Some books to study.....
Good Chess Books for Beginners and Beyond...
https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/good-chess-books-for-beginners-and-beyond
What you need to know to Break 900 and where to learn it
Sort:
Something simple....
Before you move:
- can he take any of my pieces for free?
- is there something I can take of his without him taking back?
Be able to win up a queen or up 2 rooks (or up 1 rook) in the endgame.
Blunder less pieces than your opponents.
Apr 16, 2017
0
#5
"Winning Chess Tactics" by Bill Robertie is a great book, and rather kid-friendly.
I read that book when I just learned chess, and wasn't taking it seriously, and it made me a lot better.
Because of all the training material out there and the bias of my own personal experience, I think there can be a bit of difference between one's OTB rating and ability to solve concrete chess problems (e.g., tactics and endgames). Once you learn how to checkmate, capture en prise, and basic tactical motifs (which are really profitable captures in 2 moves or 3-ply), you ought to try to learn to avoid hanging a piece to a 1-move capture, including your king, then you should easily be 900 (where my rating stood for a few years, even as my endgame/tactical solving and pattern recognition improved).
After that, there is the balance between acquiring versus applying more chess knowledge... learning patterns versus proper thinking process OTB versus dividing time between both. I don't know which is theoretically best, I favor patterns (how can you think when you don't know what to think about? The mind sees what it knows, etc), but I assume some people prefer doing one over the others for psychological ("I like doing it my way") or practical reasons (I have books/software to study but can't get out to OTB tournaments much to work on my thinking methods).
After that, there is the balance between acquiring versus applying more chess knowledge... learning patterns versus proper thinking process OTB versus dividing time between both. I don't know which is theoretically best, I favor patterns (how can you think when you don't know what to think about? The mind sees what it knows, etc), but I assume some people prefer doing one over the others for psychological ("I like doing it my way") or practical reasons (I have books/software to study but can't get out to OTB tournaments much to work on my thinking methods).
Thanks for the post.
I have been playing more seriously for about ~1.5 months and can't seem to crack the 1000 ceiling - I've been as high as in the 990s but then go into a losing streak.
I'm reading Chernev (Logical Chess) and have read my level in Silman's Endgame, lots of chesstempo tactics training, and am now reading Weapons of Chess. I feel myself getting stronger but have yet to translate that into a higher score - does any one know how long it takes to break the 1000+ ceiling? I am playing 30 minute time controls. I feel like I have no strategy to the opening other than sticking to basic opening principles - I basically play e4 as white and then go into an Italian Game or Ruy Lopez depending on black's reply. And in middlegame, I am always scanning for attacks/threats/tactical positions but when I do not find anything I struggle to make a solid move...Thanks so much!
Apr 17, 2017
0
#9
I'm with you ZM....I'm currently reading Understanding Chess Openings,but I'm only playing 10 minute blitz.I'm not overly worried about my rating yet,but am understanding more every day/week.....I read The Complete idiots Guide To Chess and have a few more books lined up(in house)....My main problem is----I get to a good position and then make a blunder....Argh!....Overall it's really fun.Thanks to all the folks who post interesting topics.
If you can find this oldie-but-goodie book (it's in long description), get it:
Winning Chess by Reinfeld & Chernev
It is a book divided by tactical motifs and each is tactic is a 3-mover. It goes on the basis of getting you to see three moves ahead, which is more than enough at the class level. At the end of the book are 6 complete illustrated games to show you how everything you have previously read is all brought together.
Zm55, I took a look at some of your games. I think it will be easy for you to break 1000 if you ask yourself a question and count. After each of your opponent’s moves asks yourself: If it was their turn again what move would they make. In your games you often fail to recognize simple threats. This is a common occurrence, it happens most often to me when I am so caught up in my own plans I fail to consider what my opponent is doing. More than once you lost material due to your opponent having more attackers than you do defenders. As the defender you need to have the same number of defenders as there are attackers, or you will lose material. At the attacker you need to have one more attacker than there are defenders to gain material. This does not require you to visualize the combination, you just have to count attackers and defenders. As I stated in my first post, to improve you must analyze your games. Using a computer is a great help in this. After each of my games I click on the analyze button in the menu that pops up after each game.
