1. Attacking Moves In Chess
2. What Does Chess Improve

The chess tips on my website help you to improve your chess strategy and finally start winning. To get better you need mental discipline, patience and knowledge. To get a feel of your chess strenght play against these chess programs here. Jan 12, 2015 - How to Improve The most common question I hear from chess students and friends is some version of 'How can I improve?' Tactical patterns are the most fundamental, but there are are many kinds of patterns --- patterns of pawn structure, patterns of endgames, patterns of attack and defense, etc.

I was quite a good player in my pre-teens then stopped completely until joining chess.com in my 30s. Back then, I never learned more than 1-2 openings.

My rating (correspondance) is settled to 1400 and I just don't feel I'm getting any better. I've bought a couple of books but don't find they help, either I get bored or I can't see how to apply this to my overall game. I've watched Danny doing chess commentary and picked up some themes from what good players are doing, but when I try to apply this it doesn't work. To me, it feels my biggest issue is I am playing without purpose. I'm trying to use general opening principles but without a plan in mind.

I feel like I'm waiting for my opponent to do something silly and then I can capitalise on this, but if they don't blunder the game is dull and eventually I blunder. I'm used to being good at book-learning and being pretty smart so this is frustrating. What advice can you guys offer me to give my game more purpose and make it more fun rather than just playing to react to my opponent all the time?

You do not sound as if you are motivated. You really cannot learn much if you are not motivated. Especially the moment he utters the word 'bored'. Probably also not reading the right books.

Forget about opening books. You need to be reading books on Planning, Strategy, etc. Tactics books won't solve your problem.

Tactics are about forced calculation, and do nothing to improve having a legitimate plan. You need to learn basic strategy. For example, take the following snippit of a game.

This position has been played before. What should White do?

Where should White be attacking? Where should Black be attacking? Failure to know basic strategic ideas will cause you to fail every time with this position. Just because Black's King is on the Queenside doesn't mean White attacks Queenside. For blocked positions, where the center is completely slammed shut (common in the French and King's Indian Defense), you have what is called the 'Pawn-Pointing Theory'. The direction in which your pawns point is the side you should be attacking. White should attack Kingside, and Black Queenside.

Black would be fatally weakening his position if he starts trying to lash out on the Kingside with moves like h5 and f6. Also remember, don't advance pawns on the side in which you are weak until you are absolutely forced to do so as you will die if you don't - whether that be getting checkmated or losing a fatal amount of material. You need books on strategy, planning, positional concepts, and calculation! I'd start with 'The Inner Game of Chess' by Andrew Soltis.

It's a book from 1994 that was reprinted in 2014. You have to put in the hard hours. You have to be willing to be bored sometimes and do what others aren't doing. Watching commentary is fine but that's purely reactive, you have to be putting in the proactive practice, tactics study, endings, gmaes collections, playing over the board chess, learning to analyse accurately etc. That being said if you don't want it to be too much hard work there's absolutely nothing wrong with just moving some pieces around now and then and enjoying it. That's all I do nowadays. Did you do at least 5000 puzzles on ALL tactical motifs + 1000 positional puzzles?

When I do tactics trainer etc, I get the same feeling as when reading in books. These things make sense but I can't apply them in real games. That's normal. No one can immediately apply new ideas.

Usually it takes a good amount of failure and reviewing your games until you see missed opportunities as well as times you tried to use an idea but it was incorrect for that situation. Doing tactical puzzles doesn't help you make tactics happen in your games. It only helps you find the tactics when the opportunity already exists (some positions have no tactics to find). Other than introducing you to common patterns, a big part of this is training the habit of calculating forcing moves (checks, captures, and threats).

The first thing to do in a game position is, in a sense, treat it as if it were a tactical puzzle. Look for a 'solution' using forcing moves.

If you determine there is no way to win material or give mate, only then do you start looking for a strategically sound move. If tactics are about forcing moves, strategy is about piece activity.

If there is no tactic, resist the urge to play a simple 1 move threat hoping your opponent doesn't see it. Find your pieces that are doing the least and improve them. Some basic ways to improve a piece: centralization, maximize unblocked lines (diagonals, files, ranks), moving it to the side where you have more space.

