The road to chess improvement is a long and winding one, but with these 10 tips will help you survive the journey and increase your chess level. Chess Improvement Tips 1. Eliminate blunders. 2. Become proficient at finding offensive and defensive tactics. 3. Stop playing “hope chess“. Analyze at least 4 ply deep, and make…
You see a tactical combination on the board and you have the opportunity to play it…you become excited, after all this is your moment to play like Tal, but chances are that you do not play like Tal. While you have spotted a tactical opportunity, it may not be the best move, it might even be…
According to Dan Heisman in his great article Bootstrapping Analysis Skills The following are what make you a good analyst: Will to analyze the position correctly, move after move. Patience to analyze the position thoroughly (but keep in mind the clock – see “g”). Analytical thought process to know what steps to take. Board vision…
1. Look at the whole board.
2. Look for immediate opponent threats.
3. Narrate tactical themes (Hanging bishop, skewerable or forkable pieces, etc.).
4. Look at more than one candidate (when you find a good move look for a better one).
5. Calculate at least 6 ply (3 moves) deep.
6. Look for in-between moves.
7. Examine forcing moves first in the order of checks, captures and threats.
8. When all seems lost, look for stalemate possibilities.
9. If you feel you are on the right track, but your are not finding the winning move, then try to reverse the move order.
10. Blundercheck.
In the diagram White has an outpost on e5, but Ne5 can always be met by …Nxe5 and after recapturing with the pawn, White’s outpost is gone. White needs to bring another piece to bear on e5, so White to move would play 1.Bg5 and follow it up with Bh4 and Bg3. If on…
Core Evaluation 1. How has the opponent’s last move changed the position? Has your opponent made a blunder? 2. What is he trying to achieve? 3. Has he weakened his position (positional concession, piece en prise, open to a tactic) ? 4. Are there any threats? Tactical Evaluation If 1 or more of the following…
According to experts it takes approximately 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert in any field. So the following is my attempt to gauge my chess progress based on the 10,000 hour rule. Assumptions 10,000 hours of practice = expert A chess expert is a player with a 2000 USCF rating. Your starting chess…
I haven’t posted in a while, and I need to make more time to do so. During my silence, I have continued to work on my chess improvement, and I am currently on day 112 of a program I am putting together for myself. My FICS standard rating has gone from 1607 to 1699 during…
I have finished the exercise I proposed in Pt. 1 of Finding the Master Within, and below are my results: 1. I played over 3 random games from each of the masters on the list. 2. I gave myself a 0 for needs work, 1 for average, 2 for good, 3 for very good and…
There is no doubt that reviewing master games is one of the best methods to improve your chess. The question for me has always been which master’s games do I study first? There are schools of thought that answer this by stating that you should review master games starting in chronological order, since this maps…