Chess for Beginners

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  • Calculating your Chess Rating and Knowledge

    Here’s a fun exercise to determine your estimated chess rating taking into account your existing chess skill and knowledge. While this is just for fun, it can prove helpful in determining how you should focus your chess training. If your knowledge rating is much higher than your skills rating, then you you need to focus your training towards skill building where if your skill rating is much higher than your knowledge rating, then you need to focus more on book learning. You should strive to have your knowledge and skill ratings at no more than 100 points apart.

    Here’s how this works.

    Formula: (Skill + Knowledge) / 2 = ELO

    You need to plug in two of the numbers, and the two best to plug in are ELO and Skill. Ideally, you would use your USCF rating, but if you don’t have one, you can use your ICC of FICS rating, just remember to subtract 150 from your ICC or FICS rating so that it approximates an official USCF rating.

    For your skills rating, I would use Igor Khmelnitsky’s Chess Exam and Training Guide to test your skills and get a rating approximation.

    Example:

    Skill rating: 1138 (based on Khelmenitsky’s book)
    USCF ELO: 1340
    Knowledge rating = K

    (S+K) / 2 = ELO

    (1138 + K) / 2 = 1340

    1138 / 2 + k/2 – 1340 = 0

    569 + K/2 – 1340 = 0

    k/2-781 = 0

    K=781 * 2

    K= 1562

    So my chess knowledge rating equals 1562, while my chess skill rating is approximately 1138 giving me an ELO of 1340. This means I have to focus on getting my skill rating to par with my knowledge rating in order to play at an estimated 1562 ELO rating.

    The goal should be get my skill rating within the same ballpark as my knowledge rating (+/- 100 elo points) before focusing on adding more chess knowledge.

    You should repeat this process every three months, but you will need to take the skill’s test again as well as play in a tournament in order to update your USCF rating and get an accurate reading.

    I would love to hear feedback on this, especially if you actually try it out.

    Related Chess Skill and Knowledge Articles

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  • Why Our Chess Does Not Improve

    Frustration

    Over the last few months while my knowledge of the game has increased my chess skill has not improved. If anything I have suffered a decrease in performance over the last few months. The frustrating part is that I have invested time into my chess improvement plan, and while I feel that both my tactical pattern recognition and strategic knowledge of the game has improved this new knowledge has not translated into increased chess playing strength.

    I have a tournament in 1 month and I am concerned about my plateau. I am nowhere near where I wanted to be 3 years into my chess improvement plan.

    My Downward Spiral

    • ICC standard rating at an all time low of 1330 from a peak of 1663
    • FICS rating temporarily increased to 1350, but over the last few weeks it is back down to 1225
    • ICC Blitz 5 0 dropped from 1250 to 970, it is now back up to 1170 and on the way up
    • USCF rating is the same (1278) I have not played any rated USCF tournaments in several months
    • OTB performance in friendly skittles games is the same as 6 months ago, I still ocassionally lose to players who do not take chess as seriously as me

    Why I am Not Improving in Chess

    • Playing too much blitz versus longer games.
    • Not analyzing (not learning from) my games
    • Theory based learning versus practical learning
    • Faulty thought process

    Getting to the bottom of it

    I selected several of my latest games and anlayzed them looking for the reason I lost the game, and guess what I found:

    Over 80% of the games I lose were because I blundered and not due to knowledge gaps.

    Modifications to the Plan

    • Focus more on my thought process while I am playing in order to eliminate senseless blunders.
    • Begin playing at least 1 non-blitz game every night, which I must analyze before playing any other games.
    • Focus my study time around tactics and topics that I need help on based on discoveries during game analysis.

    I need to strike a balance between blitz versus and standard games, and I must eliminate blitz play several weeks before playing in a tournament. While tactics will be a strong component of my training, I will be more flexible in my training schedule selecting areas of weakness that I uncover during my game analysis.

    The key is to focus on building skills over knowledge, and learning to apply the knowledge I already have. As Dan Heisman likes to say, we need to subtract negatives if we want to get better. I have made the mistake of thinking that studying and reading chess books (adding positives) will make me a better player, and while I am increasing my knowledge of chess this does not translate into improving my performance (because we need to subtract negatives).