Generally speaking, you ideally seek play on the side of the board where you have both a space and # of pieces advantage. What advice can you guys offer me to give my game more purpose and make it more fun rather than just playing to react to my opponent all the time? It takes a lot of cumulative knoweldge and practice before a player can tie their moves together with a common strategic idea. Some players never get to this level, but for most players it will take at least a few years. At first it's about not giving away pieces and following the principals. IMO a common pitfall for adult beginners (which is where you are right now) is that they find tactics and calculation tedious and strategy interesting. I don't blame them, I agree!

Unfortunately you need some basic skills before you can begin to win with the fun strategy stuff. For now practically all your games will end because one side or the other has many more pieces. Until then keep reading, playing, and analyzing. Like I said above it's a sort of cumulative effect. Even if a book doesn't seem to directly relate to your next game, try to finish reading the whole thing. From what I see in your games ( for example: ), you don`t see BASIC TACTICS, the most SIMPLE TACTICS.

+ strategy is zero. You give bishop pair, you play without a plan ( for example in one game you let your oponent open the H column, etc. Do tactics until you reach AT LEAST 1800 at tactics trainer + do a book with the 30 tactics MOTIFS ( decoy, overloading, double attack, demolition of pawn structure, capturing a piece, blockade, x-ray, etc. )I don't think it's fair to look at a 3 0 game to base your opinions on. At that time control I'm often just having to make ANY move to avoid running out of time. I sometimes play for a laugh but I don't consider it real chess in terms of what I do or don't know.

I had a look at your last two long time limit games. In the first on move six you placed a piece on a square where it was attacked twice and defended once. So you lost a piece. In the second game you waited until move seven to give up a piece. Your opponent attacked the piece, you defended it, your opponent brought a second attacker to bear at which point you ignored the situation and made some unrelated move. To improve you must notice when your pieces are in danger of being taken and defend them or move them away or make a threat (like immediate checkmate) which your opponent must deal with before taking your piece.

How can you start to notice? Well I don't know.

Attacking Moves In Chess

I have been playing a lot longer than you and with me I think it is just second nature. How long it took, and how many games, before it became second nature I can't remember. Anyway don't read books.

That is not going to help. Look online for the opening principles. And for now follow them religiously. Otherwise just play, in whatever way is fun, and let experience grow.

Don't be in a hurry. And maybe very occasionally look back over a lost game where you dropped pieces and see exactly how that happened. I had a look at your last two long time limit games. In the first on move six you placed a piece on a square where it was attacked twice and defended once. So you lost a piece.

In the second game you waited until move seven to give up a piece. Your opponent attacked the piece, you defended it, your opponent brought a second attacker to bear at which point you ignored the situation and made some unrelated move.

To improve you must notice when your pieces are in danger of being taken and defend them or move them away or make a threat (like immediate checkmate) which your opponent must deal with before taking your piece. How can you start to notice? Well I don't know.

I have been playing a lot longer than you and with me I think it is just second nature. How long it took, and how many games, before it became second nature I can't remember. Anyway don't read books. That is not going to help. Look online for the opening principles. And for now follow them religiously. Otherwise just play, in whatever way is fun, and let experience grow.

Don't be in a hurry. And maybe very occasionally look back over a lost game where you dropped pieces and see exactly how that happened.

Cheers John, that is helpful. I definitely don't feel learning opening theory is the thing for right now. I don't always make those kind of basic errors you picked up on but certainly it does happen. I guess that is the 'low hanging fruit' to address first, all the '1-move away' blunders. However what I was getting at in my first post is that it feels like all my games are basically just waiting for one of us to make this kind of stupid mistake. If I don't, and they don't, then once I've developed my pieces and castled I'm kind of stuck:) Tactics trainers and so on are great.

But it's only been a few years since these have been around. Many of us here probably learned chess pre-internet. How did we learn back then? Or, were we all terrible? Im only learning too, but what I tend to do is to look for basic tactics. These would include, pins, forks, skewers and discovered attacks. My favourite is a discovered attack.

If as it sounds, you struggle to take the initiative, setting up such tactics as these during a game makes you think about other options and subsequent moves, and when they come good it gives you a boost of confidence and puts the opponent immediately on the back foot. I may be talking rubbish but its food for thought surely? The most important thing is to not get yourself down if your ideas fail, and of course have fun while playing. Otherwise, why play the game at our level? Solve tactics problems(focus on tactics). Study endgames and strategy as well. What if you can't find a tactic in the position?

