3 Shortcuts You Should NOT Take to Improve Faster
It's human nature to want results. We want to see tangible results and we want them NOW. Sometimes, this leads us to want to take shortcuts to "improve" faster. After all, who doesn't want their rating to go up as quickly as possible?
However, there are some shortcuts that many people think of taking, but that are detrimental to your overall improvement in the long run. If you study hard, you will improve! So without further ado, here's 3 shortcuts players should NOT take to expedite their improvement.
1. Learning Opening Traps/Tricky Gambits
Many times, a good way to win a game very quickly and simply is to catch our opponent in a trap! We may hope to simply gain an advantage because our opponent has never seen our pet line before, and while this will result in some quick wins, in the long run you simply have not really improved your understanding of chess. I'm not talking about sound or relatively viable gambits or unorthodox openings, but rather openings that lead to much worse positions if your opponent doesn't fall into the trap. You don't have to play mainstream openings, as long as you play something that is still reasonable.
2. Relying on Swindles
Many times, people win games not because of the position on the board, but rather because there were other factors such as time pressure and psychological intimidation. While these are important, and a win is a win, it is not helpful to solely work on these cheeky tricks. Instead of focusing on how to swindle your opponent in a lost position, focus on how to get into a winning position in the first place!
3. Memorizing Long Opening Lines
While it is important to know the basic moves of an opening, it is not a good idea to solely memorize long lines of an opening in hopes of beating your opponent through your preparation. It is more important to understand the ideas of the opening, so that you can play well even if the game deviates from a line you've seen before, or if the line ends! After all, we're here to play chess, not to aimlessly memorize combinations of letters and numbers. However, with that being said, it is still important to be prepared, and to know the best moves in positions that require accuracy. If you only have understanding, but forget all of your lines, you end up with something like this... 
Conclusion
We can conclude that it is NOT beneficial to take these shortcuts. All they do is slow down your progress, and provide you with quick, easy, and superficial results. We don't want that! We want to improve in the long run, and become better at chess. With that being said, I'd like to finish this post off with the following quote from copyblogger:
Thanks for reading! I hope this blog helped you understand the drawbacks of trying to take easy shortcuts! Thanks so much, and I'll see you guys later! 
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