How to Become a Better Chess Player - Chess Forums

neshom_1392

Aug 15, 2014

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#1

Method 1 of 2: Becoming a Better Chess Player

1
Learn how to play. You can't get better if you don't know the rules or how to move a piece correctly.

2
Join a local chess club. Be social and free with chess. Don't make yourself feel good by playing people that clearly are worse than you. If you have to to make yourself feel better after a loss, a good way is to start planning how to brutally crush your opponent.
3
Learn the values of the pieces.A pawn is worth one point. Knights and Bishops are worth three points each. A Rook is worth five points. A Queen is worth nine points.
- Do not sacrifice material unless you have a clear win. For example do not sacrifice a knight for a king side attack unless you are sure you can win.
- It is not advantageous to trade a Bishop (worth 3) and a Knight (worth 3) for a rook (worth 5) and a pawn (worth 1) because the Knight and Bishop are more powerful than a Rook and the pawn will not come into play until the very end of the game.
- These values are relative. In some positions, a bishop or knight is stronger than a rook.
4
Always develop bishops and knights.Pawns are overused and overextended, and often the developing pieces don't get developed. Then, your opponent will usually put a bishop through your pawn structure.
- Moving too many pawns weakens the castled king side and opens you up to attack. Moving too many pawns usually will weaken your endgame pawn structure.
5
Understand how you play.There are two main ways that people play. Some have a strong defense, and aggressive people that use this style can be incredibly deadly. The other type capitalize. They instantly seize hold of any mistake that their opponent makes, developing quickly and leaving with an open position. Neither is the better, although the main population are more sturdy than capitalizing.
- It is easier to attack than to defend. Some like to play gambits where they sacrifice a pawn to get an attack because they find that they win a higher percentage of games.
6
Enter your first tournament. Go there feeling like you are going to kick butt in this series of games. Forget the rating. Forget the scores. Just get out there and play the best you can, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
7
Get a rival. Find someone that is better than you and "compete" against them. Play them. Go to the tournaments that they do. Slowly get used to their playing style and use it against them and other people. Don't think of this "rival" as someone to do better than. Don't beat yourself up if you lose. Play them again. And again. And again. Do this until you have learned their style and how to counter it.
8
Study your favorite GM (grandmaster). Study, play, study, play. Learn how to use their techniques, and how to counter them.
9
Read one of the top 10 books written about chess.Here are a few good books:
- "Logical Chess move by move" by Irving Chernev. It teaches you how to attack the king in the king pawn openings and how to play positional chess with the queen pawn openings.
- "My System" by Aaron Nimzovitch.
- "Think Like a Grandmaster" By Alexander Kotov. This book explains how to analyze variations so that you can play the middle game at a much higher level.
- "Judgement and Planning in Chess" by Max Euwe. A classic book that explains how to judge a position based on space advantage, combinations, endgame advantages, king attack and pawn structures.
- "Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess" by Bobby Fischer. A classic book that teaches chess tactics for the beginner.
- "Chess Master vs. Chess Amateur" by Max Euwe and Walter Meiden. This book explains how a master beats an amateur by making the right move based on a positions needs.
- "Practical Chess Endings" by Irving Chernev. 300 endgames that start simple but end difficult.
- "1001 Checkmates" by Fred Reinfield. A classic book that will help you to see checkmates and calculate the variations.
- "Ideas behind the Chess Openings" By Reuben Fine. Explains the strategies behind the openings so that you can remember and play them better.
- "100 selected games" by Botvinnik.
- "Basic Chess Endings" by Reuben Fine. A thick book that is a classic and explains all types of endings.
- "Point Count Chess" by I. A. Horowitz. A Classic book that rates 32 positional features and teaches how to convert these 32 advantages into a win.
- "How to win in the chess endings" by I.A. Horowitz. This book explains endgame strategies without complex variations.
- "Chess Fundamentals" by Jose Raul Capablanca. This book teaches the opening, middle and endgame strategies.
10
Learn the basic endgame rules.End game Strategy, "If ahead in material, exchange pieces not pawns. If behind in material, exchange pawns and you can force a draw.”
- Without pawns you must be at least a rook up to force mate, the only exception to this is that two knights and a king cannot force mate against a lone king.
- The king is a powerful piece, use it to block and attack pawns.
- Bishops of opposite colors draw most of the time because neither side can advance pawns without losing them. A rook pawn and bishop only draw against a black king if the bishop is the opposite color as the queening square.
- Bishops are worth more than knights in all but locked pawn positions.
- Pawns, Rooks, and Bishops become more valuable as the game proceeds so play to keep them.
- Many games with all the pawns on one side of the board end in a draw. 90% of master games end in a draw where all the pawns are on one side of the board because the master with the less pawns will exchange pawns and then sacrifice a knight or bishop for the last of the pawns. If you are left with just a Bishop or Knight you cannot force mate.
- Rook and Knight or Rook and Bishop many times can only draw against a Rook.
- In Queen endings, he who moves the Queen to the center first dominates play.
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Powerful Pawn Structures are:
- An "Outside Pawn" lures the opponent’s king to other side, enabling you to gobble the rest of his pawns or advance your pawns on the other side of the board.
- A "Passed Pawn" is not obstructed by another pawn and should be pushed. Nimzovitch said, "Passed Pawns must be pushed".
- A "Protected Passed Pawn" is a passed pawn that is protected by another pawn. A Protected Passed Pawn forces the opponent to constantly defend against an advance.
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Weak Pawn Structures are:
- Doubled pawns cannot defend each other and are subject to attack.
- Isolated pawns are weak and must be defended by a piece.
- Backward pawns on open files are extremely weak and subject to attack by rooks.
- A King with the opposition can draw against a King with a Pawn.
- A Rook on the seventh rank is worth sacrificing a pawn.
- Zugzwang is where if your opponent moves his position becomes weaker (he would rather give up his turn), and is common in Chess.
- Rook and Pawn endings are the most complicated so avoid them.
  Method 2 of 2: Practicing Like a Champion
  1. 1
    Memorize the first 12 moves of the 20 top Grandmaster games. You can find these games online easily at sites like chessgames.com. You should memorize the first ten moves of black and white to get a sense of how true masters begin their chess games. This will help you get a sense of not just how to succeed, but how to truly excel. Also, memorizing these moves will make you more disciplined because you'll have to train your mind to absorb these moves as well as to understand what makes them so great.
  2. 2
    Solve 10,000 puzzles on your favorite puzzle website. You can use websites like Chesstempo, Chessity, or Puzzle Books. As Malcom Gladwell once hypothesized, working on anything for 10,000 hours will make you an expert, so imagine what a pro you'll be after solving 10,000 puzzles! Of course, this can take a very long time to achieve, but if you aim to do at least one a day, you will go far. You can also start by setting a more realistic goal for yourself, such as 1,000 puzzles, and see where you go from there.
  3. 3
    Use Chess apps on your phone. You can also use the world champs chess app or other apps that are geared toward chess players. Though practicing to be a chess master takes complete concentration, having an app on your phone that relates to chess can help you train when you find yourself with some unexpected free time.
  4. 4
    Play in local tournaments. Sign up for as many as you can and make sure you play at least once a week, no matter how tired or frustrated you may be. Local tournaments are the way to help you practicing playing against real players and to improve your technique and strategy.
  5. 5
    Review your games with a chess engine or chess coach. Having a chess coach may cost a pretty penny, but he can definitely help you improve at the game and to develop the discipline to be able to think outside the box. You can also find a chess engine online that can help you review your moves and have a sense of what you did wrong and what you did right. Recognizing your flaws and your strong suits is the best way to succeed in chess.
  6. 6
    Play at least 10,000 games of chess.Remember what we said about becoming a true professional after you've done anything for 10,000 hours? Though doing all of the above practice methods will certainly help, in the end, it's all about playing as many games as you can. If you're truly committed to being a better chess player, this is the path you should follow.
    
