You should learn most important principles of a chess game. That will give you a solid understanding of a chess game and you will know what to do in every position. Then, you should optimize your calculation so you don't miss tactics in your games. Your rating will skyrocket. I can help you with all of this. Message me if you are interested.
cant get past 500 fr
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Feb 11, 2023
0
#3
As someone who is in the same boat it’s tough to calculate when true beginners just play whatever the heck they want to play because “it looks good”. I play a bunch of unrated games with my friends who don’t take it easy on me and hold my own… play against a 170 and I’m dead because they play so illogically. OP- I feel your pain. I’ll send you a challenge for a daily.
Improving Your Chess - Resources for Beginners and Beyond...
https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/improving-your-chess-resources-for-beginners-and-beyond
https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell
Feb 11, 2023
0
#5
Start by studying endgames. If you don't know what zugzwang and maintaining the opposition are, stop what you're doing right now and spend less than five minutes on this!
https://www.chess.com/blog/Dumbluck626/the-path-to-victory-when-youre-a-pawn-up-calculation-part-x
Feb 11, 2023
0
#6
Guard all pieces as though ya lives depends on it. Triple check everything. If they play a move that surprised you that means you are not paying enough attention, you didn't go through & find, see every move they could possibly make.. Don't get lazy. Play the game from their side too & try to keep guessing their next moves. So you might be able to see & stop their plans before they get a grip on you.
Feb 11, 2023
0
#7
Hi there!
I've had a look through some of your games from today (mainly the losses) to see what went wrong. There's a few things I have noticed, but they all revolve around two key things: resigning and blundering.
1. Stop Resigning.
Chess players with lower ELOs (I'm rated ~680 for reference) shouldn't be resigning their games. This is a bad habit to get into and it can severely kneecap your development. I've noticed that the main reason for you losing in the games you played today were because you resigned after blundering or hanging a piece.
Remember, the worst thing that can happen to you in a Chess game is that you lose via checkmate, so don't be afraid of losing. The best way to improve is to play lots of Chess and not worry so much about losing, but rather look at what you can learn from each game. Resigning teaches you nothing and obliterates any opportunity for you to make a comeback. So stop resigning your games, and play them to the end. That is how you can improve!
2. Stop Blundering.
As for blundering, this is the first example to look at:
When you played Qxd5, this threatened to win the trapped Rook on a8, which is the best move! Black clumsily responded with c6 to kick your Queen away. The best move for you here (as depicted) would have been to move the Queen to b3 and continue the attack. Instead, you blundered and played Qd6, which just allows Black to take your Queen for free. After this, you immediately resigned.
Here is another example:
After White played Rxa6, it lines up an x-ray threat along the 6-rank. The best move here for you (as depicted) would have been to move the Rook off the same rank as the King so this can be avoided. After this, you could have used your Rook to make it more difficult for White to take your pawns. Instead, you blundered and played Rh7, which allows White to freely play the x-ray attack they set up. Once again, you immediately resigned.
It's worth noting that in this game in particular, you had the advantage for a good amount of time. But you lost it by allowing White to capture an undefended Bishop. And this is a common theme I noticed in your losses: you had the advantage, and lost it by blundering.
I chose these examples because they're more obvious blunders that you can easily identify. And I understand that making a move and realising one second later that it is a blunder is really infuriating. I do it too sometimes! But the solution here is to recognise the blunder and play on, not just immediately resign and rattle off another game. Remember, there is no position in Chess where you are guaranteed to lose. The game is over when it is checkmate. Just play on, do your best, and see what happens.
Plus, your opponent could also blunder back. There's no harm in hoping!
3. Don't Take a Draw in a Winning Position!
One final example to look at, and this one I cannot fathom:
In this game in particular, you had a checkmate in as few as two moves. And the game ended in a draw despite you still having six and a half minutes on the clock. Did they offer a draw and you took it? If so, why? You had a completely winning position here! You should have gone for it and finished the game! Doing this throws away everything you've worked for in the game.
Summary
To sum up what has been shown here, these are a few tips I can give you.
- Stop resigning. Play your games to the end and study them afterwards whether you win or lose. If you do make a blunder during a game, just keep playing. There is no guarantee that you have lost the game, and your opponent could always blunder back. You learn more from losing than resigning.
- Stop blundering. This is far easier said than done, but here's a few key ways to stop blundering:
- Before you move a piece, check to see whether any of your other pieces are under attack. Can you move them to safety, or block the attacks, or defend them with another piece?
- Check to see if any of your pieces are hanging (ie undefended and free to capture). These should be a priority for you: move them to safety or defend them!
- When you choose a piece to move, ask yourself what it is currently doing before you move it. If it is defending another piece or blocking an attack on a valuable piece, move something else. You can always move it later when the position changes.
- Look before you move: don't move a piece to a square where it can be taken for free, or use a piece to attack another piece without adequate backup.
- Be wary about sacrificing material. Only do so if you have absolute confidence that doing so will either open up the position or give you an advantage. Otherwise, you are just throwing away material for no good reason.
- Look at your opponent's moves and start thinking 1-2 moves ahead. Ask yourself why they made the move that they did, and whether they are threatening any further moves that might lose you material or allow them to play checkmate. A good way to do this is to ask yourself "if my opponent could make a second move now, what would they do?" This will help you with not just protecting your own pieces but also by pre-empting their attacks and blocking them accordingly.
Hopefully these examples have helped you!
- Logan
Player999999999999999999 wrote:
You should learn most important principles of a chess game. That will give you a solid understanding of a chess game and you will know what to do in every position. Then, you should optimize your calculation so you don't miss tactics in your games. Your rating will skyrocket. I can help you with all of this. Message me if you are interested.
yo man thank you so much! ill work on that for sure!
