Chess for Beginners

Category: Lessons

  • Chess Board Visualization Exercises

    Chess board visualization training is necessary in order to not miss tactics, see more combinations and to become a better overall chess player. Chess board visualization does not come naturally to all chess players. Chess visualization is something that must be trained, and should be part of a regular chess training regimen.

    Chess board visualization training will improve your ability to calculate long variations. Visualization training should take place 3-4 times per week in 5-10 minute sessions.

    Board Visualization Exercise #1

    Arrange the pieces on a board and look at the normal developing move for all the pieces. The White knights develop to c3 and f3, while the Black knights develop to c6 and f6. The light squared bishop develops to e2,d3,c4,b5, etc. Once you have studied the knights, bishops (regular and fianchetto positions) the castled King and rook and the four central squares (e4,d4,e5,d5) you remove all of the pieces and point and name out loud all of the normal developing squares for the pieces.

  • Lucena Position

    Lucena Position Silman calls the Lucena Position “The Holy Grail of Rook Endings”. In this position Regardless of who’s turn it is to move, White wins.

    1.Rf2+ Forcing Black’s King to leave the scene of the battle.

    1…Kg7 [1…Kg6 2.Rf4 Kg5 3.Rd4 Kf6 4.Ke8 Re1+ 5.Kf8 Rf1 6.d8Q+ Ke5+ 7.Ke7 ]

    2.Rf4 Building a bridge.

    2…Kg6 3.Ke7 Only now should White leave the cover of his pawn. Since promotion is threatened Black must go into checking mode.

    3…Re1+ 4.Kd6 Rd1+ 5.Ke6 Re1+ 6.Kd5 Rd1+ 7.Rd4 Rxd4+ 8.Kxd4 Kf6 9.d8Q+ 1-0

  • Virtual Chess Coach Part II : Study Schedule

    Study Schedule

    Day Topic 1 (30m) Topic 2 (1hr)
    Monday Solve Tactics Study Endings
    Tuesday Play Annotate game *
    Wednesday Solve Endings Study Strategy **
    Thursday Solve Tactics Solve Strategy ***
    Friday Solve Tactics Study Openings
    Saturday Solve Tactics Solve Strategy
    Sunday Play Annotate game *

    Legend:

    * If you run out of time during daily session, you can finish annotating your game during the study openings session

    ** Study strategy by going over annotated master games

    *** Use Stoyko Exercises format


    Virtual Chess Coach Pt I

  • Virtual Chess Coach – Part I

    About the Virtual Chess Coach Program

    This program is geared for my improvement (a 35 year old 1278 USCF rated player), but I hope that others in a similar situation will be able to derive benefit from it as well.

    I will be modeling this program on the teaching’s of Dan Heisman. Dan Heisman is one of the best chess teacher’s in the United States and if you don’t already know this, then run to danheisman.com and check out his Novice Nook articles at Chess Cafe.

    Now not all of us can afford a chess coach, so we will be using books and information available on the web (Heisman’s Novice Nook Articles) to create a virtual chess coaching experience. If you can afford a coach, then there is no substitute for the hands on feedback that they can provide but I’m aiming to make this the second best thing.

    Things to know before we go on:

    • This program is aimed at the adult beginner / intermediate player (ELO 1200 – 1700)

    • Our chess philosophy will be based around Dan Heisman (with a sprinkle of Purdy and Silman for good measure)

    Absolute Beginners

    For complete beginner’s to chess Heisman recommends they start with The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Chess and then go to a basic chess tactics book like John Bain’s Chess Tactics for Students. After doing this you should be approximately 1200 ELO and then this guide will be more useful to you.

    The Assessment Phase

    We need to assess our strengths and weaknesses, yet we are in no position to do so (how can we assess what we do not know / understand). This is one of the weaknesses of not having the feedback mechanism a coach provides. But do not fret, there is a great book that helps you assess your strengths and weaknesses in chess, and that book is Igor Khmelnitsky’s Chess Exam and Training Guide. After going through Igor’s book, you will have an idea of which areas of your chess need to focus your improvement efforts.

    Assessing Your Games

    Another area where a coach can provide much needed feedback is in going over your games. Because we’ll be going at it on our own the following process is very important in order to get a close benefit to that of having a real coach.

    • Go over all of your losses.

