Candidate Moves

Hi Friends!

Hope you’re doing well. Today I’m going to teach you a bit about one of the most important techniques in chess: CANDIDATE MOVES!

One of the hardest things in chess is figuring out what to move when. Luckily candidate moves offer us a method to address this challenge. Candidate moves are the moves in a position that look promising enough to calculate seriously. Instead of trying to analyze every legal move, you make a shortlist, work out your opponent’s strongest responses, and compare the resulting positions. A candidate is a possibility; not necessarily a good move once you’ve checked it. 

Have a look at this position. Let’s start by looking at our candidate moves. There is this formula that is used called CCA to find candidates meaning Checks, Captures, Attacks. Starting with checks, the most forcing moves. We have one check, that being Bxf7+. As for captures, we have Bxf7+, Qxd7+, bxc3 and Nxc3. 

As for attacks, the move Qd5 attacks checkmate on f7 and the c5-bishop. Now we have 5 candidate moves. If we can’t find anything in CCA we should look at improving our worst-placed piece, improving our position or look at defensive moves. To analyze candidate moves, start by asking yourself “If I were my opponent, how would I punish this move?”

Look for their strongest CCA and strongest defensive resources–not just the reply you hope they play. This process applies to both sides. Now let’s look at our list. I can immediately rule out two candidates: Qxd7+ and bxc3. Qxd7+ loses a queen immediately when Black plays Bxd7, Qxd7 or Kxd7 while bxc3 puts us down a pawn and isolates itself which definitely doesn’t improve our position. Qd5 is immediately refuted by Qe7, defending c5 and f7. 

We are now down to 2. Nxc3, which gives us a lead in development and improves our position even though we are down a pawn. Position is equal. As Capablanca said, “If you see a good move, look for a better one!” Bxf7+ Kxf7 Qd5+ wins the bishop back with a huge lead in development and white is better. If you’re curious to learn more about this line, look up Scotch Gambit Haxo Gambit. It’s pretty cool and will help you win many games as a beginner or intermediate player.

This is the candidate move process and as you do it more and more, it’ll become faster. Note that some positions have more candidate moves than others and in some situations, many candidate moves might be just fine, like the following, from a game I played versus my friend and local legend Valentin Razmov.

After 22 moves against Valentin, this was the position. The position is relatively calm and the goal for me at this point was to improve my pieces. Here are some candidate moves to consider: 23. Rc2, 23. Qe2, 23. Qe5, 23. a3, and 23. h3. I’m not going to go through the analysis here (why don’t you try for yourselves?) but it’s worth noting that all five of those moves are fine and might facilitate different plans, depending on your style and what you’re looking to do.

Before I let you go, here’s another one from an online game my Dad played recently, where there is a clear best move for black.

Here are some candidates: Kh6, Kf6, b5, or a5. I’m not going to tell you what is best here but know that only one of these moves is completely winning with proper play. Two of these moves are drawn with proper play. One of these moves is completely losing with proper play. Endgames are hard and well worth studying as you improve your chess! I spend several hours a week on endgames exclusively! Email me at prodigystrats@gmail.com if you have any ideas or leave your thoughts in the comments.

That’s all for today! See y’all next time! Sarang out.