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Building Habits Study Notes: Ep 2 (500-600 ELO)

Building Habits Study Notes: Ep 2 (500-600 ELO)

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This article is my study notes for chessbrah's Building Habits v2 Episode 2 (500-600 ELO).

N.B.: Just want to reiterate here that most links in this post are optional and just for reference only, and it is not necessary to review them as you follow through the lessons. Just focus on the basic habits introduced in this article and you'll make progress gradually.

First, let's review the restrictions and habits we will adhere to at our level.

Don't worry about these advanced topics for now:

  • No premoves
  • No tactics
  • No gambits
  • No sacrifices

Instead, stick with these good habits:

Again, these aren't necessarily the silver bullet for players at all levels. But for beginners with low ELO, it's okay to focus on these simple yet important principles. Remember, for now, less is more.

[📺] We should immediately recognize the pattern of opponent's attempt at the Scholar's Mate.

Scholar's Mate usually happens in beginner level chess, because it is easy to defend against once you know its trick, and white can actually end up in a worse position if the opponent does not fall for the trap. As black, the best way to defend against the threat of white queen and bishop at f7 is to play g6:

This move wins a tempo because the white queen is attacked and need to move away. It also opens up the h8-a1 diagonal for black's bishop to occupy.

White often responds with Qf3, threatening Qxf7# on the next move, but black can easily block its reach by Nf6:

[📺] Remember that we want to castle early, because later in the game, when opponent's pieces are fully developed, they can either force your king to move, thus permanently taking away your castling right, or they can point at your back rank, temporarily restricting castling:

[📺] [📺] Let's see this common pattern. Again, the black queen is working together with the bishop to threaten an assisted checkmate Qxg2#. In this particular position, we can't push the g pawn because we would hang our rook. It would be a good idea to play Ne1, adding a second defender of that attacked g pawn.

Another key takeaway here is that whenever you have an enemy rook or queen lines up with your king at far, i.e. as soon as that sniper's "red dot" aims at your king, move the king away. This allows you to capture some opponent's piece which would be otherwise impossible as you can't expose your own king to check. If you move your king away from the rook's aim before the bishop makes its move, it wouldn't be able to safely capture the h pawn and threaten checkmate anymore:

[📺] Here's another example of the king side attack and checkmate.

[📺] Identify the pawn fork pattern. Don't worry about mastering the fork tactics too much -- we are not there yet -- for now, just learn to recognize this position and avoid getting trapped in one.

[📺] Learn ladder mate when you are in a 2 rooks vs king or 1 rook + 1 queen vs king endgame. If you want to avoid accidental stalemate, just try to keep checking your opponent until its checkmate! If you do need to make a move that doesn't check the opponent, make sure their king has somewhere legal to go to on the next move.

Sometimes we need to take some extra steps to move the rook across the board during the ladder mate should the enemy king gets too close to us.

[📺] When your king has an escape square, you'll probably feel safe from a queen attack, but be careful that the queen can move to a square to give your king a check, but its actual purpose is to be there to capture another undefended piece of yours from that square. In this case, that piece won't be able to move away, and you can't add defence to it, because you will have to move your checked king.

[📺] [📺 for uncut full analysis from full VOD ep 6] Here's an example of a Fried Liver Attack carried out by white, where black blundered on move 7 (Kg8??) and eventually got checkmated in 9 moves.

One way to avoid this situation is to play 3...Bc5 instead of 3...Nf6, because this way they won't be able to play 4.Ng5 thanks to the open d8-h4 diagonal defended by our queen.

Bonus 1

Below are some extra topics covered only in the FULL VOD ep 4 | 508-531 ELO.

[📺] Push the luft / snorkel pawn before it's too late. Sometimes the opponent will attack or block that pawn and force you to open up the pawn wall that your king could castle behind.

[📺] [📺] [📺 from Bonus 2] When you develop your bishop in the opening, it is generally preferable to not block a second rank pawn from advancing. That is, it's best not to put your bishop on the third rank before your pawn is pushed out: when you do that, you block your pawn from controlling the center, and you block your other bishop from development too. If you can't develop your bishop further to control the center because of opponent's threat, it would be acceptable to take the second rank first, so you can still castle.

[📺] When playing black, we should just mirror white’s first move. That is, if white plays e4, we’ll play e5 (king's pawn opening); if white plays d4, we’ll play d5 (queen's pawn opening). This is the simplest response for beginners.

[📺] It’s a good idea to move our rook out before we make a bishop trade, just so that we won’t have to take back with our pawn, creating doubled pawns, which is usually undesirable.

[📺] [📺, and notice how this exact position re-appeared in a later game in full VOD ep 5: [📺]] Here's a common attack pattern, where the opponent opens up your pawn wall and exert pressure on your castled king, and eventually trap it with a checkmate or gain material.

Bonus 2

Below are some extra topics covered only in the FULL VOD ep 5 | 531-571 ELO.

[📺] [📺 from Bonus 3] The pawn’s double attack (fork) can happen without another supporting pawn. The forking pawn can be supported by other pieces too. Watch out for cases where you have two valuable pieces on each flank of opponent’s pawn’s path. When you see a supported pawn storming towards you, it might be a good idea to consider moving some of your pieces in front of them away to avoid being forked. Having your pawn(s) in the center helps with this threat, because you can just capture their pushed pawn in an equal trade.

[📺] Be very careful about an incoming knight fork, especially when one or even two knights become very active within your territory. Before making a move, make sure you are not placing one or two valuable pieces in a position that would be forked by the opponent’s pawn.

[📺] When time is tight in the endgame and you do have an upper edge, it is important to know how to checkmate your opponent as fast as possible. For example, in a queen + king vs king endgame, just keeping checking the opponent’s king with your queen usually won’t work. In this case, if you can’t checkmate when you time out, it will be a draw (because the opponent would not have sufficient material to mate you anyway).

[📺] Count the attackers and defenders when dealing with a rook battery, so you don't lose material after the trades.

[📺] Here's an example of a queen side fried liver attack.

[📺][📺] Here are a couple of more "red dot" situation from the full VOD ep5.

Bonus 3

Below are some extra topics covered only in the FULL VOD ep 6 | 571-603 ELO.

[📺] [📺] Let's review this position which caused a few sudden loss repeatedly in the last couple of episodes. In these games, the opponent did not castle early in the opening, instead, they initiated a pawn storm towards your castled king and attacking the snorkel square, and with their rook enjoying an opened h file, and their queen and bishop joining the king side attack, material loss and even checkmate quickly ensue. In this case, you may want to delay the snorkel move (h6), so that our pawn wall will be harder to open up and penetrate.

[📺] Here is another example of an attack on the castled king. White sacrifices a knight, opens up the h file, and delivers an assisted checkmate with a queen + rook battery. To counter this, it might be a good idea to delay playing the snorkel move and antagonizing the knight. If the knight takes h7, they lose 2 points of material; if the knight chooses to take the f7 pawn, both sides will break even after the followup trades (3 + 3 = 5 + 1), so either way we can ignore that knight for the time being.

[📺] Your rook can get stuck in the corner and opponent's bishop or queen can trap it diagonally by taking the second rank pawn. A good defence here is to offer a queen trade.