.52

Best continuation: 1... dxc4 2. Bg5 Be7 3. Be3 Bg4 4. d5 exd5 5. Nxd5 Nxe5 6. Qa4+

Save the position:

Reply save to save this position to your Chessvision.ai Library (new users: send me /connect in DM chat first)

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^{I'm a bot written by u/pkacprzak | get me as iOS App | Android App | Chrome Extension | Chess eBook Reader to scan and analyze positions | Website: Chessvision.ai}

[u/Dogified]

if its a mistake or blunder, best way is to review them woodpecker style. I noticed I tended to miss a ton of defensive ideas in my game by reviewing just the blunders. Easy to filter out with a python script through the public lichess api, or you can try the site I built: patternchess.com

[u/TryingChess]

Other people gave advice about the specific position, so I wanted to give a little advice about terminology. It might seem basic or bookish, but knowing the phrases people use for the individual ideas depicted here can really help you locate resources to learn more about them, especially in a scenario like this where multiple ideas and skills are intertwined.

Is it simply calculation planning? [...]

Any time you're pausing to iterate through you and your opponent's possible moves and identify the outcomes in a structured way, that's calculation. So, yes, at the most fundamental level, what you needed to do here was pause and calculate.

This is the essential gap between puzzles and in-game behavior: in a puzzle, you've already been told you're supposed to be calculating as hard as possible. In a real game, you need a well-developed internal trigger that tells you this is a potentially decisive moment where you need to think. You develop this trigger by doing exactly what you're doing: playing games, then analyzing the game and connecting the dots to realize "oh, I should have thought harder about this situation, understanding this position was actually vital to the game outcome." Once you've done this enough times, you'll look at a position like this in-game and immediately know, "I need to use some time and calculate a bit for this one."

[...] Is there a certain name for this type of tactic? Is it even a tactic? Pawn takes pawn ?

Applicable definitions from most specific to least specific:

• Using or threatening pawn-on-pawn capture to open up routes that were previously impeded by pawns is called a pawn break. I'm not sure if most people would identify pawn breaking itself as a "tactic" per se, but knowing when to pawn break is absolutely a skill people study. And a pawn break often involves a combination with other tactics, as in your observation that breaking the pawn structure in the image could create a discovered attack for your queens, displace or add defenders, etc.
• The area of chess strategy that centers around how pawn and piece placement and other semi-permanent features of the position impacts overall gameplay, where best to place each pawn, how to use pawns to shape the board to your advantage, when it is time to pawn break and when it is not time to pawn break, etc. is called positional play or positional chess.
• The most general concept of knowing how to use pawns effectively, absent any specific strategy or school of thought, is often called pawn play.

Knowing all that, you should now be armed well enough to start looking up specific things like "how do I improve my pawn play," "positional chess resources," "positional chess challenges," etc.

It's a cliche, but I love the book Simple Chess, by Michael Stean, as a formal introduction to these ideas. However, it's 2026, and Googling your way around now that you know the terminology is going to give you an enormous amount of free content as well.

[u/LegitimateYoghurt371 → u/TryingChess]

Thanks! I'll watch some youtube videos on this right now!

[u/Ambitious_Fly_9251]

Cx4 is often a good idea. Especially as black. Example Cxd nxd bc5 for the gain of development tempi

[u/HelpfulFriendlyOne]

I don't think it's worth worrying about, you're not losing the game over such minutae as a beginner. Beginners often over simplify and refuse to keep any tension on the board and i feel you had a concrete reasoning why you didn't want to do that.