What are the top 5 important concepts/sub-skills a novice should learn?

Hi

I want to get to chess level 1200.

They're are so many different chess concepts and sub-skills that I'm overwhelmed.

If you we're to recommend 5 concepts/sub-skills for a beginner to learn to reach level 1200...

What would you say?

yes

1. FIND A SIMPLE AND SAFE OPENING

2. OCCUPY THE CENTER

3. DEVELOP ALL YOUR PIECES

4. SECURE YOUR KING WELL

5. DONT LEAVE YOUR PIECES HANGING

THESE ARE 5 BUT THERE IS MORE, YOU ASKED FOR FIVE SO I TELL YOU FIVE IF YOU WANT MORE DO CONTACT ME

Awesome. I was eager to hear people's answers to see what commonalities people share. Thank you greatly for your input

Interesting question. I will follow this discussion. 

I enjoyed The Dummies Guide to Chess lol.

A lot of common sense in that =)

Dummies guide to chess, that sounds right up my street

Thanks for the recommendation

In my opinion you need to master concentration cause if you get distracted easy in this game it's usually game over.  Don't think about winning or loosing, easy said then done though. Good luck  

Interesting. Will think about the mental game

Don't get mated early, don't blunder too much material, don't massively violate principles. Concentrate on board vision/blunderchecking. Play long games.

To get to 1200 it's more about not doing anything hugely wrong than having to do anything particularly right.

Wise words.

Will take it to heart. Thanks

I really appreciate everybody's input.

I think my biggest takeaway is I'm going to start to play longer games so I have time to think through my plays.

Also, I'm going to spend more time practicing tactics puzzles.

And then I'll look to reduce my blunders to an acceptable level by doing some post-game analysis.

Next step 1200 ranking, here I come

Feeling 10x more confident than I did when I started this thread. 

Thank y'all <3 

When I trained newbies in a very successful high school team, the most important concepts were:

1. opening theory including: occupy center, develop pieces, make threatening moves, don't bring the Queen out early, castle early, protect pieces, watch f2 and f7 most closely.

2. tactics. tactics tactics: tactics are 80% of the game at 1200 or below.

3. strategy: make a plan about what you intend to do with your developed pieces before you're finished developing them.

4. endgame skills: in addition to mating with K + Q, K + R, and K + 2 B's, learn about The Opposition, The Outside Passed Pawn, and The Pawn Square Rule. Then add skills as time goes on.

5. Learn Positional things to do or exploit like Doubled and Isolated Pawns, Knight Outposts, Open Files, Good and Bad Bishops, Pawn Nails, and rules of thumb like: a N on the 3rd rank is poised for attack, a N on the 4th rank is as good as a B, a N on the 5th rank is better than a B, a N on the 6th rank is devastating.

This is pure gold, thanks!

hey guys answer my forum too you can see it as in my profile activity

Play people that are better than you. That is the single thing that drove me from 1000 to about 1500 on blitz at chess.com.

Analyze your games when you finish playing. Don’t look at computer analysis until you analyze the game yourself first.

Do about 30 minutes to an hour of tactics daily.

If you have time, go over master games from a book like Logical Chess Move by Move.

Don’t “always” play people better than you. You need a mix of games from people better than you (about 200 points higher rating than you), same rating, and a few hundred points below you.

Play a mixture of long games and blitz, and say no to bullet for a long time. I would play 1-3 long games a day and about 5-10 blitz games if you have time. The blitz games are there to practice your openings that you should be studying.

Study all three phases of the game, Opening, Middle, and Endgame. Some people like to tell you not to study openings at all at first, but a number of good players, up to and including the former world champ Garry Kasparov, disagree with them. Perhaps Capablanca’s quote really meant to just focus mainly on endgame at first, as he has another quote that directly says to study all phases of the game equally. I think what Capa meant was to at first study the endgame in the same way Mick just told you to do so, that is a lot of endgame you will be a better player if you just do that, but, remember, all three phases.

Only two things. Do 20 tactics everyday, it will do the trick for you.Go to the other famous chess website and do the practice section under learning. 

https://www.chess.com/article/view/how-to-start-out-in-chess
https://www.chess.com/news/view/a-new-years-resolution-improve-your-chess-with-new-lessons
"... In order to maximize the benefits of [theory and practice], these two should be approached in a balanced manner. ... Play as many slow games (60 5 or preferably slower) as possible, ... The other side of improvement is theory. ... This can be reading books, taking lessons, watching videos, doing problems on software, etc. ..." - NM Dan Heisman (2002)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627084053/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman19.pdf

It might be of interest to look at the table of contents of A COMPLETE CHESS COURSE by Antonio Gude.
http://www.gambitbooks.com/pdfs/A_Complete_Chess_Course.pdf

Defend your pieces, capture undefended pieces. This should be enough to go 1200+.

Basically, before every move check if any of your pieces/pawns are in threat of being captured, or if there is some way your opponent can threaten your pieces within 1-2 moves. Do same with your opponents pieces and see if there is anything you could capture or target. You need to do this after EVERY move at the beginning. Because the situation changes with every move and a piece that was protected 2 moves ago, might not be protected anymore.

If your piece is being targeted by multiple pieces, make sure you have more defenders than opponent has attackers, so in case of a capture you will be the last one to capture (winning material). Same of course goes with king safety. First priority is to always make sure that you are not getting mated. So castle early and castle often. If there are pieces near your king, be extra cautious, or if your opponent lines queen/rook/bishops towards your castled king.

I know at the beginning this is really tedious, just basically going through every piece at a time, to make sure they're properly defended. But this is the only way to nurture the necessary alertness to know when your pieces are in danger, and simultaneously know which of your opponents pieces are weak and good targets for attack. The longer you do this, the easier and faster it becomes, and eventually it's sort of an instinct to know when your pieces are in danger and when you are free to attack. And that is something that never stops improving, you'll start noticing threats that take one move, two moves or even three moves before they happen. You can start seriously improving as a player only when you stop giving away free material.

At sub 1200 it's basically just whoever makes less mistakes, and gives up less free material. Protect your pieces and watch your opponent hang themselves. Good luck!

Train tactics a lot.