How to Study Chess

A very common question I get is “How exactly do I get better at chess? Should I train tactics? Middlegame? Should I just play games? Or is there a book I should read?” Of course, when I was first learning chess I didn't really know the answer to these questions either, and looking back I could’ve made a lot quicker progress if I had known what to do. So in this blog, I am going to answer these questions, I will go over what to do to improve and I will leave some resources for you guys to look at. 

General Principle to Improving

The way to improve is actually very simple and it can apply to chess and other things you want to improve at. Every day, you need to be able to recall what you did that day to get better at chess. It's very simple yet for some reason many people miss that, and can’t recall something they did to improve. I used to be guilty of the same thing too, a lot of days I found myself not recalling a single thing I did to improve and I felt like I would never be any good at chess. 

So what I did to fix this is at the end of the day I recorded what I did to improve, and I tried to do at least one thing each day. Over time I became a lot more consistent with doing something each day, in chess and other aspects of life. If you struggle to do this you also might find it helpful to have someone to keep you accountable each day. When I teach people I now make them record what they do each day because I want them to put in the effort toward improving. A single-hour session won’t make them better, it's the consistency of doing something each day that will make you better. 

Tactics

Now that we’ve covered the general principle of improvement, I will get more specific and describe practices that you can do to improve. The first thing you can do is work on your tactical ability. The tactics in a chess game often decide the game which is why it is important to have a strong tactical ability. There are two different ways that I recommend you to train your tactical ability: The classic method and the woodpecker method.

The classic method is the simple way to train your tactical ability, and I recommend it to newer players, who are not that adept and don’t know that many patterns. That is because this method emphasizes learning new patterns. So what is this method?

Classic Method

The classic method is going through random chess puzzles, however, on each puzzle, you solve it in a specific manner. The first thing is you set a time limit for yourself, give yourself 90 seconds on each puzzle, or for newer players I recommend putting a limit of 5 minutes. Try to solve the puzzle within the time frame, but don’t try to rush it either. If you are solving puzzles in 10 seconds you will need to either increase the difficulty, or if you are getting them wrong you need to slow down. The point of the time limit is to make sure you don't spend a lot of time on one puzzle, and also because in a real game, you won’t be able to burn a lot of time on a single move. 

If you get the puzzle right, you can either move on or if you are unsure about a part of the puzzle you can look at it with an engine. However, if you get the puzzle wrong, you should analyze why you were wrong, and look at what the computer says. You might realize the solution right after you get it wrong, but you should still check with an engine because you still might be wrong. Lastly, when analyzing the puzzle try to keep it contained to a reasonable amount of time, I know some people like to try to play against a computer with a position that comes out of the puzzle. However, your time is being dedicated to tactics, and should stay focused on tactics until you complete your tactics for the day. 

Woodpecker Method

The second method is the woodpecker method, and this method is meant for more experienced players who know a decent amount of patterns. I would recommend it to those who are 1200 rapid or stronger. 

So what is the woodpecker method? The woodpecker method trains you to learn patterns and then makes you re-solve them to make you solve faster, more accurately, and remember the patterns better. So what you do is take a set of 100 puzzles (you can make the set bigger but keep it capped at a 500 puzzle set) and you solve them. Once you solve them you are going to resolve the set of puzzles until you can quickly and accurately solve the whole puzzle set. Once you do that you go to a different set of puzzles and repeat the process, and once in a while, you will go back to previous sets to make sure you can still solve those quickly and accurately. 

This method emphasizes learning a few patterns at a time, but making sure you remember them for a longer period. For more information about the woodpecker method, you can read the book or the Chessable course. 

Tips for Solving

At first, you might struggle to find the moves, but with practice, you can solve them. Try to go through the checklist. First, look at the position, and evaluate how good or bad it is, You can do this by counting the material, and looking at the king safety, pawn structure, and piece activity. This will give you a general idea of the nature of the position. If you are down a knight, then you know you need to win a knight or more to be ahead in the position. If you are down a queen you might need to find a checkmate or win a queen. This can sort of tip you off on where the tactic is.

Second, look at checks. Often there is some kind of way to exploit a check, Some of the checks may lose a piece but consider them, perhaps you can sacrifice a piece for a mate. Next look for captures. Many times a piece is only defended once, so marking which pieces you can capture can help you identify overloaded defenders, or a piece might simply be hanging. Lastly, look at attacks, attacks are moves that will threaten to give checkmate or capture a piece. Looking at attacks can help you identify forks, double attacks, discoveries, and many more. When you calculate through a puzzle go through this checklist for each move. It may seem like it will take forever, but with practice, you can make a very quick search each move, and that will help identify different tactical opportunities. 

Studying Middlegame

Of course, tactics are not everything in chess. Equally, if not more, important aspect of chess is the middlegame. The middlegame is a large part of a chess game, creating tactical opportunity, constantly considering when to trade, where to place the pieces, and how safe the king is. The middlegame can be quite messy and that's why it is studied a lot.

