How to Improve at Chess
In this article, I will explain and show some tips for taking your game to the next level from the opening to the middlegame and the endgame. These tips will not relate to blitz and bullet time formats, but instead, focus on the slow game.
Openings
Develop an opening repertoire. A repertoire does not mean you should study one opening for white and one for black. Instead, it means to study the opening thoroughly; learn as many openings from each side as you can to know how to respond to each of them. This is because you may have to play against any opening as black and as white a familiar line that you prepared may transpose at any point in the opening. Ex. If you prepare a Ruy Lopez, but your opponent plays a French, you must know how to adapt to the different opening choice. However, try to get confident in one opening that works for you before attempting to play ten different openings.
How to Choose an Opening? Take a while to see what works with your playing style. If you are a positional player try the London, English, or a d4 opening. If you are an aggressive player try Scotch Gambit, Max Lange Attack, or an e4 opening. Once you have chosen an opening to learn, study it for a long time and know all of the possible lines. Ex. 1.e4, then you should know how to respond to 1...c5, 1...d5, and 1… e5, and then move on to more in depth lines. Also, make sure you know how to play against anything white plays, meaning study a response to 1. c4, e4, d4, Nf3, etc. The more opening preparation you have and the better you know how to play the lines, the more prepared you can be to handle any opening. Watch grandmaster games to see how they play your favorite opening as well as youtube videos where a master explains an opening and different lines in depth. One of the most important aspects of the opening is that you should never just memorize moves! While memorization can be key in the opening, the problem with many chess players' opening is that they do not understand the ideas behind their opening. This means they don't know what the goals are for their specific opening. Ex. They know e4, c5, Nf3, e6, d4, cxd4, Nxd4, Nc6, etc. but don't know that the goal of the Sicilian is to try for a d5 pawn break in the center, or if white castles queenside, a common idea is to play a6 followed by b5 to get an attack on the white king. It may seem pointless to know the ideas behind an opening if you can just memorize the moves, but if your opponent plays a different move than you've seen (which is bound to happen), you cannot rely on memorization anymore. So, do not memorize moves without knowing the purpose of them.
Opening Principles: Sometimes we forget about basic opening principles when we try to be overly aggressive or are new at the game. The general idea is in most positions you should castle quickly especially before making aggressive moves. One thing I have noticed in many games is that chess players will like to push pawns, overextend pawns, or make pawn breaks in the center before the king is castled. A typical rule is almost never to attack in the center if your king is still in the center. If you have a mating attack or an attack that gains material it obviously doesn’t matter but do not push pawns or attack the center unless you are castled. I have lost many games because I neglected to castle in an otherwise winning position.
Middlegame
One of the largest parts to know about the middlegame is to always have a plan and make long and short term goals. It is better to have a bad plan than no plan at all.
Tactics: Tactics are said to make up 99% of chess. Whether this is true or not, the idea is correct that tactics are very important in any game. Study the basic tactics, they can be the most boring and seem easy, but the better you get at seeing them quickly, the fewer mistakes you will make, and the easier you can implement them on your games. Some examples of these puzzles are those such as forks, pins, mating patterns, attacking an uncastled or castled king, etc. Study these until you see them without hesitation. Master these by playing puzzle rush or using other features and resources provided on Chess.com so that you can become more familiar with certain positions and see the tactic immediately. The reason the best puzzles to study to improve your game are the basic tactics is that most puzzles above 2000 are more of calculating practice. These puzzles will make you think harder and calculate more before seeing the solution. It won't just be, can you find the fork, but instead something more like can you find the checkmate in 8? These puzzles are still important to start looking at, but even if you can solve these without any problems, it is still important to go back to the basics from time to time. It never hurts to refresh our rudimentary knowledge.
Calculating: As discussed briefly above, calculating practice is another key to becoming better at chess. Basic calculating in difficult positions starts with finding candidate moves which are the most likely moves to be played in the position, often based on instinct. Make two or three candidate moves, then play through the lines in your head, look for possible weaknesses in each line. It is important to remember that calculating takes time, don't rush it. You may have to calculate fifteen or so moves ahead in some positions for one line. This is one of the best ways to improve-calculate multiple moves ahead, most beginners will think one or two, possibly three or four moves ahead, but this is not always good enough. What if you look four or five moves ahead and you find that your position looks great after that move five, but your opponent has a brilliant move that wins the games for him or her. If you are always one step ahead, you have a better chance of a) not blundering and b) playing stronger more precise moves. Start with the move that is easiest to calculate or seems the most natural. If you find that the move actually doesn't work in the end, take your next candidate move and calculate that. Most importantly, remember to ALWAYS assume your opponent will play the best move. In my games, there are moves I calculate for a while and think they make my position very strong, but then I see one move that my opponent could play at the end that would ruin my game. It can be very tempting to play your move anyway and hope your opponent misses this elusive move. This thought process can be detrimental to your improvement. Even if you don't think they will find the right move, you can never be sure. One move is all it could take to blunder the game. Calculate tactics carefully! So many games I've played or have seen are lost due to a failed tactic. When you calculate a tactic, always look for in-between moves. If you miss one, you could be facing severe material or positional loss. Calculating takes a lot of practice, but in the end, it is one of the best ways to improve your game.
