Memorize the position

What it trains

Holding a whole position in your head, and reading what is in it. Memory is only half of it: the questions ask for things you have to work out, like how many pieces attack a square or how many legal moves a pinned knight really has.

How to use it

Study the position for as long as the clock allows, or set the study time to no limit and take as long as you like. When it goes, the board goes with it and the questions start.

The level is a phase: a simple ending of four to six pieces, an ending, a middlegame, an opening with the board nearly full, or a mix that deals all four. It picks the questions too, because a question has to suit the board. An ending is asked how far its lead pawn still has to walk; an opening is asked how many pieces are still standing where they started, which is the one thing an opening does not answer by itself, since almost everything is on its square and the plain counts barely move. Every position is one real players reached, taken from lichess's public puzzle collection, one position per game. That matters more than it sounds: a board you can hold is a board with structure in it, a castled king or a pawn chain, and pieces scattered at random would measure how long you can stare rather than how much chess you know. One thing to know about them, since the drill will not hide it: each is a position where a tactic was there to be found, so they are sharper than an average middlegame.

The other drills