How to improve!                                              ----- also see tips & tricks
Develop material quickly
Improve by quickly developing all your material to powerful squares. The powerful squares are those that control the center, safeguard other key squares, and help attack or defend a good position. Losing momentum or missing an effective move could cost you time, position, agile movement, and even ultimately losing the chess game! The improving player whose chess pieces are developed more quickly will usually control the course of the game.

Avoid an opening trap by developing your chess pieces to useful squares as soon as possible. Improve by developing the Knights and Bishops, then castle to protect the King. Developing your chess pieces quickly also may help interfere with the development of your opponent's pieces. If you have the White chess pieces, develop your pieces quickly and be aggressive. You should have the advantage with the first move. If you have the Black pieces, you are playing defensive unless White gets behind in development; still, you develop your own pieces quickly, looking for an attack or setting up a strong defense.

Try these challenges

  • Develop your pieces to reasonable positions, especially if you are not familiar with your opponent's opening or defense. For better chess, place your pawns in the center quickly to release your other pieces and restrain your opponent's pawn and piece development.
  • Develop quickly towards the center to protect and attack the central squares. Develop a piece with a threat when possible that your opponent must try to defend.
  • Develop your pieces first on the side where you intend to castle. That is usually the Kingside. To improve your game, once you have gotten your Knights and Bishops out (the minor pieces), you may want to castle, then place a Rook on an open file if possible. Lastly develop your Queen, but not too early and not too far away from the protection of your pieces.
  • Develop your Bishops, Rooks, and Queen to threaten more distant targets. Try to move each piece once in the opening so as not to waste tempo or leaving other pieces undeveloped. Keep improving!
    • Related Links:
    World chess federation
    US Chess Federation
    British Chess Federation
    Preparation & Attitude
    Preparation in chess is primarily mental and motivational in nature. To improve chess, apart from specific chess training and study in openings, tactics, strategy, and endgame play, a student does well to come to each chess game mentally and emotionally ready, willing and able to play their best. Chess instruction, chess club participation, and chess study (including game review and chess puzzle solving) are all designed to improve student skill and increase the ability of competitive students of chess. Why? Consider this excellent essay from Benjamin Franklin called The morals of chess.

        

    Continued here

    Try these challenges to stretch your analysis.

    Related Links
    World chess ranking
    Canada Chess Federation
    Official Chess News

    Recognize Weaknesses


    By Kevin Monte de Ramos

    In short, weaknesses are flaws in your position or that of your opponent's which may be exploited tactically. During different stages of the game, a weakness has varied characteristics. For example, in the opening stages a weakness may be tempi or less than optimal piece placement. In the middle-game, weaknesses appear as open lines, weak squares, underprotected pieces, overworked pieces, outposts, or restraining support points. While in the ending, we consider pawn majorities, king placement, piece activity, and tempi.
    Balancing these weaknesses or playing one weakness againt another is the heart of chess.
    You may trade tempi in the opening to create a weakness around the opposing king. In the middle game, you attack the opposing king, trade pieces in an effort to secure a endgame advantage. In the endgame, you sac a passed pawn to worsen the opponent's king position. Then using tactics such as the opposition, you gain the necessary tempo to force your opponent into zugzwang. Eventually, you win a critical pawn securing the whole point via an underpromotion of your pawn which forces mate.
    You will notice from the scenario presented above, that one weakness is traded for another. This is what is meant by playing one weakness against the other. In fact, it has been stated that at least two weaknesses are required to win a chess game. The basis for this is simple, one weakness can be protected by aggregating your forces in its support. However, such a concentration of piece placement must result in other weaknesses appearing at other areas on the board. Common sense tells you that your opponent can not be in two places at the same time.
    That introduces a key concept. You must create weaknesses in your opponents position. At least, that is what Patrick Wolf says in his video "Winning Chess Attacks". In this video, he demonstrates how attacking an otherwise solid formation can induce your opponent to play a weakening move in defense your attack. At the top levels, this is necessary. However, for amateurs weaknesses are not created; rather surprisingly, they are often given to you by your opponent.
    During the normal course of the game pieces and pawns are moved. In the wake of their movement, weaknesses are created. Your task is to identify a weakness, plan an attack against it, and wait for other weaknesses to appear. Of course, if you are playing a strong opponent, you can help your cause by anticipating future weaknesses. The problem with many of us is that we fail to realize that we too are creating our weaknesses in our own position. With weaknesses on both sides of the board, it can be difficult to tell who will win. It comes down to who has the initiative.
    The person controlling the action will typically win. However, careful defense can take the energy of an attack and ignite a counter attack that is even stronger. Once this happens, the game is likely to end quickly. Arthur Bisquier lectures at tournaments in the USA where he espouses good defense as a means to improving your results. Attacks that are overtended leave pieces far advanced and concentrated around the attacking points. With a successful defense, these attacking lines leave behind gaping holes. These holes result in weaknesses which can be easily exploited.
    In summary, you can count on weaknesses appearing as pieces are moved. If you are having trouble identifying these weaknesses, you will need to examine gaps in your knowledge-base. As you move up in class, you will begin to make more significant weaknesses in your position than does your opponent. This is natural, so don't get discouraged. You must recognize that you are learning a new set of rules and the resulting losses represent a paradigm shift in your understanding of competitive chess. Although they are creating weaknesses , you are unable to recognize them. As you continue to play at an advanced level, overt weaknesses will not appear without your encouragement. Rather, a series of forcing moves must be played to create these weaknesses.Truly, this is where the amateur and the professional player are separated in class.
    To distinguish yourself as a chess master, you must recognize these hidden weaknesses and discover the tactical continuations required to exploit them.
    Control the Center of the Chess Board
    The center of the chess board refers to the four middle squares of the chessboard. In algebraic notation, they are the d4, e4, d5, and e5 squares.
            
