Content

• Steps
• Part 1 of 2: Become a Strong Chess Player
• Part 2 of 2: Improve Your Skills
• Tips
• Warnings

Anyone can try their hand at the game of chess, but it takes a little more effort to become a good chess player.Read on if you want to know how to develop your chess skills.

Steps

Part 1 of 2: Become a Strong Chess Player

1. 1 Learn to play chess. You will not be able to improve your skill if you do not first master the rules of the game and learn how to move the pieces correctly.
2. 2 Sign up to a local chess club. Be more sociable and freer in the chess circle. Do not try to play with people much weaker than you. If you need to cheer yourself up after a loss, try to make a plan for how to defeat your opponent in the future. SPECIALIST'S ADVICE

   

   Vitaly Neimer

   
   
   International Chess Master Vitaliy Neymer is an International Chess Master and a certified professional chess coach with over 15 years of coaching experience. He was a member of the US national chess team SPICE (Webster University) and twice became the champion of Israel.

   Vitaly Neimer
   International Chess Master

   Our specialist agrees: “If you can't hire a coach, try joining a chess club. Local chess clubs usually host tournaments that you can participate in. If you don't have a club, try reading books, watching videos or playing chess online to analyze the games and see what mistakes you make. "

3. 3 Learn the value of shapes. A pawn is worth one point. Elephant and knight - three points each. The rook is worth five points. The queen is worth nine points. These are only approximate values, they can change depending on the specific position in the game, and they can be neglected if you see a clear path to victory.
   • Do not sacrifice pieces if you do not immediately achieve a clear victory. A well-calculated sacrifice can bring you victory, but you should not give the material just like that, without any benefit. Protect your pieces well and plan possible sacrifices carefully.
   • It is not profitable to exchange a bishop (costs 3 points) and a knight (costs 3 points) for a rook (costs 5 points) and a pawn (costs 1 point), since a knight and a bishop are much more powerful than a rook and a pawn, which will not come into play until the very end of the game.
   • These ratings are relative. In some positions the bishop or knight is stronger than the rook.
   • Despite the formal equality, when exchanging a bishop or knight for a rook, 2 points are NOT lost. Typically, this exchange results in a 1-1 1/2 point loss. To compensate for them, 1-2 (sometimes 3) pawns are enough.
4. 4 Always develop bishops and knights. There are a lot of pawns and they are stretched all over the board, so light and heavy pieces often do not develop properly. In this case, your opponent usually moves his bishops freely across your entire pawn structure.
   • Do not move too many pawns - this weakens the flank on which the king is located, and allows the opponent to attack you. In addition, excessive pawn movement tends to weaken the pawn structure, which is of prime importance in the endgame.
5. 5 Choose the style of play that suits you. There are many different styles of chess. Some adhere to an aggressive demeanor and attack at the first opportunity, prefer to play gambits and willingly donate material. Others enjoy calm positional play and spend many moves to build a strong position before deciding to attack. Try different play styles and choose the one that suits you.
6. 6 Play your first tournament. Go with a strong desire to show your best in games. Forget the rating. Forget glasses. Just come and play your best - that is how you want to be.
7. 7 Find yourself an opponent. Look for chess players stronger than you and fight them. Try to play with them more often. Take part in the tournaments they play in. Gradually learn their style of play and use it against themselves and other opponents. Don't assume that your opponent is a better chess player. Don't beat yourself up for losing.Play with experienced players over and over again. Do this until you understand their style and how to deal with it.
8. 8 Study the games of your favorite grandmaster. Learn, play, learn and play again. Learn how to use and counteract learned techniques.
9. 9 Read one of the top 10 chess books. Here are some good examples of books:
   • Robert Fischer "My 60 Memorable Games". The book of one of the best grandmasters in the history of chess.
   • Alexander Alekhin "My Best Games" in 2 volumes. The book, written by one of the brightest chess players of the combination style, analyzes the many games played by the author.
   • Aaron Nimzowitsch "My System", "My System in Practice". Classic books that analyze many positions and chess games and focus on the strategic aspects of the game.
   • Alexander Kotov “Think like a grandmaster”. This book explains how to analyze variations so that you can play the middlegame at a much higher level.
   • Max Euwe "Lessons of the chess game", "Course of chess lectures". Classic books explaining how to evaluate a position based on factors such as space advantage, combinations, endgame advantage, king attack, pawn structures.
   • Robert Fischer "Bobby Fischer teaches how to play chess." A typical book that teaches chess tactics to beginners.
   • Max Euwe, Walter Maiden Chess Master vs. Amateur. This book explains how the GM beats the amateur by correctly assessing the position and the moves based on it.