Possibly of interest:
Simple Attacking Plans by Fred Wilson (2012)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708090402/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review874.pdf
https://www.newinchess.com/Shop/Images/Pdfs/7192.pdf
Logical Chess: Move by Move by Irving Chernev (1957)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708104437/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/logichess.pdf
The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played by Irving Chernev (1965)
https://chessbookreviews.wordpress.com/tag/most-instructive-games-of-chess-ever-played/
Winning Chess by Irving Chernev and Fred Reinfeld (1949)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708093415/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review919.pdf
Back to Basics: Tactics by Dan Heisman (2007)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708233537/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review585.pdf
Discovering Chess Openings by GM John Emms (2006)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627114655/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen91.pdf
Openings for Amateurs by Pete Tamburro (2014)
http://kenilworthian.blogspot.com/2014/05/review-of-pete-tamburros-openings-for.html
https://chessbookreviews.wordpress.com/tag/openings-for-amateurs/
https://www.mongoosepress.com/excerpts/OpeningsForAmateurs%20sample.pdf
Chess Endgames for Kids by Karsten Müller (2015)
https://chessbookreviews.wordpress.com/tag/chess-endgames-for-kids/
http://www.gambitbooks.com/pdfs/Chess_Endgames_for_Kids.pdf
A Guide to Chess Improvement by Dan Heisman (2010)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708105628/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review781.pdf
Seirawan stuff
http://seagaard.dk/review/eng/bo_beginner/ev_winning_chess.asp?KATID=BO&ID=BO-Beginner
https://www.chess.com/article/view/book-review-winning-chess-endings
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627132508/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen173.pdf
http://www.nystar.com/tamarkin/review1.htm
1001Smites wrote:
Zm55, I took a look at some of your games. I think it will be easy for you to break 1000 if you ask yourself a question and count. After each of your opponent’s moves asks yourself: If it was their turn again what move would they make. In your games you often fail to recognize simple threats. This is a common occurrence, it happens most often to me when I am so caught up in my own plans I fail to consider what my opponent is doing. More than once you lost material due to your opponent having more attackers than you do defenders. As the defender you need to have the same number of defenders as there are attackers, or you will lose material. At the attacker you need to have one more attacker than there are defenders to gain material. This does not require you to visualize the combination, you just have to count attackers and defenders. As I stated in my first post, to improve you must analyze your games. Using a computer is a great help in this. After each of my games I click on the analyze button in the menu that pops up after each game.
Thanks so much for taking the time to look through and give this feedback. I have analyzed some of my games but tend to fault the loss on a blunder or one-off event but thanks for pointing out this pattern. I think I do tend to lose sight of simple threats when trying to conceive of a grand plan to setup a tactic only to have it deflected by some other reply and in the meanwhile lose material.
When I first started play chess here I quickly learned that I knew very little about it. I've always believed that the best way to improve is to clearly understand what it is that you are doing wrong. To this end I started analyzing my games (with the help of the chess.com computer), and reading the forms. Once I understood what I was doing wrong I started analyzing game of other beginner, and saw that they were making the same mistakes.
Einstein once said that you can not solve a problem at the same level at which it was created. In chess this suggest that playing other players of about the same level can not result in significant improvements. I've alway enjoyed books so I chose to improve my knowledge via books.
There are 3 skills you need to improve on in order to raise your rating: 1. Stop Hanging Pieces, 2. Learn to use Basic Tactics, 3. Learn and use Basic Opening Principles.
Hanging Pieces is not the move common mistake made by beginner but it is often the one that results in loosing a game, and therefore will be give pride of place. Hanging a piece is a tactical error as well as an error of analysis. I found that the book Chess Mazes by Bruce Alberston was very effective at helping me start checking if my piece was safe. This is a simple little book full of puzzles where you have to move a piece around a chess board until you put the opposite colored king in check, without landing on any square where your piece is attacked. You do not need a chess board for this book, and eventually you get in the habit of ensuring you are not moving to a square that is under attack. I have not stopped hanging pieces completely but I do not do it near as often now.
Basic Tactics: There are 10 must-know tactics, that if used will greatly improve you play. I first learned this by reading the book "Winning Chess Tactics" by Bill Robertie. This book assumes that you know nothing about Tactics, and explains each of the 10 types in detail and helps you work through some puzzles. It also discusses the reasons why Tactics must be learned and used in order to get better at chess. It also give some nice little hints like checking to see if your opponent's pieces are lined up on the same file or diagonal, and thus susceptible to a pin, while his clock is running. There are lots of tactics books, and a number claim to be for beginner, but are not according to their reviews on Amazon. Some lower ranked players are better at tactics than others, they use forks and pins but are less likely to use more advanced tactics such as overworked pieces, and should benefit from reading an introduction to tactics book.
Basic Opening Principles: I've read a number of posts in which beginners claim that they play opening principles, and still lost the game to someone who did not. There are two reasons for this. 1. They did not play Opening Principles completely. For example they launched nched an attack before completing development. 2. They did not know how to respond to a trick opening such as the fried liver attack. John Emms' book "discovering chess opening" not only teaches you how and why you should use Opening Principles to decide your opening moves but also shows you how to respond to a number of trick openings that are quite common at lower levels here at chess.com.
Improving at chess requires that you change the way you think, it requires that you analyze more completely. You can not do either of these at short time controls. If you want to improve you should play 30 minute or longer chess. You should use a computer to find your mistakes. You should analyze each game you play. You should spend more time studying than you do playing.