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Chad Lieberman

Players who have studied chess for a long time tend to fall into a pattern of finding restricted candidate moves. Each time you begin to assess a position before moving, you are taught to come up with several candidate moves to analyze.

The problem with this arises when you develop such an engrained natural ability to find moves that "look right." While this skill will permit you to play more quickly and with fewer crucial errors, you may be missing some tactical brilliancies.

Instead, you should practice a fast perusal of all of the possible moves in the position with short analysis for each. Over time, you will develop enough experience to ascertain quickly whether or not the move is completely off-base.

Performing what I call an infinite-move search before picking candidates will allow you to think outside the box in positions that may have some subtle tactical infrastructure.

Don't get stuck in the misery of obvious moves. Get creative and force your opponent to come up with equally crafty responses. Good luck!

White to mate in two moves.
Link to solution at the bottom.