   • Irvin Chernev "Practical chess endings". 300 endgames that start out simple but end hard.
   • Lev Polugaevsky "Preparation of Grandmasters". The book describes how to become a grandmaster and what is needed for this.
   • Reuben Fine "Ideas underlying chess openings". The book describes the main chess openings and goals that players pursue at the beginning of the game.
   • Mikhail Botvinnik "100 Selected Parties". The book is distinguished by a detailed and deep analysis of the games.
   • Reuben Fine "Basic Chess Endings". A fundamental classic book in which all types of endings are analyzed.
   • Yuri Averbakh Endgame School. The tutorial covers how to play different types of endgames.
   • John Nunn "Chess. Workshop on strategy and tactics ”. The book covers many practical examples and explains various aspects of chess tactics and strategy.
   • Jose Raul Capablanca "Fundamentals of Chess". This book teaches opening, middlegame and endgame strategies.
10. 10 Learn the basic rules of the endgame. In short, the endgame strategy is as follows: if you have a material advantage, exchange pieces, but not pawns. If you do not have enough material, exchange pawns: this way you can force a draw.
    • To mate with no pawns on the board, you must have at least a rook. The only exception to this rule is that two knights and a king cannot checkmate the opponent's lone king.
    • The king is a strong piece that can be used to block and attack pawns.
    • Playing with opposite colored bishops usually leads to a draw, since neither side can advance the pawns without losing them. If White has a rook pawn and a bishop, this results in a draw against the lonely black king, provided that White's bishop is of the opposite color than the square of promotion of his passed pawn.
    • Bishops are valued above knights in all positions, except for locked positions.
    • Pawns, rooks and bishops become more useful as you get closer to the endgame, so save them.
    • Most of the games with all the pawns on one half of the board end in a draw. About 90% of the games of strong chess players (at the master level and above) end in a draw if all pawns are located on one of the flanks, since a professional with fewer pawns exchanges them whenever possible, and then sacrifices a knight or bishop for the last of the opponent's pawns. If you have just a bishop or a knight left, you cannot checkmate your opponent.
    • Rook and knight or rook and bishop in most cases cannot win against one rook.
    • Queen endings are dominated by the one who puts his queen in the center of the board.
11. 11 The strong pawn structures are as follows:
    • a distant passed pawn: such a pawn distracts the opponent's king to the other flank and makes it possible to take the remaining pawns of the opponent or advance his own pawns on the opposite edge of the board;
    • passed pawn: this pawn is not covered by other pawns and can move forward. Nimzowitsch said: "Passed pawns must be moved forward";
    • a defended passed pawn is a passed pawn protected by another pawn. Such a pawn forces the opponent to constantly defend against its possible advance.
12. 12 Weak pawn structures include the following:
    • doubled pawns cannot defend each other, therefore they often become an object of attack;
    • isolated pawns are weak, they have to be defended with pieces;
    • backward pawns on open lines are very weak and are attacked by the opponent's rooks;
    • a lone king in opposition can draw against a king with a pawn;
    • the rook on the seventh rank is worth a sacrificed pawn;
    • zugzwang is a situation in which any move of your opponent worsens his position (he would rather give up his move), this situation quite often happens in chess;
    • rook and pawn endgames are considered the most difficult, so try to avoid them.
13. 13 Play chess blindly. This way you will hone your memory and learn to recognize which pieces are attacking which cells without looking at the board. The brain will have to memorize a huge amount of information about the position on the board, and it will not be difficult for you to organize this information and break it down into separate fragments, as a result of which you will be able to navigate much better on the chessboard and master the geometric connections between various verticals, horizontals, diagonals, etc. separate cells. If you continue to play chess and practice blindfold from time to time, you will become even better blindfold than you once played hard. However, at this stage, you will still be playing better than playing blindly - the goal of playing blind is to improve your orientation on the chessboard and improve your skill.
14. 14 Note which moves allow you to win. Do not take step 3 as an immutable rule with no exceptions: judge the value of the pieces by the created position and decide what is more profitable to exchange in a particular case. Expect what this or that exchange will be able to bring you in the future. For example, if you see that you can move a pawn to the queen, if you exchange your rook for an opponent's pawn, do it, but be careful and make sure that the opponent does not exchange, for example, his rook and bishop for your queen pawn, otherwise he will win. Train yourself to calculate where this or that move will lead, and to anticipate the actions of your opponent. Also, consider who you are playing with, your opponent's playing style and common mistakes. This will help you build the right strategy and make traps that your opponent may fall into.