    I hope that these modifications to my training plan, which will focus more on ‘skill building’ than ‘knowledge building’ will show improvements in my play. I’ll keep you posted…

  • Developing Chess Skill

    According to Johnathan Rowson in his book Chess for Zebras we can develop chess skill through a combination of playing combined with chess training, where ‘training’ means working things out by ourselves. The main skill a chess player needs is skill in making decisions so making decisions is what you need to do over and over when training (learning by doing).

    The best training is the kind that pushes you up against the edges of your comfort zone, where you force yourself to take responsibility for difficult decisions.

    – Johnathan Rowson in Chess for Zebras

    So here’s what you can do to put his advice into practice:

    • Playing and then analyzing your games afterwards
    • Solving complex chess problems
    • Trying to win won positions against strong analysis engines
    • Blitz games (comparing your first impression of positions with the way they actually developed)

  • 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

  • Analysis Exercise #1


    Black to move (Stefanova – Shirov 2005)
    r3rq1k/8/p2p3p/P1pPnp1P/1p3Q2/5PNR/1PP2K2/R7 b – – 0 29
    Download game

    Evaluation
    The first thing I did was to evaluate this position, and I gave it the following evaluation: Material =, King Safety +/=, Activity =/+, Pawn Structure =. So the game in my opinon is even. (When I gave it to Fritz 10 he sees it as -+ (- 1.61 with Black winning) and Rybka sees it as -1.19).

    Threats and Opportunities
    I then looked for threats and opportunities in this position, and I found that White was threatening to win Black’s f5 pawn with Qxf5.

    Candidate Move Selection
    After performing the threat analysis I looked for candidate moves, and this is the order in which I found my 4 candidates: 1…Re7, 1…Kh7, 1…b3, 1…Ng4+. The first two candidates are defensive, trying to deal with the potential threat of Qxf5, and the last two are aggressive candidates.

    Analysis
    I then began analyzing the most aggressive candidate based on CCT (checks, captures and threats), in this case …Ng4 would be the most aggressive since it starts with check, below is my analysis:

    Candidate 1 …Ng4+

    29…Ng4+ 30.fxg4 30…fxg4 31.Qxf8+ Rxf8+ 32.Kg2 gxh3+ 33.Kxh3 This line is good for black since he wins the exchange, so taking with 2.cxb3 is not good for White so I analyzed another line in which White does not take to see if …Ng4+ stands up. [30.Kg2 Not taking keeps White in the game. 30…Ne5 coming back to the same position is not good for Black, since White’s King is now safer on g2. At this point I figured that if White didn’t take I would wind up in this position, and I stoped analyzing this line, and I jumped to the …b3 line which was the 2nd most aggressive candidate I had selected. The problem is that 30…Ne3+ should have been considered as a mainline, and I did not see this knight check, with the rook defending it. (30…Ne3+ I did not analyze this subvariation, but it was much better than 30…Ne5 which I did analyze and caused me to jump to another line. 31.Kh1 Nxc2 32.Rc1 Nd4 Black wins a pawn, and defends g5.) ; Rybka 2.3.1 32-bit : 30.Kg1 Ne3 31.Re1 Nxd5 32.Rxe8 Nxf4 33.Rxf8+ Rxf8 34.Rh2 d5 35.Kf2 Kg7 -0.91/12 ]

    Candidate # 2 …b3

    [29…b3 This is the second line I analyzed. 30.Qxf5 So, I analyzed another line other than 30. cxb3, the problem is that this line is not the best line for White. (30.cxb3 Nd3+ Taking my b3 pawn is bad because of this fork.) 30…Qxf5 31.Nxf5 bxc2 32.Rc1 (32.Ne3 Nd3+ At this point I decided to chose this line.) 32…Nd3+ ; Rybka 2.3.1 32-bit : 29…b3 30.Qd2 bxc2 31.Qxc2 Ng4+ 32.Kg1 Ne3 33.Qd2 f4 34.Ne4 Re5 -1.27/11 ]

    Lessons Learned
    My evaluation was off by a pawn, Rybka and Fritz think that Black is at least ahead one pawn, while I thought the position was even, so I need to work on my evaluation skills. I was happy with my candidate move selection, and the order in which I began analyzing (the most aggressive moves first). Out of the 4 candidates I only had to analyze 2 and both were the best moves. In the analysis department, I am missing the best response when I calculate variations or I am not analyzing all possible oppnent candidate moves. I need to use the same candidate move criteria fwhen looking for or my opponent responses, but I have a feeling it also has to do with board visualization. Even though I picked an appropriate candidate, the logic for selecting it was flawed and incomplete. The analysis for …b3 did not take into account White’s best responses and much was left to chance by selecting it. I need to be more thorough when analyzing and I also have to attempt to evaluate the position at the end of the my analysis (which I did not do). The line played in the game was …Ng4+!, while Fritz 10 and Rybka prefer …b3.

