Whether you’re new to chess or have been playing for a long time, everyone may benefit from some high-quality chess tips to help them improve their game. There is always space for development, even at the top levels of competitive chess. If you’re looking for a few methods to improve your chess game, check out these basic recommendations from chess grandmasters that will help you go from mediocre to outstanding in just a few minutes per day.
1. First, look for involuntary movements.
Any action that forces your opponent to reply, such as a check, a capture, or an attack on an opponent’s piece, is considered a forced move. Keep an eye out for maneuvers like this while you’re playing the game. When you make a move that causes your opponent to react quickly, you effectively take one turn away from them that could otherwise be used to attack or threaten your chess pieces. You can keep them from posing a threat to your details by keeping them focused on defending their holdings.
Because many players are unaware of this fact, it is simple to convince them to fall for this trick. It’s a rare player who will disregard your attempts on their prized pieces to pursue their attack on yours! When their works are sufficiently threatened, they will typically retreat to guard them, and all thoughts of attacking your pieces will be pushed to the back of their minds — until it’s too late!
On the other hand, avoid being sucked in by opponents who use this strategy. Take a minute to analyze why you’re suddenly being attacked from all sides – perhaps you’re on the verge of accomplishing something that your opponent doesn’t want you to complete! In this scenario, making certain sacrifices to achieve something bigger may be appropriate, which takes us to our following point:
2. Keep an eye out for sacrifices
Keep an eye out for sacrifices! This means that you should be on the lookout for opportunities to sacrifice your pieces to move to a larger goal and for your opponent making several sacrifices, as this could indicate that they are planning something major. It’s an unavoidable aspect of the game that you’ll take some of your opponent’s pieces, and they’ll take some of yours. It’s impossible to prevent it. It would help if you ensured that the parts you let go of are worth the exchange for the ones you can get from your opponent. Here’s a quick rundown of each piece’s relative value, albeit there are other aspects in a regular chess match that can influence this decision different from point value:
Each Queen is worth nine points, each Rook is worth five points, each Bishop is worth three points, each Knight is worth three points, and each Pawn is worth one.
Sacrificing your Queen to save your Bishop or your Bishop to save a pawn makes little sense unless it’s part of a wider game strategy. You must have a wider system in place that specifies how much you are ready to sacrifice to achieve a specific goal.
3. Look for Common Tactical Motifs
Throughout many different chess matches, several main tactical patterns frequently repeat themselves. In reality, any given game strategy is almost certainly made up of the same basic components. Moves like Fork, Pin, Skewer, Double Attack, Back Rank, Simplification, Discovered Check, Smothered Mate, Removing the Guard, Hanging Piece, Interference, and In Between Move is among the tactical building blocks (also known as zwischenzug or intermezzo). There are many more examples, but you get the idea. Please make every effort to learn as many as you can to have the best chance of recognizing them during play.
Due to the vast amount of chess issues that have been solved utilizing these tactical motifs by the time one reaches that point in one’s chess career, these tactical motifs are intrinsic and virtually second nature at the highest levels of play. However, if you haven’t arrived yet, you’ll need to keep a sharp lookout for them and keep a close eye on them at all times. You’ll know what to do when you see them, but you’ll have to capture them first. Always examine any chessboard through the eyes of an analyst. Try to figure out what basic construction blocks your opponent is utilizing so you can figure out their flaws and how to send them all crashing down.
4. Before making a move, take a look at the entire board.
This may sound like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised how often you fail to do it in the heat of the moment or when you’ve been aching to make what you think is a fantastic movie. Even for grandmasters and chess champions, it’s an easy error to make — maybe THE easiest mistake in a game of chess. To avoid this, slow down your pace. Get into the habit of looking around the board one final time before reaching for a piece to ensure you haven’t overlooked anything. Make it more than a casual, go-through-the-motions view — take a close look at what’s going on on the board. It’s conceivable, and it occurs all the time, for a player to become so concentrated on their predefined series of “perfect” plays or that Kingside attack that they miss what’s coming at them from the unexpected. This problem can be completely solved by the simple practice of calmly scanning the entire board before making a move, but only if you do it every time.
It’s easy to get caught up in focusing just on where you think the action is on the board, but that’s a great way to get blindsided and miss out on many other opportunities. Keep your eyes open and resist the urge to go into tunnel vision.
5. Put your problem-solving skills to the test.
Of course, the most important recommendation in any article on how to improve your chess game is to practice, practice, practice – but that doesn’t mean playing chess game after chess game. You may enhance your problem-solving skills in various ways, including playing chess and solving chess puzzles, learning new tactics, and analyzing chess games. A simple daily chess puzzle from a website or app may keep your problem-solving skills sharp, and it’s a fantastic place to start.
In chess matches, problem-solving is an essential ability that will benefit you in your everyday life and vice versa. Finding inventive answers to everyday situations stretches your problem-solving muscles just as much as sitting down with a book of chess problems does, so don’t undervalue the amount of work you’re receiving outside of regular chess practice. It doesn’t mean that figuring out how to keep the workplace copier from jamming all of the time is pointless since it doesn’t entail moving pieces about a checkered board. These situations force you to think about new methods of doing things, which encourages creative thinking and strengthens problem-solving skills that you can later use to win chess games.
Now, go ahead and put these suggestions to the test!
There you have it: five simple suggestions that you can start implementing right away. These suggestions come directly from chess grandmasters. You will undoubtedly witness continuing progress in the strength of your game if you use these in each of your future chess games. So, what do you have to lose? Stop reading things on the internet and get out there and practice!