Part 2 of 2: Improve Your Skills

1. 1 Remember the first 10-12 moves of the twenty best games played by the grandmasters. These lots can be easily found on the Internet. Memorize the first 10 moves of white and black in order to better understand how the strongest masters play openings. This will help you get a feel for the strategy behind the various openings. In addition, this way you discipline your brain and develop chess memory.
2. 2 Solve 10,000 chess problems. Chess problems can be found in problem and sketch books, or on various internet sites such as Chesstempo, ChessField, or ChessProblem. As Canadian journalist Malcolm Gladwell once suggested, working on something for 10,000 hours makes you an expert in this matter, so just imagine how much your skill will improve after you solve 10,000 chess problems! Of course, this will take a long time, but you can get very far if you solve at least one problem a day. You can set yourself a more realistic goal, for example, solve 1000 problems, and see what happens.
   • Try not to get too hung up on the exact number of tasks.While frequent practice is definitely beneficial, especially in disciplines with fixed rules (such as chess), some researchers suggest that the influence may be less significant than in Gladwell's original hypothesis. However, practice is still necessary, so get into the habit of solving chess problems on your favorite site as often as possible.
3. 3 Use chess apps for mobile phones. There are many programs and applications for those who play chess. While it takes full concentration to achieve a high level of skill, apps like this can help you train as soon as you have a spare moment.
4. 4 Play local tournaments. Participate in as many tournaments as possible and be sure to play at least once a week, no matter how busy or tired you are. By participating in local tournaments, you can face off against real people and improve your tactics and strategy.
5. 5 Analyze games with the help of a chess program or a trainer. Chess coach services are not cheap, but their help will really allow you to improve your skills and discipline thinking outside the chessboard. You can also analyze your games using a chess program, which will help you find your own mistakes and successful moves. Learn from mistakes and using your strengths is the best way to be successful in chess.
6. 6 Play at least 10,000 chess games. Do you remember the mentioned phrase that after 10,000 hours of work on something you become a professional in this business? While all of the above methods are certainly beneficial, in the end as many games as possible should be played. Keep this in mind if you really want to improve your level of chess.
7. 7 Chat with strong players. One of the best ways is to connect with someone who is good at and strong in chess. This could be a relative of yours, a grandmaster, or someone who consistently beats you.

