Train Like a Pro: The Candidate Moves Drill

Why You Keep Missing the Best Move

I've been glued to the 2025 Superbet Classic in Bucharest, and if there's one thing that separates the Firouzjas and Caruanas of the world from your average 1400, it isn't tactical vision — it's discipline. These players don't play the first reasonable move they spot. They force themselves to list candidate moves before calculating a single line.

Aron Nimzowitsch wrote about this a century ago, and Kotov formalized it in Think Like a Grandmaster. Yet almost every amateur game I analyze shows the same leak: the player saw a decent move, liked it, and never looked for a better one. Today we fix that with a drill you can run in 20 minutes a day.

The Candidate Moves Drill

The rule is simple and brutal: in any position, you must write down at least three candidate moves before you calculate anything. Not two. Three. Even if the third one looks dumb.

Here's why the forced third move matters. Your brain latches onto the obvious recapture or the natural development move and stops. That third candidate is where the brilliancies live.

Step-by-Step

1. Open a tactics book or a puzzle set to 'find the best move,' not 'mate in 2.' The ambiguity is the point.
2. Set a 3-minute timer per position.
3. Before calculating, list three candidate moves on paper. Give each a one-line reason.
4. Only then calculate the forcing lines — checks, captures, threats — for each candidate.
5. Commit to an answer, then check with an engine.
6. Score yourself: did your chosen move match the engine? Did the engine's top move appear anywhere on your candidate list?

That second question is the real diagnostic. If the right move never made your list, you have a vision problem. If it made the list but you rejected it, you have a calculation or evaluation problem. Those need different cures.

A Position to Try

Let's practice. Consider this classic motif, White to move:

White: Kg1, Qd1, Rf1, Bb3, Nf3, pawns a2, b2, c2, g2, h2. Black: Kg8, Qd8, Rf8, Be7, Nf6, pawns a7, b7, c7, g7, h6, with Black's king slightly airy.

Your natural instinct might scream 1.Ne5, hopping the knight to a juicy outpost. Fine — that's candidate one. But force yourself further. Candidate two: 1.Bxf7+!?, the Greek Gift cousin, blasting open the king. Candidate three — the one you'd skip — 1.Qd3, quietly loading up on the b1-h7 diagonal.

Only by writing all three do you calculate 1.Bxf7+ Rxf7 2.Ng5 hitting the rook and threatening Qd3 with a double attack on f7 and h7. Suddenly the 'quiet' Qd3 and the 'crazy' sac combine into a concrete attack. The player who stopped at 1.Ne5 never even saw it.

The Superbet Connection

In the top-level games this week, you'll notice the elite constantly choosing the second-best looking move because calculation revealed it was actually best. Take the recurring theme of prophylactic rook moves — a Rfd1 that looks passive but kills every counterplay idea. That's a candidate most of us wouldn't even list. Training yourself to generate these quiet options is exactly what the drill builds.

Common Mistakes While Drilling

• Faking the third candidate. Don't scribble a throwaway. Give it a genuine reason.
• Calculating before listing. This defeats the whole exercise. List first, always.
• Only using tactics puzzles. Mix in quiet positions where the best move is positional. Your candidate list should include a pawn break and a piece reroute, not just checks.

How to Measure Progress

Keep a simple log. After each session, record two numbers: your solve rate and your candidate hit rate (how often the engine's move was on your list). Over a month, watch the candidate hit rate climb first — that's your vision improving — followed by solve rate as your evaluation sharpens. When your hit rate passes 80%, drop the timer to 2 minutes to add pressure.

The Takeaway

You don't lose games because you can't calculate four moves deep. You lose them because the winning move never entered your head. The Candidate Moves Drill is a mechanical fix for a mental blind spot: force three options, and the best one usually shows up. Twenty minutes a day, a notebook, and an engine. Start tonight — the Superbet players earned their vision one position at a time, and so can you.