Blogs
Building Habits Study Notes: Ep 1 (0-500 ELO)

Building Habits Study Notes: Ep 1 (0-500 ELO)

Avatar of hotlychee
hotlychee
| 0

This article is my study notes for chessbrah's Building Habits v2 Episode 1 (0-500 ELO). A few more extra topics were only covered by the uncut full version of this tutorial, and are included at the end of this post. Click on the [📺] to go to the exact timestamp in the YouTube tutorial about this topic.

N.B.: Some links are added throughout this post to provide more context or deeper introduction of some concepts, through Chess Term pages, Chess.com lessons, or external websites. Most of the time, these materials are just for reference, and it is not necessary to review them as you follow through the lessons. Getting too deep into these concept as a beginner may distract you from more important foundational skills and even cause you to blunder in games. Just focus on the basic habits introduced in this blog post and you'll make progress gradually.

First, some restrictions. Don't worry about these advanced topics for now:

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

Instead, stick with these good habits:

Note that these restrictions and habits aren't necessarily the best ideas for players of all levels. But for beginners with low ELO, it's okay to focus on these simple yet important principles. They will take you to a higher level, where you can add more sophisticated skills to your arsenal and get rid of some of these restrictions, to advance even further. For now, less is more.

Ideally, at the end of opening, you want your position to look something like this:

[📺] [📺] Notice a few patterns of this position.

  • We have some pawn(s) in the center (e4, e5, d4, d5)
  • All our minor pieces (knights and bishops) are developed and pointing at the center
  • King is castled (preferably kingside for beginners [📺])
  • Rooks are connected and on center files
  • [📺] Edge pawn is pushed to give castled king an escape square, a.k.a. luft or snorkel

Even when you can't get to this exact position, because of how the opponent has played, or because you are playing black, the spirit is the same: develop, control the center, castle, connect rooks and bring them to center files, give the king some air to breathe. Don't be afraid of taking some equal trades, and most importantly, don't hang free pieces in the process.

[📺] After this initial setup, whenever you don't know what to do, try push some random pawns forward (a.k.a. RPMs, random pawn moves), especially queenside pawns (that is, if you castle kingside).

[📺] When you trade pieces, even if they are equal value, double check if that traded piece was defending some other piece or blocking some sort of attack, i.e. don't take the trade if it will hang your other piece(s). Just remember, DO NOT HANG FREE PIECES.

[📺] [📺] Learn the pattern of back rank checkmate, and understand why giving your king some luft, or snorkel, can prepare yourself against opponent's back rank checkmate attempt.

[📺] It's necessary to emphasize that, even in the middlegame, it's usually a good idea to move pieces towards the center rather than towards the edge of the board, because pieces generally control more squares from the center. Moving knights to the edge file is especially not a good idea most of the time, because it gives you half or even less than half amount of squares to control.

[📺] Oftentimes it's also a good idea to double the rooks, that is, to stack the rooks on top of each other on the same file, preferably an open file with no enemy pieces. This is an example of battery. It's a powerful weapon to exert pressure on opponent's back rank, because even when they take your first rook, the second rook can take back immediately. [📺] Sometimes, you can even stack the queen to add even more pressure, known as Alekhine's Gun.

[📺] It's a good idea to look for cases where opponent's queen can get directly next to your king because of another defending piece. This is often checkmate (called assisted checkmate) when your king has nowhere to escape to, either because the space around king is crammed, or the only square(s) to escape the queen check is defended by some other enemy piece(s). A simple example:

Sometimes the assisted checkmate might not appear obvious, especially for beginners with less powerful board vision. This is particularly common for bishop assisted checkmate, because the bishop supporting the queen might be lurking far away that you don't even realize it's there. It is important to pay attention to the board, especially open diagonals, to avoid missing the checkmate opportunities, for both yourself and your opponent. Take this position for an example:

[📺] Below is another example of assisted checkmate. In this case, it is usually a good idea to push the attacked pawn with g3, so that the enemy queen won't be able to attack and threaten checkmate at g2 anymore (thanks to the backup of pawn at f2).

[📺] Sometimes you can hit two birds with one stone. For example, when one of your pieces has no defender, you can develop a piece AND defend that hanging piece at the same time. This is two habits in one move!

[📺] When opponent makes a capture, do you always take back immediately? Not necessarily. Always look for (more valuable) pieces potentially left hanging by the last move. In the example below, after this pawn capture, it reveals my rook's attack on enemy queen. So we should go for the more valuable queen instead of taking back the pawn:

Likewise, don't make a capture if it would reveal a more valuable piece of your own under opponent's attack. Again, DO NOT HANG FREE PIECES!

