Getting out of the basement

Hey friends,

I'm wondering if anyone has any advice about how a beginner can get good at beating other beginners.  I'm trying to improve my game by using books, the tools on the site, and so forth - but I find it very challenging to play other beginners because they often make crazy moves that should be terrible, but I don't know how to respond properly.

Most books, articles and tools assume that your opponent is a good player who knows what he's doing, so I find I'm having a terrible time learning anything that I can actually apply in my games.  Worse, if I don't apply it, it just falls back out of my head.  It's also extremely hard to get into matches with better players in live chess because most people's settings exclude players more than 200 points lower than themselves.  I'd love to get creamed by a 1900 every day, watching and learning, but the site pretty much prevents that.

I'm sure one good answer is to play in a real club with real people where it's easier to play good players (I'm planning to join my local club but schedule excludes this for the next couple months).  I also find turn-based games better - but within the scope of live chess on the site...any advice?

I'll offer you the same advice that I gave to another player earlier today:

I used to teach Chess courses to under-1600's. Many of them ended up, a few years later, with Class-A, Expert or Candidate Master ratings.

It's best to start by drilling on fundamental tactics: Pin, Fork, Skewer, Guard Destruction, Decoying, and so on. After you are familiar with these basic tactics, you can start practicing how to put them together into combinations... Pin + Fork, Decoying + Skewer, etc.

Then study Model Mates... typical mating patterns such as the Corridor and Smothered Mates, Greco, Lolli, Damiano, Anastasia, Morphy, and so on. These patterns come up routinely in amateur games, and should be part of your arsenal.

Then learn a bit about Endings... King-and-Pawn Endings, Rook Endings, Minor Piece Endings. Endgame study should always come before Opening or Middle-Game study, so that you will have a good idea of just what sort of advantages you are playing towards... why a particular move is considered strong or weak.

Then you can learn a few typical opening patterns, and start studying the Middle Game, which is where it all comes together.

Play more games.

I'd suggest responding by just continuing to play the good moves yourself. If your opponent plays a move so bad that he hangs a piece, take it. If he's playing bad position moves, then you just keep playing good ones - i.e. develop your pieces, with threats, when possible; control the center; get your king to safety; put your knights on outposts, your rooks on open files, your bishops on good diagonals; restrain the movement of his pieces; and the rest of it - and sooner or later you'll have a winning position. I don't think you need to play any differently when your opponent plays badly; just play well yourself and you'll eventually beat him, because you're playing better moves.

Thanks for the great responses already!

Y_Ddraig_Goch:  I'm starting to learn that I often actually have to take more time against a weak opponent than against a strong one in order to produce a good game.  A stronger opponent who plays on book through an opening and moves rationally is often easier to anticipate and I actually end up making blunders less often, funny enough.  Your advice makes lots of sense as long as I can keep myself patient enough to implement it and not get myself off balance.

A couple of things that have helped me on this subject: Remember, that losing a tempo to punish an unsound opening isn't actually losing a tempo, because they are either losing a piece, or also losing a tempo retreating.

Also plug your games into a chess engine. I find the computer punishes unsound moves with extreme prejudice, and if you can glean any information from how it does so, I think it would be helpful. It's certainly helped me to recognize positions where I can punish an opponent for playing a silly move without hurting my position significantly.

When an opponent makes a move that "should be terrible", ask yourself if you really understand why. If you really understand why, you will be able to take advantage of the mistakes.

Do not for a moment think that you would do better against better players than worse players. If a bad player repeatedly beats you, you are worse!

Try posting an example from a real game that you considered a more that "should be terrible", but you could not take advanatage of.