Yeah this is the usual recommendation for beginners. Tactics training not only helps you to execute tactics yourself, but helps you avoid being on the receiving end.
A few other bits of advice to help avoid blundering:
After your opponent moves, always ask yourself “why did my opponent play that, what’s their idea?”. Josh Waitzkin emphasises this a lot in those Chessmaster videos people talked about upthread, which I also recommend. When I make bad blunders in games, a leading reason why is that I think I see my opponent’s idea, but the move they made is actually dual-purpose and I miss the second idea.
Look to see if checks and captures do anything. Tactics lurk therein. Tactics training helps with making this second nature.
Look to see if you have loose pieces, meaning pieces which are not defended by anything. These are not automatically bad or anything, it depends on the exact position, but they are risk factors for becoming the victim of tactics. If you don’t know what else to do in a position, consider making your pieces more secure. Usually in a harmonious position, the pieces support each other. This is one example of something which gradually becomes clear: “Tactics flow from a superior position” (Bobby Fischer).
If you play a game and feel like it wasn’t won or lost by obvious mistakes (hanging a piece or whatever) come into the Chess thread and post the game, we can offer some advice about where each player made strategic missteps.
There’s a high level chess player who posts in a low content thread on 2+2, this was his advice for anyone wanting to find the best and most efficient way to study and improve at chess:
Split your routine into something like 40-50% tactics, 30-40% playing games and the analysis of those games and, 20% misc.
For tactics- books, tactics trainer, and puzzle rush are all good- the latter two which you can do exclusively on chess.com. This should be more of a day to day thing- not something that’s crammable. Main focus is pattern recognition.
For playing games, I’d recommend at least 5 mins per person, with 10 or 15 being preferred. The game report on chess.com is a goldmine. Check it out after every game. It’s kind of like HH Review’s… that are done for you by a computer. This is new and I wish I had this resource 5-10 years ago. LiChess and Chess.com are the two best places to play online.
Watching videos on YouTube nowadays is another great way to improve. Here are some recommended channels: Saint Louis Chess Club, agadmator, PowerPlayChess, Kingscrusher, GMHikaru, John Bartholomew, and BotezLive. Sort by Popular to see the best stuff. There isn’t much clickbait in chess so the title is a good representation of the contents of the vid.
tldr; opening theory is w/e, I didn’t study much of that until I was past 2000. Just wing that if you want. Think of opening theory like “balance balance balance pio pio pio” for live poker. Useful, but it depends what your goals are/where you’re at. EV is lower than alternatives. Tactics are essential and like perfecting preflop. Don’t underestimate the work and reps required. Easier said than done.
forum uberoverlords from far away decided animated avatars were bad? or maybe zz and oreo are just lying to me. it’s like 50% they’re lying to me because it’s cyberbullying and they’ve always been against me because they hate you but they gotta come through me, is what’s happening
Nice thanks I had already bought the diamond service on chess.com. it’s about to be winter in MN which means a lot of indoor free time so I’m going to try to play or study every day and see what happens.
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I had already bought the diamond service on