    • Quickly re-play the game again making light annotations

    • Go over the game in detail, and this time make extensive annotations and analysis

    • Go over the game with a chess engine and compare your annotations with those of the engine

    Key things to look for when annotating your game

    You should jot these down as part of your annotations and include them in your chess notebook

    • See where you could have improved in the opening

    • Look for missed tactical opportunities (both defensive and offensive)

    • Look for missed positional opportunities

    • Look for missed opportunities in the endgame, if necessary refer to Mueller’s Fundamental Chess Endings

    • Look for moves that caused a shift in the game based on the engine’s evaluation. (any move with an evaluation change greater than .35) and find out the root cause behind the evaluation shift, then go back to your annotations and make sure you address this and don’t forget to add this to your chess notebook.

    The games you annotate and go over, should be standard time control games if possible. You should make an effort to play at least 1-2 standard games (>= G/30) per week. You can do this by either joining the Team 45 45 league, or playing ICC’s Standard Tourney or even playing at your local chess club. These games will give you more food for thought than quickly played blitz games, but if you do not have at least 1 standard game to go over, then do go over your well played blitz games (which is better than not going over your games at all).

    Thought Process Before Lessons

    There are certain bad habits that you should eliminate before you consider taking lessons, otherwise you would be throwing your money away. Most of these stem from careless play or hope chess .

    • Do not leave pieces en prise

    • Do not move quickly and without thought

    • Perform a blundercheck before playing your move

    Reference

    The following books and websites will be used for this program:

    Tactics

    Back to Basics Tactics

    Chess Tactics for Beginners (Convekta)

    Endgames

    Silman’s Complete Endgame Course

    Strategy

    The Art of Logical Chess Thinking

    Thought Process

    Everyone’s 2nd Chess Book

    Play

  • De La Maza for the Rest of Us

    Tactics Program

    This tactics training program should not take more than 30 minutes per session, and it is flexible enough where you can adjust the amount of puzzles and / or the amount of time spent per puzzle as well as the session time so that you can customize it to your needs and study time available.

    Week 1

    Day 1 = 10 puzzles @ 3 minutes per puzzle
    Day 2 = 10 new + 10 from day 1(d1) = 20 puzzles @ 1.5 min / puzzle
    Day 3 = 10 new + 10d1 + 10d2 = 30 puzzles @ 1 min / puzzle
    Day 4 = 10 new + 10d1 + 10d2 + 10d3 = 40 puzzles @ 45 sec / puzzle
    Day 5 = Review previous 40 questions @ 35 sec / puzzle

    Week 2

    Days 1-4 are the same as week 1
    Day 5 Repeat 40 questions from week + include 10 random questions from the previous week for a total of 50 questions @ 35 sec/ question.

    Resources

    Since we will be using a smaller pool of puzzles, it is very important that the puzzles selected provide the user with the most critical patterns so that you can get the most benefit out of your study time.

    While you can use any book or software that contains rich tactical / strategic positions, the following two books contain 900 critical positions that will assist you in getting the most out of your training time:

  • Study Schedule

    Monday
    Study Endings (30 min)
    Solve Tactics (30 min)

    Tuesday
    Play (ST Tourney on ICC G/60) (up to 2 hrs)

    Wednesday
    Analyze my game (1 hr)
    Study Openings (part of game analysis)

    Thursday
    Study Strategy (30 min)
    Solve Endings (30 min)

    Friday
    Solve Strategy (annotated master game review with Stoyko exercise at critical points) (1hr)
    Solve Tactics (30 min)

    Saturday
    Play G/30 (up to 1 hr)
    Analyze game (30 min)

    Sunday
    Solve Tactics (optional) (30 min)

    Resources

    Strategy: Logical Chess Move by Move and Chess Strategy for Kids

    Endgame:Silman’s Complete Endgame Course and Pandolfini’s Endgame Course

    Tactics: Convekta’s Chess Tactics for Beginners

  • Chess Training for Amateurs

    The Program

    The following system is geared towards adult beginners with an ELO rating of 1200-1800. It is a modified version of Irina Mikhailova’s schedule which she used at the Petrosian Chess School. [1]

    I have left the schedule flexible so that it can be modified based on the time you have to dedicate to chess study. For my own use, I plan on devoting 1 hour to chess at least 6 times per week for a total of 6 hours of chess study per week. If you want to add more time, simply multiply the hours per block. For example, I am using 30 minute blocks, so 1 block of study endings is equivalent to 30 minutes. If you want to devote more time simply multiply 1 hour X block for each theme.

    Below are some of the differences between the original Mikahilova schedule and this version:

    • Less emphasis on opening study.

