Lots of good advice here for beginners, from the OP!
Tips for players
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I have recently spent a lot of time fussing about my own rating being a mere 1300 player when I want to be a 1800, when I realised that a much more positive use of my time would be passing on what I have learned to reach where I am, as many players on here are less than 1000 rated. Obviously, I am in no way an expert player at chess. But I have struggled through learning chess for the past 4 years, so some of my struggles and lessons will hopefully be useful to some new players to the game.
This is not the same advice that people always give to new players (play for the centre, stop blundering pieces). As a new player I found the advice like this to be largely useless because it was either a) obvious, but hard to do, or b) I didn’t understand the context of this advice. For example, play for the centre doesn’t always mean pushing a pawn, it can mean setting up a 2 move advance into the centre, and on some occasions it is even better to sacrifice a pawn to open up the centre. Likewise, nobody wants to blunder pieces so the difficulty comes from looking at the board and understanding where the threats are, or responsible to several threats at once.
So without further ado here are my top 6 tips for <1000 players in order to massively improve your rating and play good chess.
It took me a long time to realise that every chess game is different. You can’t rush games of chess even if you are considerably better rated than another player, as such I would still think about every move even against a <1000 player because if I don’t, the possibility of me losing is greatly increased. Chess isn’t like a sport where you can save your energy for important moves, because every move is important (except, maybe, the first move). Force yourself to mentally pause every move and think about the best move (I remember watching a video by John Bartholomew where he said that every time you think you have the best move, there is probably a better one). In fact, the first move you think of is probably the most obvious, which means your opponent probably thought about it as well. The move which your opponent didn’t think about, the surprise fork, the discovered attack – these are the moves which will win you the game. But they have to be searched for. Look for pinned pieces, forks, checks, and follow them through mentally to make sure they give you an advantage before
making your move.
I was dubious about putting this one in here, as it’s fairly obvious. But not checking your opponent's threats is a mistake I still make and which costs a lot of beginner players games needlessly. You don’t need to look 4 or 5 moves ahead, 1 is usually enough and occasionally 2. Imagine you are the other player. What surprise tactics do you have up your sleeve? Are there any devastating checks, discovered attacks, forks etc. which you need to worry about? Never assume that the other player will play badly and concede the game. You have to play the best possible game you can as it is the difference between the perfect play and the actual moves made which will determine the outcome of the game.
Okay, this rule is important as it comes straight from number 2. Let’s say your opponent is threatening to take your knight, so you want to move the knight out of trouble. There are no available squares to move it to, so you move a pawn to protect it. Well, these aren’t the only two options. You can also attack a piece equal or greater in value of your opponent’s – a counterattack – which will force your opponent to move again. Very often, these threats will cause a piece to retreat and also get your knight out of trouble, or lead to another counterattack, or even a mating threat. The best thing about proactive play is it causes the opponent to become cautious and defensive which restricts their options.
This is an important rule for new players, trading pieces equally is useless in a lot of circumstances but it can actually cost you the initiative and the game quickly. In chess, there is something called tempo and by trading you lose it. E.g. you and your opponent both have a bishop developed, and it’s your turn. You take his bishop, un-developing your own bishop. The opponent takes back. In doing so, he usually develops another piece in the process, meaning you now don’t have a piece developed versus his developed piece. Now, let’s see what happens if instead of taking the bishop, you develop your knight. Now, you have two pieces developed, and if he takes your bishop then you have 3 developed pieces against your opponents 0. That’s a massive advantage, especially in the early game. So, focus on developing an advantage first before you start taking everything on the board.
That isn’t to say you should never trade equal pieces. A common mistake I made at the start was never swapping a bishop for a knight, because I read that bishops are stronger and you should always aim to have a bishop pair. But what about a knight sitting on the side of the board? By taking it, you can cause your opponent to have doubled pawns on the edge of the board, which in most cases is a large weakness. However, should you always aim to create doubled pawns? Well, no. In this case, the doubled pawns also separate two groups of pawns down the middle making both groups weak, but in other cases doubled pawns don’t create too much of an issue for the other player. Mostly, castling kingside is better, but sometimes a queenside castle can create a devastating battery on your opponent. Sometimes it’s better not to castle at all. So, treat guidelines as exactly that, not hard rules to always follow no matter what.
Chess is an almost perfectly equal game if both players play perfectly. It is tiny imperfections in the play which build to give one player a clear advantage. So, when you have an advantage over your opponent, it’s important to exploit that or add to it if you can. See a pinned piece which looks vulnerable? Add more pieces to it, instead of just taking it straight away. Do you have two passed pawns near the far end of the board? See if you can push them and make your opponent scared of a Queen promotion (see rule 3). Is your opponent’s Queen overextended? See if you can cast a net around it or threaten to take it. Opponent’s knight near your king? Push it back with a pawn and kick it from your territory. It’s important not to look for the quick win and instead to play solid chess until your opponent is overwhelmed – and you will know when that is the case. Your opponent is under just as much pressure as you.
Did this help you at all? Let me know in the comments!