Becoming a chess master

   You’ve started playing chess and you know the moves. You start moving pieces around the board and your friend, who also knows nothing about the game, randomly moves pieces too. Pieces get taken, games get played and one player ends the game by giving up or you both have kings on the board. It’s frustrating – you want to play a real game of chess! You get tips off more experienced players who are more than helpful, but even when you try developing pieces, moving into the centre and keeping your king safe you’re still hammered. “What am I doing wrong?” you ask yourself.

Mainly, this is to do with the chess term blunders, leaving pieces where they can plainly be taken. You can learn all the strategy and tactics in the world but if you don’t stop the blunders, the game is lost before you even started. How do you do it?

You're giving away lots of pieces and until you stop that you're going to keep losing - obviously! You need to think about your opponent's move: why did they move there? What are they planning to do? Keep it simple for now: just look to see if they're trying to take something (there are other reasons, e.g. checkmate, but this is less the case at lower levels). Look at where the piece now is. Where can it go on its next move? Work your way around the squares logically to all the squares the piece can go t. For example. all the squares to a rook's left, then in front of the rook all the way it can go etc. If they can take something, can you take back? If that's the case, who will get the most points?

Ok so you've done that and its safe. What next? This is where you are coming up with ideas and it’s not so much about being safe, but about doing your own attacking. Do you want to move a piece to a square to develop it? Do you want to move it somewhere to attack one of their pieces? Is it moving to protect your own piece? Do you have some other clever idea? Look for a few possible moves, two or three, don't focus on one. For the moment, focus on the immediate idea rather than trying to think several moves ahead. That will come later when you have more experience at stopping the blunders.

Now you've come up with your ideas, you have to make sure it's safe. Imagine your piece is on the square you have chosen. Look at each of your opponent's pieces in turn – remember, just because a piece is the other side of the board doesn't mean it can't take you if it's a bishop, queen or rook.  Look to see if pieces can land on the square you are planning to move to. Make sure you work your way around all of your opponent's pieces. If they can move to that square, can you take back? Do you have a piece that can then land on the square? Who would get the most points?

Finally, this has been done for all the moves you thought of so pick the one that’s safe and the best. Moving in for a checkmate is better than edging a pawn forward slowly. Pushing a pawn from the sixth to seventh rank is better than moving a knight away from the action. Remember, more than one of your moves might be safe (in which case you have a choice) and they all might be unsafe (in which case you start the process again!). Now you can make your move.

That’s what you need to be thinking when you make your move. Do that and you'll start beating people who are under 800 on a regular basis and you begin your journey to becoming a chess master!