Use your pieces more than pawns: Top players and masters use minor pieces more often than pawns and develop most, if not all, of them before starting an attack, this way all their pieces can jump into the position. This is one reason they play more precise moves. Most newer chess players try to attack with their pawns more than pieces because it seems like a powerful idea and it is easy for them to both calculate and push without too much forethought. Chess masters will maneuver their minor pieces, especially knights, with many moves until they reach their best square. In positional games, this is a very strong idea because you can make slow moves that improve your position gradually. Pawns are often best not pushed in the middlegame too far unless they are all defended and in a pawn chain that is difficult for the opponent to attack. This is because as individual pawns are pushed up the board, they become weaker since they move away from your own pieces and closer to the opponent’s. While every position is different, this is the general rule. Every pawn is important, never forget to defend all your pawns, they can be just as important as pieces. Since you should play more with your pieces than with pawns early on in the game, where should your pieces go?
Optimal squares: Bring your pieces to their best squares that take the least amount of time to get there. Knights belong on outposts and can be very annoying deep in the position. Bishops belong on long diagonals, which is why fianchettoing can be a very strong idea. Rooks belong behind passed pawns or on open or semi-open files. Remember that knights are more useful in closed positions and bishops in open positions. Always think about which pieces are more useful or stronger when trading.
Pawns: the soul of chess: It has been said that pawns are the soul of chess. A great way to improve in chess is to know pawn structures.
Pawn Chains: Pretty much always a good thing as long as they are adequately defended. This is because the only weak pawn in the chain is the base pawn. If pawn chains are long and go deep into the opponent's position, they can take away space which can make the position very uncomfortable for the opponent.
Doubled pawns: These pawns are often bad, but not always. Doubled pawns can help with pawn breaks in the center. After one has been captured or captures, the other pawn will take a powerful stance in the center of the board and be quite advantageous. However, double isolated pawns are usually always bad. In an endgame, double isolated pawns are much worse because they cannot help each other to advance as two connected passed pawns can. Because of this, doubled pawns are only considered to be worth the value of one pawn in an endgame.
Pawn islands: Pawns islands are the name given to groups of pawns that are separated by one or more files. The fewer pawn islands you have, the stronger your position will probably be. When you trade pawns and have a choice of two pawns to capture with, to decide which pawn to capture with you can think about pawn islands. Which capture will give me the fewest pawn islands? The general rule is to capture toward the center, but there are exceptions.
Hanging pawns: Hanging pawns surprisingly do not refer to pawns that are under attack and can be taken like a hanging knight. Hanging pawns are those that are side-by-side and are at least one file apart on both sides from any other pawns. They can be strong and restrict the movement of your opponent's pieces, however, if they are pushed or if one is traded, it can become a weakness.
Backward Pawns: A backward pawn is that of a pawn that cannot safely advance due to the fact that no pawn is defending it and the only pawn connected to it is diagonally in front of it. These are weaknesses and should be advanced early in the middlegame to prevent it from being a weakness in the endgame which could cost you the win or draw.
In addition, you should study kingside or queenside majorities and minorities. Also, study minority attacks and majority attacks. If your game gets to the endgame, the player with the better pawn structure or a majority will usually have an advantage and win the game. However, majority and minority attacks occur during the middlegame.
Minority Attacks: A minority attack starts when one player advances pawns (usually on the queenside) towards more pawns. Ex. pushing two pawns toward 4 pawns. While this may seem unsound as you are using less material to attack more material, it can actually save or win many games. The goal is to create structural weaknesses in your opponent's position which you can target later. This being said, you must have pieces on the board for a minority attack to work. This idea most commonly comes about from a Queen's Gambit Declined from the white perspective or an Exchange Caro-Kann for black.
My resource for this section: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAQife0dSqc
I highly encourage everyone to check out this video about minority attacks explained more in-depth. This is a great plan that every chess player should know to improve their game!!!
Endgame
As you improve, the endgame becomes more crucial as the more experienced player will win the game often even if it is drawn. Pay attention to pawn structure throughout the game and study your endgame technique, it is crucial! There are so many different important endgame positions that everyone should study. Just to name a few: king and pawn endgames, king and minor piece endgames, queen and pawn endgames, rook and pawn endgames, triangulation, opposition, "fox and the chicken coop," etc. Books or videos can help you study the endgame. Once you get to a high level of chess, the endgame will appear more frequently and you must be ready for it when it comes. Just remember the quote," To succeed, study the endgame before everything else." - GM Jose Raúl Capablanca
Overall, practicing these tips over and over will make you better, you will soon be able to tell when your opponent has made a bad move and see how to take advantage of it, always have a good plan, know when to implement certain ideas, find winning tactics, and take your game to the next level.
"Play the opening like a book, the middlegame like a magician, and the endgame like a machine."
Good luck with your future games and have fun!
Other Resources for Practice to Help You Improve: https://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-strategy
