How to Improve Chess Skills for Intermediate Players || #AskAChessMaster Episode 06

Do you find yourself unable to improve your chess skills as an intermediate chess player? Today I teach you some tips that can help improve your chess skills and rating to, hopefully, eventually become a chess master.

Becoming a good chess player is hard. You can ask the best chess player, to the worst chess player and they would all the same thing.

As one climbs to chess rating system, it's easy to begin, you learn your ABC's of chess, you learn to castle, and you learn the basics of chess and your rating skyrockets over those who do not know these basic things. But then you hit a roadblock. You can't progress that 1000-1400 rating level. No matter how many games you play, no matter how many tactics trainer you play, it doesn't matter. You're stuck, and you cannot get out of the rut you are in.

Why is this the case? From my past experiences, there is one major obstacle one needs to jump over if they wish to get into that 1600-2000 range from the 1000-1400 range, and that is the ability to realize chess is not so much a tactical game, where people win based off blunders and tactics their opponent don't see, but moreso a strategic game.

Understanding this fact when I first began chess helped my skyrocket my rating from being unrated to 2000+ in less than 3 years. It allowed me to beat people much higher rated than me, and blocked those lower rated than me from winning against me.

Don't play chess like it's a lottery. Don't pray to a divine being every single game you play, hoping that your opponent blunders more than you do. If you do, you'll see that you keep losing against the same people, and winning against the same people.

Practice some positional chess. Understand ideas behind your moves. Ask yourself why. Don't let some Grandmaster tell you to make a move because "he/she said so". Ask why, and understand.

That will drastically improve your rating. I know it.

For more specifics and some examples of how to improve, chess out the following video where I tackle this question and more!

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P.S. I had to skip the sixth #AskAChessMaster question as I do not believe it can be posted on chess.com as the question is related to "which chess website is the best" . You can find it on my channel though! (P.S.S. Chess.com all the way!)