HEY NOOBS! Forget Openings, Study Tactics (The right way)

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Monster_Melons

 In fact, the last 4 games I played were all settled in the opening. This is another example:

Unfortunately, I forgot about the time and lost on time, but that's not relevant for this discussion. My point here is that my opponent lost a bishop in the opening (in a way that I have seen many times in this opening), and in the rest of the game there are no tactic opportunities to recover from that loss. No matter how much you analyze the game, I don't think you will find anything.

Cornfed
YoungGirlNiceRack wrote:

How can a 400 elo player get good at tactics and become advanced or maybe even a master?

 The most important step is...learning to calculate/analyse/evaluate.

You don't do this by just looking at a bunch of tactical puzzles. You are nowhere near ready for spending a lot of time on that - that is more along the lines of 'staying sharp' - being on the lookout for specific things to calculate/solve.

I've seen too many players start out by solving lots of puzzles...and they are unable to PLAY the game well. Nice 'puzzle ratings'...but they can't string together the bunch of moves that come in between.

PLAYING a game well is all about being able to walking into uncertainty...looking a couple of moves ahead for yourself and your opponent, all in your head and developing your ability to assess the end points of your calculations.

Yes, study some...a decent and short book on middlegames, a good book on basic endgames...a simple opening...simple tactics; then play fairly slow games (walking into uncertainty), developing your ability to bring all that together and...the rest will come. You will find areas that come to you naturally and others that you need to work on. But you will not find that solving tactical puzzles.

A good foundation and then hard work will take you as far as you let it.

 

jambyvedar
YoungGirlNiceRack wrote:

How can a 400 elo player get good at tactics and become advanced or maybe even a master?

a good starting point for a beginner to improve his tactics is by learning what are the different tactical themes and after that start solving puzzles by themes. pin,fork,discovery are examples of tactical themes. there are also mate patterns. as many have told, pattern recognition is one of the most important quality of a chess player. solving puzzles will improve your pattern recognition. gm christiansen improved his tactical ability,as he mentioned, by solving puzzles. solving puzzles for 30 minutes everyday is enought. you must also: always study your opponent's last move, always look at the whole board,before you make a move check if there is a tactical drawback. following these, your blunder will lessen and you will spot more tactics. not looking at the whole board is one of the reasons why you drop a piece. read middle game books approriate for your level. and don't forget to play often. avoid bullet chess. play at longer time control.

Monster_Melons
YoungGirlNiceRack wrote:

Wanna go over some of my games...

I took a quick look at some of your games. You just have to enjoy playing chess, that's the most important thing to do at your stage. Don't worry too much about strategy now, just try to move so that your opponent can't take any piece from you.

After you have decided which move to make, you should check a couple of things before you make that move. Check that the piece you move can not be taken. You do that well already. Check if some other piece can be taken because you make that move (because there will be an empty square where you move the piece from, or because the piece you move support another piece which is not longer supported after the move). Then take a quick look at the whole chessboard to see if your opponent can take anything. If it all looks good, then make the move that you had in mind.

Notice that in chess, the same mistakes are made over and over again. If you can avoid that, you will be incredibly good at chess.

If you want to discuss this more thoroughly, I think you should start a new thread.

Monster_Melons
YoungGirlNiceRack wrote:

I don't understand much about what you are saying,  would you like to play one and go over it move by move after so you can show me?

No can do, but you can start a new thread regarding those things.

aa175

change the title. not everyone here is a noob. wink.png

Chesslover0_0
jambyvedar wrote:
Chesslover0_0 wrote:

I still feel beginners should study mostly tactics and endgames,or so they say,I wouldn't disagree,most games I win is via some tactic or another,I haven't ran into any specific endgame,although I did study Lucena's position and Philidor's position for a bit but that was a while back.  

Capablanca was also quoted as saying something along the lines of:  The Opening and Middle game must be studied in relation to the endgame but the endgames can be studied in and of themselves,it was something like that. 

And how a beginner study tactics is also an important factor on his progress. Rather than solving random tactics problems, a beginner should solve puzzles arrange by themes. With this method, it will be easier for a beginner to learn these different tactical patterns and then later on, when they already improve their pattern recognition, they can solve random puzzles.  They should also not only solve checkmate problems. They  must also solve puzzles that win materials by way of pin,fork,discovery,decoy,removing the guard etc. Solving only checkmate problems, they might develop a habit of only looking for a mate. In a game of chess, there are more tactical opportunities to win material than a checkmate combinations.

Agreed,after though,meaning,after the beginner learns the basic tactics and becomes familiar with them,afterwards a more real to life type of training should be applied,as in the beginner studies tactics with no hints (other then knowing that a tactic exists).  Such as "White/Black to play and win",things like that. 

rabbitAAAA

No use to end up with a ruined position out of the opening.....tactics flow from superior positions

Jeppesen960
Hello, I was just wondering what ways beginner players could do tactics if they don’t have a membership to chess.com. Are there books that could do this? Or is it better to just purchase a subscription?
ChessieSystem101

yeah NOOBS!

Destroyer942

NOOOOOBBSSSSSS!

kindaspongey
Jeppesen960 wrote:
... I was just wondering what ways beginner players could do tactics if they don’t have a membership to chess.com. Are there books that could do this? ...

Here are some reading possibilities that I often mention:
Winning Chess by Irving Chernev and Fred Reinfeld (1948)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708093415/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review919.pdf
Back to Basics: Tactics by Dan Heisman (2007)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708233537/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review585.pdf
https://www.chess.com/article/view/book-review-back-to-basics-tactics
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5856bd64ff7c50433c3803db/t/5895fc0ca5790af7895297e4/1486224396755/btbtactics2exerpt.pdf

RoobieRoo

go to lichess and practice all the tactics you like for free

RoobieRoo

If you want a book on tactics get Understanding chess tactics by Martin Weteschnik

kindaspongey

https://web.archive.org/web/20140708091717/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review851.pdf

https://www.qualitychess.co.uk/ebooks/Chess-Tactics-Scratch-excerpt.pdf

 

Chesslover0_0
Jeppesen960 wrote:
Hello, I was just wondering what ways beginner players could do tactics if they don’t have a membership to chess.com. Are there books that could do this? Or is it better to just purchase a subscription?

Personally I'd purchase a book to do this but I'm sure at this point there is tons of great software out there, so whether books or software is just a matter of personal preference.  I'm sure if you can find a good book (there are many out there) or some good software, or both, you'll do fine. 

There are many good books on tactics, if you're a raw beginner (meaning you're totally new to tactics) then you can check out;  "Predator at the chessboard" A field guide to chess tactics by Ward Farnsworth.  I seen clips of the book, I think he has a website with part of the book on it so you can check that out but he does a good job of explaining each tactic.  I know that John Bain's Chess tactics for students is really good, I'm still studying from this book, this book doesn't do as good a job explaining what the tactics are but you can always look that up.  The book has about 13 chapters full of puzzles with the last chapter being somewhat of a "test" chapter.  Those 2 books alone should give you a pretty good foundation, even if you are a raw beginner, good luck. 

Jeppesen960
Thank you much!
josephyossi

this is stupid 

OldOlives

I is noob. Why no say everything important? Because everything is important. Why forget about opening? Trap is big part. I good at English.grin.png

Chesslover0_0
Jeppesen960 wrote:
Thank you much!

Any time, let me know how it works out for you.