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    Work hard! Beginners can't win all the time, and even the masters lose sometimes. Be happy with your victories, but don't become complacent.
    
    Tips
  7. From experience, I can tell you SOME blitz is good for you; it keeps you sharp tactically, can help you get a 'feel' for an opening relatively quickly, and helps give you basic patterns that are necessary. However, if you're playing more than 3 - 5 blitz games a day, you're probably playing too much blitz. Play SLOW games (at least 15 5) that allow you to think and work on your calculation. If you play too much blitz, you'll find that you won't be able to calculate accurately, you won't be able to apply ideas from your studies, and you'll have trouble taking on strong opponents over the board.
  8. It is a good move in the beginning of the game to move your knight. It can threaten enemy pawns and some players move there bishops out. The knight can also capture the enemy bishops and weaken their pawn force that your enemy will need at the end of the game.
  9. Understand that like anything, practice makes perfect. Chess is no exception. In fact, it takes years (upon years) to become a strong chess player, but don't become discouraged. Make a consistent and reasonable study plan (and stick to it), and you'll find yourself slowly becoming stronger and stronger.
  10. chess.com is an excellent resource; chessmentor, their database, and their videos (especially IM Rensch's "live session" videos) are all very instructive and useful. chessfriend.com has excellent move by move analysis videos of modern grandmaster games. I recommend playing at ICC (if you can pay for the membership), as I've experienced less cheaters on ICC, probably because ICC forces you to cough up $60 for a membership. Chesscube has a cool interface, and has very interesting tournaments (warzone), but there are a LOT of cheaters. If you can't afford ICC, try FICS.
  11. If you're below 1700 USCF, you will likely benefit most quickly from doing at least 30 minutes worth of tactics (chesstempo, chess.com, chess.emerald, etc) a day.
  12. Don't be lured into believing fictitious lies about "eye contact" or "faking people out." Read and focus on the board. Chess isn't poker.
  13. Don't worry about your rating, focus on getting better. The rating will take care of itself.
  14. Strategically, study McDonald's "art of logical thinking," and Seirawan's "winning chess: strategies." Books like "My System" are indeed classics, but are way over the head of beginner/intermediate players. You'll end up wasting your time; you really must learn to walk before you can run.
  15. When you study strategy, write down the ideas and plans that are given to you, and make a point to implement them in your own games. It's easy to have one of those "a-ha!" moments when you're studying, but then immediately go back to your same old thought process over the board. To get better, you have to refine your thought process and implement new ideas, over the board.
  16. Don't worry about studying opening lines; when you start, you'll find that no one plays main lines (because no one knows them), so all that rote memorization will be for nothing. Focus on solid principles (move each piece once before you move any piece twice, centralize your pieces, inhibit your opponents development, develop your pieces so your opponents pawn breaks more difficult to achieve) and you'll at least be equal coming out of the opening (which is all you should be asking for, anyway). DON'T play wild gambits like the Blackmar-Diemer or the Latvian. They don't rely on solid strategic understanding, they can be easily refuted if your opponent has 'booked up' on them (the Ziegler defense literally refutes the BDG flat out), and they will inhibit your learning of traditional chess principles. You may win more games in the short run, but your overall improvement rate will be severely hampered. Play classic Ruy Lopez, Italian, Scotch, Sicilian (probably closed sicilians are best sicilians for beginners), or Queens Gambit positions.
- Source from : http://www.wikihow.com