Rules are broken sometimes for good, and you don’t understand that. You can’t make a video talking about everything with positions and explanations.
“Your brain got used to certain patterns, certain techniques that works in your games, but suddenly you stop playing these because people on the internet told you that it's bad, even though it's literally what brought you to where you are.”
I agree with you on chess traps, but there’s so much advice that’s helpful. Opening principles will save you from getting a confusing and bad positions and many others.
Let’s see this game. This game shows that you are using concepts thought by people online. You won because you knew the passed pawn, you knew to trade down when up, and you knew that there was a pawn hanging in the middle of the board and these things people online teach.
This post is not intended for the toxic chess.com / reddit crowd. It's for your average player, that's gonna type something on google or chatgpt and find this thread. If that's you, don't bother reading the replies, we already know what they're gonna say.
First of all, allow me to clarify something : my ranking is currently sitting at 1877. That means I'm a better than average player.
Wait what ? You read that right. Simply look at the statistics tab of chess.com. Currently, 99.4% of the playerbase has a lower ranking than I do.
Now why is that important ? Because people online will want you to believe that anyone under 2500 is trash, and anyone under 1900 literally move their pieces randomly : that's a lie.
This simple fact is crucial to understand why most chess advice is trash.
Let me ask you a question: what's the point of learning a strategy that's "working" in a league where you'll never play ?
Does it make sense to say that such or such playstyle is "bad" because at 2500 elo (<1% of the playerbase) where you will likely never play, it doesn't work anymore ?
This is the reason why so many of you have immediately started to lose rankings after you've taken lessons, "studied grand masters games", or watch a tutorial on youtube: what you've learned doesn't work at your elo.
Your brain got used to certain patterns, certain techniques that works in your games, but suddenly you stop playing these because people on the internet told you that it's bad, even though it's literally what brought you to where you are.
To make a point, I'm going to quickly mention 2 strategies that are incredibly annoying yet extremely powerful, even if people on the internet tell you they don't : pawn pushing, and early queen attacks.
Notice how when your opponent does that it puts your under incredible pressure ? notice how you feel that at the slightest mistake, you'll lose ?
Guess what : it means the strategy works.
Another hint ? the guy literally got to your level playing these, otherwise you wouldn't be playing him.
A bad strategy isn't a strategy that's "not supposed to work" at "high elo" (high elo means where less than 0.01% of players play, btw).
A bad strategy is a strategy that makes it effortless for your opponent to win.
Whenever the guy does something that gives him 10 options and only gives you 1 ? It's a good strategy, bro.
And the opposite is also true.
Say that a guy got to 1900 playing early queen attacks. Internet will tell you "well that works only in low elo" I'm sorry low what ? 1900 elo means you're better than 99.6% of the player base.
See, if something works very well where 99.6% of the players play, I call that a good strategy, and I really don't care if it doesn't work anymore at 2500+.
So here's my advice : each time you hear that something only works in "low elo", understand "where 99.9% of players play". If that's you, do that very thing. It works.
Each time you hear "that doesn't work if you have a decent elo" understand "where 0.01% or less of players play" and ignore the advice if that's not you.
And last but not least : if you notice a strategy that your opponent plays that is incredibly oppressive, don't google "how to counter X". Start playing X. It works, you just saw it working against you.
Now, here are some practical strategies that will work if you're under 1900 elo :
1. early queens are extremely strong, just dont blunder them
2. always prioritise poneys over bishops. Bishops suck. You've been told bishops are better then poneys. That's not true. Get your poneys out and get them hoping, they're literally a casino. Soon enough you find some crazy fork and win a rook or a queen. If you can, do trade your bishop against their poneys.
3. push pawns, a lot. Pushing a pawn is a low risk high reward move. It protect your pieces. It prevents your opponent from getting there. It's just obnoxious. And worse case scenario, you've blundered a pawn.
4. Don't castle if your opponent didnt get his queen out. You're wasting time. You get a rook out there, but they're useless as you can't trade them against pawns, poneys or juicers. I can't count how many times my attacks have been stopped by 2 rooks that have been sleeping the whole game because my opponent didn't waste time castling. When you castle, you're wasting time while your opponent gains tempo. You've been told castling is a development move. That's a lie.
5. On the other hand : do castle if they get the queen out, or they will check you and destroy you. Which leads me to :
6. Always check when there's a check. They told you that "beginners check for no reason". There is a reason : they know that 9/10 times it's going to be bring something good. Either it does nothing, or the opponent panics and blunders and they get something, or the opponent move the king in the wrong direction and you can get a mate. So often I thought "this check wont get me anywhere but let's do it" and it unlocked some crazy tactic I didn't even see. ALWAYS check.
7. At the end of the day the more you play the better you'll get, even if you don't analyse your games. Analysing your games can be worthwhile, analyse GM games is entirely useless, your opponent won't do anything remotely close to what you've "studied".
8. Opening don't matters, but learning cheeses (fried liver, scholar's, etc..) is definitely worthwhile. You can cheese a lot of games. Worse case scenario your cheese won't work, and they'll you that you "end up in a bad position", here's the thing though : bad positions don't actually exist. Get your queen and your poneys out and suddenly you're in a "good position".
9. Very important : DO NOT have a gameplan. I've lost so many games having a gameplan. You're game plan won't work, it won't happen, you'll just blunder or play inefficiently because you're focusing on the wrong thing. Instead, play reactively. Look at what they do, and just try to 1. not blunder and 2. get some kind of threat on the next move. That's it.
10. Don't focus on their king. Sure, look for checks, but don't insist too much. While you're focusing on a piece that's hidden and inaccessible, the guy is discretely pushing a pawn revealing a bishop that's been sleeping the whole game but that's now going to snipe your rook or queen. Focus on what they do and play reactively, not proactively.
Once you get the material advantage, which you'll get if you follow these advices, just clean the board, get another queen and end the game with a super braindead checkmate.
Good luck !
PS : Oh and by the way, stalemate is a completely retarded rule. If you've been stalemated and you're furious at how dumb the rule is, you're absolutely right, it is incredibly dumb. It's a massive taboo in the community so I had to say