From Making Moves to Making Plans by WFM Kamaliya Bulatova + PGN Oct 23, 2025

“I Have No Idea What To Do
In This Chess Position!”

If that’s your inner script every other game, then you’ll love the K2P Method. Made by a European Youth Champion turned coach, this beginner-friendly way of planning uses just 3 basic parts. So instead of losing your way in a messy, unclear position, you’ll know exactly where to look to find the right move.

An improving chess player reaches the middlegame.

And suddenly, it feels like someone turned off the lights.

No easy tactic to play. No blunder to punish. They can’t see a clear way forward.

Some switch to damage control. They play safe, trying not to blunder. But that often leads to passive moves and a slow, quiet loss.

Others study strategy books or watch videos. Only to apply the lessons in the wrong position… losing anyway.

Woman FIDE Master Kamaliya Bulatova has seen this struggle again and again in her beginner students.

So she created the K2P Method.

It sets aside the mind-bending maneuvers and complex grandmaster ideas for now. Instead, it focuses your attention on just 3 things:

1️⃣ The Kings
2️⃣ The Pieces
3️⃣ And the Pawns

…of both sides, exactly in that order.

With info overload out of the way, you’ll find it much easier to spot problems in the opponent’s position — a bad king, bad pieces, or bad pawns…

Black has a bad king and bad
pawns along the 6th rank

So you can attack them.

So you attack them with Rd5-h5
and Rah1, winning material

Then you can check your position and spot problems there, too…

You have a bad, nearly trapped knight
and a bad backward pawn

So you can fix them.

You fix both problems with 1.e5!

Simple, heh?

Now you might be hearing about Bulatova for the first time. But in her home region of Tatarstan, she’s a chess hero.

She won the 2017 Russian Youth Championship (Girls U15) followed by the 2018 European Youth Championship (Girls U16).

She trained with some of the best coaches in the world — like the late Mark Dvoretsky, Mikhail Shereshevsky, and Yuri Yakovich.