I disagree that playing doesn’t help much. Avoiding blunders is largely a “vision” thing, which you get better at over time. Seeing stuff in puzzles really not the same as seeing them in games, because your mindset going in is so different.
This is not to say that puzzles and other forms of study aren’t important, they definitely are, but they should really be complemented with playing games IMHO.
I’m really enjoying agadmator’s channel and improved a lot (granted - i am a total novice) by simply watching his explanations and legit trying to find plays
My dad taught me when I was 6 and idk if it makes a difference playing from such an early age, but I definitely got better (100 rating points maybe) when I started watching agadmator. I agree just playing does not help, because you just repeat the same mistakes over and over.
I guess the only general advice I can give is that I think most players pay way too much attention to their own plans rather than thinking about what their opponent is trying to do. Here’s an example from a game I played today, let’s all laugh at ChrisV:
I have just played Qd4, centralising the queen to try to press my advantage, and my (100 rating points weaker) opponent just played Qe5 to g5. I’m three pawns up and he hadn’t played well up to this point, so I was like LOL ok buddy, some doomed attempt to try to mate me, whatever, nice one. I played Rxc4, he played Rxc4, I played Qxc4 and was most distressed when he played Qxd8 checkmate.
This blunder arose because I was too dismissive of my opponent. Qg5 in fact indirectly defends the pawn on c4. If he had been a better player I would have spent more time trying to figure out why he played the apparently pointless Qg5 and seen this. A lot of my blunders happen this way, and I think players in general don’t give nearly enough thought to opponent plans.
It’s an idiom…
To set someone or something into direct conflict, opposition, or competition against someone or something else.
While this is true, I think asking why your opponent played a move helps a ton with this. In the blunder above, part of the problem is also that my rook on d8 is defended twice, so my automatic danger signals about loose pieces did not kick in. If a piece of mine is attacked and only defended once, my attention will naturally be drawn to it as a potential target.
Chess is a highly situational game. Questions like “should I develop my knights first or my bishops” only have the answer “it depends on the position” which isn’t very helpful.
Beginners are given various rules of thumb that, being beginners, they apply universally.
One thing I think helped my game was experimenting more with accepting/inviting doubled pawns in compensation for other things eg piece activity or gaining the bishop pair in a non-closed position or opening a file against his king.
Before then I think my biggest leak was wasting too many tempi playing a3/a6 or h3/h6 to prevent a pin that I didn’t really need to worry about.
But learning tactics first (they’re fun) so you can recognise them in play, basic mating patterns with K+Q v K, K+R v K and the first half a dozen moves or so of a small number of openings are good places to start.
Right, I agree with this. Something I’ve started doing more after watching a lot of agadmator’s annotated master games is accepting some disadvantage to trade my way out of another one. This is intimately tied up with being able to evaluate positions well. It’s important to be able to tell when a position is just terrible with no counterplay, because once you make that determination, you can start thinking about fairly radical steps to avoid it. Accepting a pawn weakness, or pawn sacrifice, or even an exchange sacrifice is not a problem if it avoids a passive, hopeless position.
Progress is often too slow to notice and rating isn’t a foolproof method for detecting it.
If you wan’t something to study, endgames are good. Also the practices here might help Practice chess positions • lichess.org
I need to study endgames, they are definitely the weakest part of my game. They’re so boring though.
The Chessable.com site linked to above has some very good free tutorials on all aspects of the game.
has some really good end game tutorials including the dreaded rook and pawn endings, that taught me things I didn’t know about b, c, d, e and f pawns in some endings.
I usually charge $500 for this course on Udemy, but I’ll offer volume I itt for free. Endgames in three easy steps with smrk4:
I think endgames are quite interesting. Mainly because every move can be the difference between win or draw, or between draw and loss. I think openings are very boring, because if you know your theory and your opponent doesn’t, you might end up with a tiny advantage.
What are reasonable goals to set if I want to get good enough in Chess so i could teach my son in like ~18 months.
I have not played a single chess game in my life.
I know the rules.
I enjoyed watching chess yootoobz in the last month.
I’ll probably want like a few goals every few months and i think it will make it easier for me to keep on track.
You can’t force a mate with K+N+N v K.
I find K+B+N v K a nightmare. Even some 2500 rated players have failed to win it.
Well I guess there are self-mates if your opponent is in friend mode.
Him having a pawn on the right square can change things.
I instantly offer draw with KBN vs K unless I’m flagging, although I can play a thousand games and not see KBN, KBB, or KNN vs K endings. Maybe that’s because of lol blitz but they’re very rare.
Many endgames depend almost exclusively on whether you can queen a pawn. Knowing when and how K+p v K is a win or a draw is far more useful than KBN or KBB
From the excellent Practice chess positions • lichess.org you linked to earlier:
People learning or relearning chess may be interested to look at this which gives a flavour of the technicalities in a pretty common rook and pawn ending:
Well yes, it’s a game of mistakes.
chess.com not only has the nice analysis feature but also the Key Moments thing where it goes through your game and stops at each fuck up you made, giving you a chance to find the best move. It’s a good way of learning.
It’s possible to train yourself. Start with a blank board. After managing that take the board away. If you are a USCF B player and above, you can do this.