    • Spread across more days, but fewer hours of study per day. This is a 6 day program and the original was a 4 day program.

    • Is geared towards a lower rated working adult.

    • Strong emphasis on endgame studies, and contains a study endings theme which the original version did not.

    • Strong focus on tactics training as the original.

    • Incorporates the shortcut version of Michael de la Maza’s Seven Circles training.

    • Time has been allocated for analyzing your games.

    • Solving strategy session revolves around going over annotated master games.

    In a nutshell, this program contains 4 of the things most chess coaches say are critical to improvement:

    1. Going over annotated master games.

    2. Repetition of tactical puzzles to burn in pattern recognition.

    3. Playing slow games of G/30 or greater.

    4. Analyzing your games, to find out your mistakes and preventing their reoccurrence.

    Another benefit of the program is that it also grants structure and maximizes your chess study time.

    Study Schedule

    Study Schedule

    When performing the modified 7 circles training, I recommend that you use the difficulty level method, and begin with the level 10 puzzles. The first cycle will take you through the first 200 puzzles, which will range in difficulty from 10-20. You then begin the next cycle with puzzle 201, etc. I tried to keep the time per puzzle to 20-50 minutes since my block time is 30 minutes.

    Seven Circles Shortcut

    Seven Circles Shortcut

    If you follow the schedule it should take you approximately 4 weeks to finish 1 cycle of 200 puzzles and 1000 puzzles in approximately 20 weeks.

    Resources

    Tactics: CT-ART 3.0, Chess Tactics Server

    Study Endings: Silman’s Complete Endgame Course, Just the Facts by Lev Alburt

    Solve Endings: Silman’s Complete Endgame Course, Personal Chess Trainer.

    Solve Strategy: Zurich International Chess Tournament 1953

    Study Strategy: Reassess your Chess by Jeremy Silman, My System by Nimzowich

    Reference
    [1] http://www.convekta.com/softscho/l1/lesson_3.html
    [2] http://www.chesscafe.com/text/skittles148.pdf and http://www.chesscafe.com/text/skittles150.pdf

  • Triangulation

    Triangulation refers to a King maneuver which aims to lose a tempo, and leave the opponent with the move. (Dvoretsky) The d5 and d7 square are in correspondence. White in this position can easily “lose” a tempo and place his opponent in zugzwang.

    Triangulation Position 1

    1.Ke5! Kc6 2.Kd4 Kd7 3.Kd5 White has acheived his aim, by creating a triange with his King. We are now back to the starting position, except that White now has the opposition and it is Black’s turn to move, and the rest is a matter of technique. 3…Kc8 4.Ke6! Attaining the diagonal opposition. 4…Kd8 5.Kd6 Attaining the vertical opposition. 5…Kc8 6.Ke7 Kb8 7.Kd7 Ka8 8.c6+-

    Triangulation Posiiton 2
    Position after White’s 8th move.

    The game would continue as follows: bxc6 9.Kc7 c5 10.b7+ Ka7 11.b8Q+.

  • Key Squares

    Key squares are squares whose occupation by the King assures victory, regardless of whose turn it is to move. (Dvoretsky)

    Key Squares with Pawn on Fourth Rank

    White to move is a draw.

    It is important to note that a pawn on the 4th rank or below has 3 key squares, whereas a pawn on the 5th rank or higher has six key squares.
    Key Squares with Pawn on 5th Rank

    A Pawn on the 5th rank or higher has 6 key squares.

    In the example below the key squares are a6, b6 and c6. The key to winning in this position is for the White king to head to the square furthest away from the enemy King (a6), since that square will be the hardest to defend.

    Key Squares Example I

    1.Kc2! Ke7 2.Kb3 Kd6 3.Ka4 (3.Kc4? Kc6=) 3…Kc6 4.Ka5 Kb7 5.Kb5 +- and Black is in zugzwang.

  • Pawn Breakthrough

    The following is a classic pawn breakthrough that creates a passed pawn for the most advanced side. The key things to keep in mind is that this breakthrough will only work for the side that is most advanced and both the breakthrough and defense begin by moving the middle pawn.

    Pawn Breakthrough
    White to move and win

    1.b6! The breakthrough works for the side that is most advanced, in this case White. 1…cxb6 [1…axb6 2.c6 bxc6 3.a6] 2.a6 This move removes the b7 pawn. 2…bxa6 3.c6 and the c-pawn promotes, because the Black King is too far away to stop it. If Black had the move he could have defended with 1…b6! preventing the breakthrough.