Your opponent WILL make a mistake.

I thought I would share some mental aspects of the game I've been working on. These are my opinions.

Two things that I think many players fail to do:

1. Look for a mistake

2. Look for ways to attack

People make mistakes: all people. Even the strongest of players will make significant errors from time to time.

Lower level players however, will make mistakes over and over again throughout their games. Indeed, your opponent is going to eventually make a mistake and probably many more.

Why do we know this is true?

If you have ever played against a computer, you will quickly realize that the program will never actually fail to catch your first mistake of the game. A computer will catch that first mistake instantly, and it will catch every other mistake that you make throughout the rest of the game. A computer playing on it's highest strength will beat virtually anyone. One of the reasons for this, is because it does not miss your errors. It will always catch the error and shove it down your throat usually on the very next move.

We mortals however, miss mistakes almost every game we play. We know this, because when the game is over we analyze it with a computer and it shows you what you missed. Because people miss the mistake, the game continues right past the mistake and whatever advantage someone had from exploiting it eventually disappears.

Your opponent is going to make a mistake. If he were playing a computer instead of you, the computer would catch it and win the game. You on the other hand, will often fail to see it. The reason why, is because you simply aren't really looking for it.

Now that we know this, how do we use it to our advantage?

When you play against someone, just remember, HE WILL EVENTUALLY MAKE A MISTAKE. It is his destiny to eventually make a bad move.

1. After your opponent makes a move, ask yourself, "Was that the mistake?" Question every move. You know it's eventually going to happen, right? If you were a computer, you would catch it. Of course the error is going to come! Like a child waiting for the school bus, it will eventually come. Your opponent is going to make a mistake. He will almost always make one: especially for lower level players.

You must assume that your opponent is going to screw up. Anticipate the error. It's going to come. Question every move for an error and when he makes it (And make it he will), you will often catch it and exploit it.

After your opponent moves, if you then determine that the move was not a mistake, the next thing you need to do is this:

2. Look for a way to attack. Ask yourself, "How can I attack?" "What piece can I attack with?" "Can I attack with the bishop?" "Can I attack with the knight?" "Which of his pieces can I attack?" "Does he have anything at all that I can attack?"

Attack, attack, attack.

Scour the board like predator looking for something to kill.

Instead of playing with this aggressive mindset, people tend to do the opposite. They play cautious and safe moves to avoid making a mistake. They don't go on a war path to kill. They don't look at the entire board to find a weak place to attack. And guess what? If you do find something you can effectively attack, it's probably because your opponents last move was a mistake!

So if you don't find the mistake directly, you might be able to find it just by looking for something to attack.

Change the way you think when you play this game. After your opponent makes a move, step away from your normal way of thinking by looking for a reason why his move was an error. If you don't find an error, look for ways to attack. If you don't find a good way to attack, find a way to safely improve your position and move forward with your strategy.

One of the biggest mistakes players make is the obvious: chess is a 2 player game.  

It's quite the mistake to assume your opponent will make a mistake, it's better off trying not to make mistakes yourself.

Assuming you dont make mistakes, and youre waitng for your opponent to is a mistake.

piece full of blunders darkarmy

 But he's going to make one. Does it not make sense to look for it?

Shall we not look at our opponents last move and question if there's something wrong with it?

You always look at your opponents last move to see how good or bad it is, but ego gets in the way, and we dont want to crtique our own moves to the same degree.