Sniks304 wrote:
As someone who is in the same boat it’s tough to calculate when true beginners just play whatever the heck they want to play because “it looks good”. I play a bunch of unrated games with my friends who don’t take it easy on me and hold my own… play against a 170 and I’m dead because they play so illogically. OP- I feel your pain. I’ll send you a challenge for a daily.
hahaha, yes i understand you 100 percent, for sure! im down to play a daily with you, i love learning new strategies and love to see how people play.
Dumbluck626 wrote:
Start by studying endgames. If you don't know what zugzwang and maintaining the opposition are, stop what you're doing right now and spend less than five minutes on this!
https://www.chess.com/blog/Dumbluck626/the-path-to-victory-when-youre-a-pawn-up-calculation-part-x
thank you so much man! ill be sure to check this out
Terminator-T800 wrote:
Guard all pieces as though ya lives depends on it. Triple check everything. If they play a move that surprised you that means you are not paying enough attention, you didn't go through & find, see every move they could possibly make.. Don't get lazy. Play the game from their side too & try to keep guessing their next moves. So you might be able to see & stop their plans before they get a grip on you.
thank you so much! im sure this will help me a lot, this totally gives me a different perspective on my gameplay, ill be sure to apply this to my next games!
LoganTMyers wrote:
Hi there!
I've had a look through some of your games from today (mainly the losses) to see what went wrong. There's a few things I have noticed, but they all revolve around two key things: resigning and blundering.
1. Stop Resigning.
Chess players with lower ELOs (I'm rated ~680 for reference) shouldn't be resigning their games. This is a bad habit to get into and it can severely kneecap your development. I've noticed that the main reason for you losing in the games you played today were because you resigned after blundering or hanging a piece.
Remember, the worst thing that can happen to you in a Chess game is that you lose via checkmate, so don't be afraid of losing. The best way to improve is to play lots of Chess and not worry so much about losing, but rather look at what you can learn from each game. Resigning teaches you nothing and obliterates any opportunity for you to make a comeback. So stop resigning your games, and play them to the end. That is how you can improve!
2. Stop Blundering.
As for blundering, this is the first example to look at:
When you played Qxd5, this threatened to win the trapped Rook on a8, which is the best move! Black clumsily responded with c6 to kick your Queen away. The best move for you here (as depicted) would have been to move the Queen to b3 and continue the attack. Instead, you blundered and played Qd6, which just allows Black to take your Queen for free. After this, you immediately resigned.
Here is another example:
After White played Rxa6, it lines up an x-ray threat along the 6-rank. The best move here for you (as depicted) would have been to move the Rook off the same rank as the King so this can be avoided. After this, you could have used your Rook to make it more difficult for White to take your pawns. Instead, you blundered and played Rh7, which allows White to freely play the x-ray attack they set up. Once again, you immediately resigned.
It's worth noting that in this game in particular, you had the advantage for a good amount of time. But you lost it by allowing White to capture an undefended Bishop. And this is a common theme I noticed in your losses: you had the advantage, and lost it by blundering.
I chose these examples because they're more obvious blunders that you can easily identify. And I understand that making a move and realising one second later that it is a blunder is really infuriating. I do it too sometimes! But the solution here is to recognise the blunder and play on, not just immediately resign and rattle off another game. Remember, there is no position in Chess where you are guaranteed to lose. The game is over when it is checkmate. Just play on, do your best, and see what happens.
Plus, your opponent could also blunder back. There's no harm in hoping!
3. Don't Take a Draw in a Winning Position!
One final example to look at, and this one I cannot fathom:
In this game in particular, you had a checkmate in as few as two moves. And the game ended in a draw despite you still having six and a half minutes on the clock. Did they offer a draw and you took it? If so, why? You had a completely winning position here! You should have gone for it and finished the game! Doing this throws away everything you've worked for in the game.
Summary
To sum up what has been shown here, these are a few tips I can give you.
- Stop resigning. Play your games to the end and study them afterwards whether you win or lose. If you do make a blunder during a game, just keep playing. There is no guarantee that you have lost the game, and your opponent could always blunder back. You learn more from losing than resigning.
- Stop blundering. This is far easier said than done, but here's a few key ways to stop blundering:
- Before you move a piece, check to see whether any of your other pieces are under attack. Can you move them to safety, or block the attacks, or defend them with another piece?
- Check to see if any of your pieces are hanging (ie undefended and free to capture). These should be a priority for you: move them to safety or defend them!
- When you choose a piece to move, ask yourself what it is currently doing before you move it. If it is defending another piece or blocking an attack on a valuable piece, move something else. You can always move it later when the position changes.
- Look before you move: don't move a piece to a square where it can be taken for free, or use a piece to attack another piece without adequate backup.
- Be wary about sacrificing material. Only do so if you have absolute confidence that doing so will either open up the position or give you an advantage. Otherwise, you are just throwing away material for no good reason.
- Look at your opponent's moves and start thinking 1-2 moves ahead. Ask yourself why they made the move that they did, and whether they are threatening any further moves that might lose you material or allow them to play checkmate. A good way to do this is to ask yourself "if my opponent could make a second move now, what would they do?" This will help you with not just protecting your own pieces but also by pre-empting their attacks and blocking them accordingly.
Hopefully these examples have helped you!
- Logan
Logan, I want to thank you so so much for taking time to write this and help me with all of my blunders and giving me all those tips, it means so much to me, and you have helped me so much to understand what i havent been able to before. again, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to analyze and respond to my forum, you really are a great person and this has helped me so much, im sure my elo is going to skyrocket soon with all of these tips.
alr so ive been playing recently again and like, i cannot get past 500 elo, no matter how hard i try, does anyone have some tips?