What should you do? This is where strategic understanding comes in.

Read appropriate materials for you(not too advance). Forget about opening theory as this point in time. And I disagree with a poster( he is a beginner) here that told you that books won't improve you.

What you need to do is read appropriate books for you level. If you need a strategy book, get Reasses Your Chess Book by Silman. 101000 wrote: IMO a common pitfall for adult beginners (which is where you are right now) is that they find tactics and calculation tedious and strategy interesting. Thinking some more I wonder if this is core to my frustration - I'm thinking of myself as a decent child-player who just needs to improve. But in reality, I probably never really knew much beyond the rules and relied on the fact that at 8, most players are terrible.

I think I used to have like two plays - to use queen and knight/bishop to get checkmate once they castled O-O. And with most people this was enough! I've been trying to get books for an intermediate player which are always like '17. And then lists what is happening 4-5 moves down the line. Which is no use to me because I can't think that way. I hated the idea of getting a beginner book 'this is the knight. It looks like a horse.

It moves like this.' But maybe I need to get a beginner book and skip the first few chapters to get some real fundamentals in? Is there a 'my second chess book' out there perhaps for those who know the rules but not much else? I also think playing lots of online games hurts me. I spend a few moments on each move and forget the flow of the game whereas OTB I'd be absorbed more? I also think playing lots of online games hurts me. I spend a few moments on each move and forget the flow of the game whereas OTB I'd be absorbed more?

'., you have to make a decision: have tons of fun playing blitz (without learning much), or be serious and play with longer time controls so you can actually think. One isn’t better than another. Having fun playing bullet is great stuff, while 3-0 and 5-0 are also ways to get your pulse pounding and blood pressure leaping off the charts. But will you become a good player? Most likely not.' - IM Jeremy Silman (June 9, 2016).

Your tactics rating is in the 800s so I would suspect that there are a lot of mistakes in your games that you'll see once you improve your tactical vision. I always do a quick computer check of my longer games to see if I missed any tactics, if you do this I'm sure you will see that you also neglected some winning sequence somewhere in many of your games. Strategically, just use your pieces and pawns to try to improve the coordination of your pieces while limiting the coordination of your opponents pieces. If you are able to do that you should hopefully have some winning tactical combination to give you a material advantage or mating threats at some point in the game. Strategically, just use your pieces and pawns to try to improve the coordination of your pieces while limiting the coordination of your opponents pieces. I suspect that, for many, those 24 words are not sufficient. For such players, some reading (outside of tactical study) has the potential to be helpful.

Some possibilities are listed in post #16 and post #20. 'Every now and then someone advances the idea that one may gain success in chess by using shortcuts. 'Chess is 99% tactics' - proclaims one expert, suggesting that strategic understanding is overrated; 'Improvement in chess is all about opening knowledge' - declares another. A third self-appointed authority asserts that a thorough knowledge of endings is the key to becoming a master; while his expert-friend is puzzled by the mere thought that a player can achieve anything at all without championing pawn structures.

What Does Chess Improve

To me, such statements seem futile. You can't hope to gain mastery of any subject by specializing in only parts of it.

A complete player must master a complete game.' - FM Amatzia Avni (2007). If you need a strategy book, get Reasses Your Chess Book by Silman. An earlier poster mentioned this one too I think.

I've been looking at a couple of Silman's books but one comment I saw in a review of his other book 'The Amateur's Mind' suggested it one might be one step above my level and the latter would be a better choice. I am torn between those two and Chernev's 'Logical Chess: Move by Move' which again is referenced in the review of the Silman book as the best book of its type UNTIL Silman's. Recommendations between these 3?

I have always emphasized that tactics is one of the most important elements of chess on any level, and especially for the novice players. By perfecting tactical vision a chess player will be able to “see” more things going on at any chess game. Not only will tactics helps to attack, fork and checkmate your opponent, but also it will shield you away from the opponent’s tricks winning and saving tons of games. Now we are proud to also include the collection of 2148 chess tactics problems presented.

The problems are available to see in the browser as well as to be downloaded, printed out and shared with friends, colleagues, etc. If you just solve 12 tactics problems per day out of this list, in about a half a year you will become a true tactical wiz.

You can download the entire chess tactics PDF with 2148 problems by ( 40 Mb).