Protecting Your Pieces
To win low-rated games, your goal needs to be eliminating blunders. To do that, you need to pour all of your focus into making sure your pieces are protected.
Every piece on your board, including the pawns, should have at least as many defenders as it does attackers. For example, if your opponent can take your piece with a knight and a bishop, you need to have at least two pieces which can recapture the square.
You can even overprotect your pieces by having more defenders than necessary. This technique is used even at higher levels of chess, but it is especially helpful for beginners because it reduces the chances that you’ll hang a piece.
While protecting your pieces, you should also keep an eye out for any of your opponent’s pieces which are unprotected. In low-rated games, it’s almost guaranteed that one of the players will eventually leave a piece hanging. As soon as that happens, jump on the opportunity.
Every time that your opponent moves, check whether they’ve threatened any of your pieces or left any of their pieces undefended. In a timed game, you only have so much time to think. You need to devote the bulk of this to checking for hanging pieces and making sure your own pieces are protected.
After you’ve captured one of your opponent’s hanging pieces, you’re very likely to win the game, as long as you don’t blunder a piece back. In general, your strategy should be to simplify by trading off the remaining pieces with your opponent. This will widen your lead, and make a checkmate easier.
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Many new chess players find themselves stuck at a low rating because they try to learn too much at once. It’s all too common for beginners to try memorizing long lines of opening theory, or practicing advanced tactics that they’re never going to use in their actual games.
I found myself doing this when I recently came back to chess after years away. I was spending time reading all kinds of strategy articles, but meanwhile, I was hanging pieces left and right in my actual games.
Advanced techniques and strategies simply aren’t necessary for beginners. Even worse, they can be a deadly distraction. In timed games, low-ranked players often spread their attention too thin and end make huge blunders.
The vast majority of low-rated games don’t come down to who has the stronger pawn structure or a novel opening line. They’re really decided by just one thing: which player makes the fewest blunders.