[📺] When calculating the number of attackers and defenders on a square, you can't just count the number of pieces without counting their relative value. Even you have 3 defenders against 3 attackers from the opponent, you might not be equals if your defenders worth more in the followup trades.

Bonus 1

Below are some extra topics covered only in the FULL VOD ep 1 | 400-426 ELO on the chessbrah EXTRA channel.

[📺] When you are down material significantly and/or in a "must-lose" position, and the opponents are making repetitious moves, you can also make repetitious move to secure a draw, taking advantage of the Threefold Repetition rule. 

But of course, when you have a good chance of winning, you should not go for repeated moves only to end up tying the game.

[📺] When you have to double your pawns, i.e. putting two pawns on the same file, it is usually a good idea to capture towards the center, i.e. use the "more edge" pawn to capture a "more center" piece. This aligns with our basic habit to control and move towards the center.

When calculating defenders and attackers on a square, remember that some "attackers" are also defending something, or shielding something from the opponent's attack (i.e. as a pinned piece). If you don't realize and use that piece for attack, the opponent may be able to capture something potentially more valuable that's left undefended. (See also: overloading)

[📺] Here is a quite complex position, which tells us that everything is not what it looks like at first glance. It "seems" that black can safely take the d5 pawn and all our pieces are properly defended, but Bxd5 leads to a disastrous material loss: 

Capturing a rook isn't always better than capturing a bishop. Really. You need to think beyond the immediate next move and ask yourself "what happens after my / their next move?" at all times. [📺] For example:

But of course, in this example, if it's a queen, instead of a rook, that can be taken for the price of your bishop, you should take it over winning only a bishop, because you'd end up winning more material after the trades. Always do the maths when facing these choices.

[📺] Having the luft / snorkel set up doesn't guarantee immunity from back rank checkmate. If the escape square is attacked, e.g. by opponent's bishop sniper, it's useless.

[📺] It's usually better to develop knights before bishops in the opening because knights are less flexible and need to control the center earlier in the game before being restrained by opponent's pawns. Bishops on the other hand, is long-range and more flexible, and can wait till later to be developed.

Bonus 2

Below are some extra topics covered only in the FULL VOD ep 2 | 426-451 ELO video on the chessbrah EXTRA channel.

[📺] Be aware of your opponent’s knight. They can take advantage of your reckless move and attack two of your more valuable pieces (e.g. two rooks, a rook and the queen, or even the queen and the king) at the same time, so you’ll lose material in the next move, even when you can capture back that knight.

[📺] It is usually better to capture with a piece (i.e. knight, bishop, queen, rook…) instead of a pawn, especially when that said pawn is protecting the castled king. After all, the king castled to hide behind the protection of a pawn wall, and a pawn capture will simple self-destruct that wall and expose our king to opponent’s attack.

[📺] Count the attackers and defenders before making a capture. If you have two attackers pointing at an opponent’s piece and they only have one defender, and if that attacked piece and its defender has a combined value that’s higher than our first attacker, then capturing would be worthwhile. Otherwise, you shouldn’t make that capture.

Here is a counter example where, although our attackers outnumber opponent's defenders, we still shouldn't make the capture, because our first attacker is worth too much to be sacrificed.

[📺] When doing these maths, we need to count all the way till the end of the trades and take-backs. For example, don’t be afraid of taking a minor piece with your rook and lose that rook to another minor piece, IF you can take back that second minor piece in the end, because two minor pieces worth 1 point more than a rook. In this case, if that original minor piece captured your pawn, all these followup trades will make it break even in the end (3 + 3 = 5 + 1).

[📺] However, nothing is more urgent than mate in 1. If you are facing an imminent checkmate, you should do nothing but to get yourself out of mate. In this case, even a pawn taking queen is meaningless, if it can’t avoid the mate in 1. Always look for potential mate before making a move / capture, no matter how lucrative the move / capture seems.

[📺] Be careful not to let your bishop get trapped by the pawn chain like this. (Here is another example from a later episode [📺])

Bonus 3

Below are some extra topics covered only in the FULL VOD ep 3 | 451-508 ELO video on the chessbrah EXTRA channel.

[📺] [📺] Knights usually don’t go to the 2nd rank (i.e. d and e file) in the opening most of the time. First, a knight on the 2nd rank would only control one central square as opposed to two had you moved your knight to the third rank (i.e. c and f file). Second, it blocks the bishop from developing.

Go to the next post Building Habits Study Notes: Ep 2 (500-600 ELO)