Tips

• Practice makes perfect. It takes years to become a strong chess player, but that shouldn't discourage you.
• At the beginning of the game, it is useful to draw the knights. They attack pawns, and some players move with bishops in response. In addition, the knights are capable of threatening the opponent's bishops and weakening his pawn structure, which becomes important at the end of the game.
• Focus on practice, not rankings, and the rankings will go up on their own.
• If your national rating is below 1700, you will quickly get the most benefit if you solve tactical problems (sites chesstempo, chess.com, chess.emerald, and so on) for at least 30 minutes a day.
• Don't believe stories of eye contact or tricks. Focus on the chalkboard. Chess is not poker.
• Read books on endgame. For example, Mark Dvoretsky's book "The Endgame Textbook" is a classic.
• There are various videos on YouTube with detailed analysis of the games of modern chess grandmasters. Enter the appropriate query in the search engine.
• Try not to play more than 3-5 games a day in blitz. Instead, play games with normal time controls that allow you to think and calculate. Excessive enthusiasm for blitz will lead to the fact that you will not be able to accurately calculate variations or use accumulated ideas in games, and you will have problems when playing with strong opponents.
• Chess.com is a great resource for tutorials, a database, and videos.
• As you learn strategies, write down ideas and plans that are new to you so that you can put them into practice.
• Try not to memorize a lot of opening variations, but first of all to understand the basic principles - this will allow you at least not to lose at the beginning of the game.
• Make a consistent and sensible plan (and stick to it) and you will soon find yourself playing harder.
• To get started, study the books by Grigory Levenfish "The Book of the Beginner Chess Player" and Yasser Seirawan "The Chess Textbook of Strategy". Books like My System are indeed classics, but too difficult for beginners and intermediate players.
• Don't be discouraged when you lose. You will learn more by losing, not winning, so look for stronger opponents!

Warnings

• The queen is the most valuable piece. So if your opponent puts his queen where you can easily beat him, this is most likely a trap!
• Unless you are playing with a very weak opponent, try not to use such rare openings as Sokolsky's opening (1.b4) and the like, since it is more difficult to maintain balance or gain an advantage in them.
• Do not try to win with a child's checkmate (checkmate in four moves at the very beginning of the game). If your opponent is at least familiar with the basics of the game, he will probably use it against you.
• Don't use openings you don't know. This can be done with a very weak opponent, but if your opponent knows a little about chess, he will benefit from it.
• Once you've gained some experience and explored the calm developmental openings (London System, Collet Openings, Four Knights Openings), try your hand at poignant tactical openings such as King's Gambit, Scottish Gambit, Goering's Gambit and Elephant Gambit. In these beginnings, the player has to attack, and with their help you will increase your tactical skill.
• Learn how to play chess properly before playing positional openings such as English Openings, Queen's Gambit, King's Indian Defense, Italian Game, Vienna Game.
• Not every opening is good, so don't waste your time on all sorts of extravagant openings ("hippo defense", Coffin attack, the first move with the extreme pawn, Domiano's opening, etc.).
• Not every opening is good for you. If you prefer an aggressive style of play, try playing the King's Gambit, Evans' Gambit, Max Lange's Attack, Sveshnikov's Sicilian Defense, Grunfeld's Defense, or the Latvian Gambit. If you prefer a calm positional play, try your hand at the English Opening, King's Indian Opening, Queen's Gambit, Nimzowitsch Defense, King's Indian Defense, or the Russian game.
• First, choose 1-2 debuts. For White, you can try to play the Italian game, the Dutch defense, the London system or the Vienna game. For Black, try to master the opening of the four knights, the main variations of the Sicilian Defense, or the Robach Defense. Usually it is better to choose a beginning that few people are familiar with, for example, the Alekhine Defense, and try to achieve an advantage through this already in the opening. When your play improves a little, try playing the Queen's Gambit or Scottish Gambit, and for Black, play the Dragon Variation in the Sicilian Defense, the French Defense, or the Nimzowitsch Defense. After perfecting your skills, try your hand at the Spanish game, the king's gambit, the Max Lange attack, the English game or the Italian game, and for black - in the Pirts-Ufimtsev defense, the Benoni defense, the Russian game, the Najdorf variation or the classic Sicilian defense.

1. ↑ https://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-piece-value
2. ↑ https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-10-most-common-mistakes-among-chess-beginners
3. ↑ https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-point-of-studying-master-games-part-one
4. ↑ https://thechessworld.com/articles/endgame/7-most-important-endgame-principles/
5. ↑ https://thechessworld.com/articles/endgame/7-basic-pawn-structure-you-must-know/
6. ↑ https://thechessworld.com/articles/endgame/7-basic-pawn-structure-you-must-know/
7. ↑ https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-tricks-of-blindfold-chess-1485526096
8. ↑ https://www.chessbazaar.com/blog/make-best-chess-opening-moves/
9. ↑ https://www.businessinsider.com/new-study-destroys-malcolm-gladwells-10000-rule-2014-7?IR=T