National Master: Ask Me Anything

Also, make tons of long rook moves.

https://www.chess.com/blog/LogoCzar/the-vibbert-postulate

https://www.chessable.com/the-secret-life-of-rooks/course/50019/

Plus, consider using cylindrical thinking.

https://www.chess.com/blog/LogoCzar/cylindrical-chess

https://www.chess.com/puzzles/problem/513200

so why take with the queen first then the knight. why couldnt we just take with the knight right after the check

...Bb7 would pin the c6-knight winning back the piece

ohhhhh thanks

cuz now whites knight has 2 attackers and only 1 defender right?

something like that

Let's say between 16-22 and tends to learn by style the most

play a ton and analyze games plus tactics etc. I mean my brother is kinda doing that rn

Have any tips for a 1800-1900 (fide) 13 year old to become as good as possible?

Hello, my Elo rating is at 251 (grade), but I am very good. The text may contain errors because I am writing with a translator. My question is how did you continue your education as a child or how did you improve with the Elo rating of 251 or similar? I mainly play chess for 10 minutes. Thanks when you answer my question. Have a good day.

Mr NM, How long and difficult was your journey till becoming a NM?

I am a 14 year old boy, and want to become a grandmaster.

Can you give me some tips to improve my 1300 blitz rating to 1500? I can beat many of the 1400s and 1500s, but I am still unable to achieve that elo.

Hi Elijah,

Was there any particular book that changed the way you saw chess and made you think differently?

Also, do you have a technique or a certain way to think when navigating unknown/random positions? I usually find myself struggling once I reach a certain position and I no longer know what to do, or what to look after.

Thanks for doing this AMA!

Youth have accelerated neuroplasticity, which helps you develop pattern recognition more naturally. Take advantage of your age and actually study plenty of chess now! Find high quality training material and actually read it, study books, solve puzzles, play tournaments, analyze your games, and be one of those teenage titled players who wonders what higher title is possible, or more likely from my experience, be ready to cruise through them, if you actually are studying chess like it's your career that early. That might sound overly optimistic, and it could very well be, although I fondly remember being 13 and the rapid improvement I made when I immersed, and I saw my teenage peers who were even younger (I'm remembering as an older teen/young adult) really make hundreds of points of progress at expert/master level in relatively short periods of time "just" by being active or semi-active with chess, some did a lot of reading, others less so, and still progressed anyways. It will get harder, so enjoy now, and find out how far you can go! For specific book recommendations, maybe try Kasparov's series, Quality Chess classics, and start Aagaard/Dvoretsky sooner or later. Blitz is fine, use it as an openings training tool and analyze. Chessable/tactics too

I'd probably need to know more about your situation, although 1800 FIDE is strong enough to start studying Aagaard/Dvoretsky's books, and if you study those seriously, you should make a lot of progress. Pairing this with tactics and classics is a great way to improve, although there are others.

Took me 5-6 active years. https://www.chess.com/blog/LogoCzar/how-i-became-a-national-master

You are 14, so it's probably not going to be very difficult for you if you just keep playing. If you also study tactics, it will get faster. My brother Gus cruised to 1700 blitz and later even higher, although to be fair he was doing a ton of tactics on chess.com basically every day, and also later plenty of training on Chessable, plus analyzed his games.

As a teenager, Nimzowitsch's "My System" made a huge impact on my chess understanding.

Later, I really enjoyed Aagaard's "Thinking Inside the Box", "Positional Play", and Attacking Manuals.

I've heard improving your least active piece is a useful principle! It really depends on the type of position though, and if there are dynamic weaknesses, you might want to strike now. Careful with pawn moves, you might create weaknesses without significantly improving your activity, and pawns can't move backwards. Practice looking for candidate moves every turn is a pretty universal thinking technique that has been helpful for slow games especially when I'm in form, some people myself included have made some moves as if automatic when really there were other options.