  • 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

  • Faulty Thought Process: Missing the Obvious

    Why is it that beginners fail to choose simple plans that are right before their eyes? One answer may be that beginners do not evaluate the position before choosing a candidate move. Beginners briefly scan the board, choose a move they like and quickly analyze and play this move. The problem with this thought process is that 9 out of 10 times the move they have selected is not the best move, since it is not a move that follows a plan based on the needs of the position. This thought process error occurs during candidate move selection and is a very common mistake that beginner’s must overcome in order to reach the next level. The difference between a weak player and a strong player is that the strong player evaluates the position and they then choose a plan based on this evaluation.

    Dan Heisman in a Novice Nook titled ‘Evaulation Criteria’, uses the following criteria to evaluate a position (in order of importance):

    1. Material
    2. King Safety
    3. Activity
    4. Pawn Structure

    Based on these evaulation criteria, not only will we know which side stands better, but why they stand better and what our plan should be. The candidate moves will show itself based on the plan we have selected.

    In order to improve we need to evaluate the position during critical junctures of the game (after the opening is over, after a series of exchanges, whenever the position changes substantially). We should get in the habit of re-evaluating the position every couple of moves to ensure that the needs of the position have not changed. We then need to choose a plan based on the evaluation and select candidate moves that help us meet the goals of our plan. We should then take a close and honest look at our candidate moves and keep looking for the best move that will improve our position on the board.

    Hope this helps, and I would love to hear your thought process for evaluating the position and selecting candidate moves.

  • Faulty Thought Process: Wishful Thinking

    A frequent issue confronted by amateurs is wishful thinking when calculating combinations. This propensity to fabricate beneficial scenarios in our analysis is very typical throughout an amateur’s game, but it is most dangerous when calculating combinations.

    You see a pretty combination worthy of Tal, and you analyze it over and over, after you have finished your analysis you are sure that the move is a winner. You make the move and you lose a piece, or it initiates a series of exchanges that cause you to lose your initiative and perhaps the game. Unfortunately, you have failed to see the refutation or you simply missed a defending piece that you have conveniently kept out of your analysis. This very common oversight causes you to lose material and / or the game.

    If only you had realized that there was a defending piece all you usually need to do is to combine that information along with the combinational theme to make the winning move. In most cases by adding the bothersome piece to your analysis you can easily spot a sacrifice or deflection that will get the piece out of the way and lead to a winning combination.

    Getting rid of this faulty thought process will lead to more accurate analysis and an improved ability to calculate. Here are a few ways you can improve by eliminating this error in your thinking process:

    • Play long games with a standard time control greater than 30 minutes
    • Pick interesting middlegame positions and spend > 15 minutes analyzing
    • Try to visualize the position before making your move
    • Double and triple check your analysis

  • Faulty Thought Process: Thinking Defensively

    Improving your Thought Process

    This is the first in a series of posts about faulty thought process tendencies by beginners. Unfortunately, I am the source of inspiration, but hopefully by writing about these errors my thought process will improve.

    The most important thing that a beginning to intermediate player can do to improve their chess is to improve their thought process. There is no point in reading positional books and learning new openings when you do not keep your pieces safe, or you fail to see that your opponents piece is not safe, this is the main reason preventing you from winning your games.

    Dealing with Aggressive Moves

    When a beginner is faced with an aggressive move by an opponent they tend to think defense first (sometimes exclusively), and as a result they fail to see that the aggressively posted piece is not safe. Both beginners tend to make this same mistake, the offensive player blindly plays the aggressive move thinking it is winning without further analysis and the defender assumes that the move is good and fails to see that it is a blunder which hangs the aggressively posted piece.

    Take your time when you are faced with an aggressive move or a difficult situation and always ask yourself Is your opponent’s move safe? as part of your thought process and you will win many more games as a result.