So how do you study the middlegame? Personally, I like to go through chess books and set up a board and go through the book. However, some also like to go on Chessable or some other chess site and buy a course. Both are fine, what's important is that you process the information and actually go through the book/course.

Some books that I recommend are:

1. Road to Positional Advantage by Herman Grooten (this is the most beginner-friendly out of all of them)
2. My 60 Memorable Games by Bobby Fischer (haven’t read it but heard great things)
3. Zlotnik’s Middle Game Manual by Boris Zlotnik (My coach’s recommendation, I'm currently working through it)
4. Sacrifice and Initiative in Chess by Ivan Sokolov (also my coach’s recommendation for me, currently working through it)
5. Pawn Structure Chess by Andrew Soltis

Note: Some of the older books you can find for free because it is now public domain, but older books are also not backed by the engine so on a few rare occasions they can be wrong.

Endgame

Similar to middlegame, the endgame is a very important part of chess and is studied a lot. You should also study endgames, what kind of endgames you study is dependent on how strong of a chess player you are. You can learn endgames similar to how you study middlegames, however in my experience endgame books tend to be more interactive, so I encourage you to not do half the work of just learning, but you also practice what you learn.

Some good resources on endgames are:

1. 100 endgames you must know (both book and Chessable course)
2. Silman Complete Endgame Course (this is one of the best endgame books out there for those under 2000)
3. Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual and as a Chessable Course. This book is really advanced Unless you are a 2200+ player I would stay clear of it.

Opening

The opening is the very first part of the chess game and it's very important to set yourself up for a good middlegame. There are a few ways to study openings, you can watch YouTube videos, and there are books and chessable courses. All of these work well, and for newer players you might find it beneficial to have someone explain the positional ideas in the opening. 

For the more advanced players, I recommend just exploring a master database using Lichess or Chessbase. By following the most played moves you can learn the theory of the opening and you can also explore how successful it is. Additionally, you can find games to study to get a feel for the positions you will play. Russbell provided more information on this topic in his blog.

Playing Games

One of the most important things you can do to improve is play games. Studying won’t be as effective if you don’t play games and apply what you learn. I know some people enjoy Blitz a lot, however, it is much more effective with longer time controls such as 10|0, 15|10, 20|0, or 30|0. Those longer time controls will give you the time necessary to think, and identify the patterns that you learned. 

Tip: During the game, you should be constantly asking yourself if there is a tactical opportunity (remember the checklist). If you don’t see any tactics, you should then look for your worst-placed piece and then try to improve it by placing it on a better square. 

Analyzing Games

A very important step to improving is analyzing the games you played, especially the games you lost. I know it is fun to only look at the games in which you crush your opponent with brilliant moves, but it is far more important to analyze games that you play poorly.

The first step to analyzing your game is to just look at it by yourself. Go through each move and try to figure out if you had a better move than what you played in the game. You will find a lot of better moves when analyzing, so try to not be too harsh on yourself.

Once you finish analyzing the game by yourself, look at it with an engine, and compare what the engine says with your moves in the game and the analysis you just did. I’ve found this method to be the most effective, and you can use this method to analyze master games too.

Study Plan

The last thing we will cover in this blog is creating a study plan that works for you. I can’t tell you the perfect study plan because there isn’t one. You need to identify how much time you have, and then split up what you do each day. 

Novice Plan

For novice players (U1000) the best study plan is to play and analyze a lot of games and solve a lot of puzzles using the classic method. Players at this level have poor board vision and often hang pieces or make tactical mistakes, so it serves best to train these weaknesses. You should also learn the basic opening principles and some basic KRvK or KQvK endgame mates. Note: During games try to look at what your opponent wants first.

Intermediate Plan

For intermediate players (1000-1800), I recommend that you start studying the middlegame and more endgame. It is still very important to play and analyze your games. You should still train your tactical ability, however, you should decrease the number of tactics you solve and use that time for other studies. As for openings, it is important to not get too carried away, but it is a good idea to transition out of opening principles and pick up some basic openings. Note: You can learn openings over time by analyzing your games and slowly learning the correct opening ideas.

Advanced Plan

For advanced players (1800+) you should be able to identify what you need to work on more, and you simply study that. It really depends on the person so I can’t really give the general advice that I did for the other categories. However, in general, you can continue the intermediate’s plan of studying the middlegame and playing/analyzing games the most, but including the occasional tactics, openings, or endgame study.

Recap

The most important thing to improve is being able to say what you did each day to improve at chess. This consistency is key, and if you manage to do it for months you will see yourself improve at chess. Remember that playing chess is very important, and your studies should not neglect playing games. Lastly, have fun, at the end of the day chess is just a game if you are not enjoying the process of learning then don’t study chess. It is very important that you enjoy the game, so don’t focus on the rating, rather focus on the progress you made, look at how much you have improved over the last year, month, or even week.