How Well Can You Count?

NM Dan Heisman is out with his latest Novice Nook column at ChessCafe. He presents several examples of simple counting problems.

One problem Dan illustrates is rather straightforward, but he notes that "Quite a few intermediate players that I showed it to could not find the correct idea in a reasonable amount of time. This surprising lack of 'tactical vision' once again shows that, even for intermediate players, it greatly pays to improve your tactical vision by studying simple counting problems – along with 'single motif' problems such as removal of the guard, double attack, pins, etc."