Most club players don’t bother too much when it comes to exchanges. If an exchange “looks equal” they simply swap the pieces and proceed with the game. Only moves later they realize being on the losing side of the board.
After the game, they analyze in an attempt to figure out what happened. Those players usually blame the opening, lack of tactical awareness, or the positional blindness as the main reasons of their defeat. If they only knew the real reason WHY they’ve lost that game!
The truth is shocking.
The simple “equal looking” exchange ten moves earlier started an unstoppable losing sequence. It was all over afterwards. It is a very common situation the vast majority of club players are in.
On the other hand, Grandmasters may spend ten minutes or more evaluating whether to trade pieces or not. They are very well aware that a “bad exchange” may cost them the game. They know that any exchange leads to a permanent change on the board, which cannot be undone. GMs take exchanges very-very seriously.
Exchanges are really easy to make. But, oftentimes, even an “equal looking exchange” isn’t so equal. The truth is there are no equal exchanges in chess. You may be surprised since it’s probably not what you’ve been learning.
IM Lilov has developed a winning methodology which helped him to reach 2500 FIDE and defeat many strong Grandmasters. The foundation of that methodology is making “good” exchanges. Valeri believes that all exchanges have either short term or long term consequences. And the truth is those consequences may play a decisive role.
By learning how to make good exchanges, you almost certainly will have a decisive edge which could be enough to beat most under 2200 level players!
Many players think that making good decisions when it comes to exchanges requires 2300, 2400 or even 2500 ELO. IM Lilov certainly doesn’t think so. Any player can make winning exchanges if he understands a set of simple yet very important principles. Those principles allow to precisely determine whether to exchange pieces or not. Armed with those principles you will become an overall better player from opening to the endgame. And that’s exactly what you will learn in this new “Winning Exchanges” video course.