    Controlling those squares, directly or indirectly, usually means controlling the most active part of the chessboard. From the center, one has the most space to control the rest of the chessboard. In the opening, most chess pieces will move through the center for attacking or defending. All the pieces have more squares to attack (or defend) when in the center. A knight in the center has eight squares it can cover. A knight on the edge of the board only has four squares to cover and if the knight is in a corner, it only has 2 squares in can cover.
            
    A bishop can cover 13 squares in the center but only 7 squares in the corner. You should always try to develop your pieces to control the center. That can be done directly with the pawns on d4 and e4 (or d5 and e5 for Black), or indirectly in hypemodern fashion with the Bishops fianchettoed to the b2 and/or g2 squares and controlling the long diagonal (a1-h8 or h1-a8). Center control is when the pieces are aiming at the four center controls. And greater center control leads to greater piece mobility with better chances for attacking or defending. The loss of the center usually means a cramped and restricted game. Controlling the center or losing control of the center in the opening could lead to a short game.
    Analyze Tactical Possibilities                     By Kevin Monte de Ramos; Originally published here
    When do you take the time to analyze tactical possibilities? One could argue long tactical variations should be considered on every move. Afterall, Deep Blue won its match against Kasparov via its immense tactical prowess. True, it has a knowledge base rooted in chess via opening books, endgame databases, etc. However, it was the machines ability to calculate that allowed it to beat the world champion.
    Shouldn't we emulate this thinking process? The answer is definitely not!! First, it is impossible as computers calculate at staggering rates while us 'lesser' humans are limited to a few variations per second. Compare Deep Blue's ability to analyze 200,000,000 chess positions/second verses our 3 positions/second. We must rely on something very different. We rely on knowledge verse dynamic evaluation. In short, we use basic rules of thumb in our assessment verses long tactical lines. However, tactical lines must be considered in depth from time to time.
    Unfortunately, there exist no rules relating to when one should take the time to analyze through long tactical lines in a given position. Without such guidelines, we loose our way quite easily. An algorithm has been developed to ensure at least considering obvious tactical possibilities. After opponents move, go through the following process. After that move, go through the same process for your opponent.
  • Trace enhanced piece mobility: When a piece is moved, it frees squares allowing other pieces greater mobility. Look here first to ensure you see the discovered threats. In fact, trace the available squares of surrounding pieces which have benefited from the actual piece moved.
  • Identify piece immobility: When a piece is moved, it also reduces the mobility of other pieces and pawns. Noting those pieces/pawns restricted by piece movement exposes emerging vulnerabilities and/or changes in underlying tactical opportunities.
  • Assess direct attacks: Only after the first two steps, should you allow the natural response of identifying what squares the piece attacks directly. Trace its mobility with your eyes to each available square. From there, branch to see where it can attack next, also scanning those squares. For most pieces, look two moves deep. With the knight, you should look three moves deep. Now note the color of the square upon which the knight stands and look for vulnerabilities on opposite colored squares.
  • Defensive Requirements: Ask - Do I need to defend against my opponents plan? If so, select a reasonable defensive move and continue your analysis.
  • Attacking Possibilities: Before making any defensive move, look for a forcing line that would resolve any such defensive requirements. This is essential; otherwise, you will soon become defensive in nature and loose the initiative.
  • Positional Improvements: Lacking any defensive requirements and attacking possibilities, simply look for moves that did not weaken my position.
  • Select a move and visualize before playing: Based on this process, select a move and visualize. Look up from the board and visualize all 64-squares with the pieces. This produces an image similar to that of a demonstration board or computer screen. This was important for blunder-proofing the game. If nothing alarming stands out in the position, play the move.

    • As you can see, this is exhausting. However, the use of this algorithm does contribute positively to your play. Eventually you may use this algorithm not in the fullest way. Still go through steps 1, 2, and 3. However, let intuition tell you whether or not a detailed search of the position is necessary. You might now limit such a detailed assessment of tactical possibilities to the following situations:
    - When your opponent makes a move which you did not consider or his/her demeaner changes
    - A move, whether yours or your opponents, creates an overt weakness on the board
    - You get back from a mental break (i.e.. looking at another game or returning from the restroom)
    - You have lost track of the game and must develop a new plan
    With this approach, you are able to follow a structured analysis to evaluate the position while avoiding deep analysis over benign positions.
     How do you find these hidden weaknesses and exploit them during the middlegame?
    Lombardy says "all openings are sound below master level".
    In short, this means all games are decided during the middlegame. It is here that all players must stand on their own judgment and execution. How well you identify hidden weaknesses in your opponents position and just how precise you are at exploiting those flaws represents the true strength of your play.
    The recommended approach is simple in concept but difficult in practice: Know your Openings! You must know more than just a list of good moves. You should be intimately familiar with correct/incorrect play resulting from your openings. Use your tournament experience and personal preferences to choose an opening repertoire. Exactly which openings you play is much less important than understanding resultant middlegame positions.
    Forget about the fads and simply choose openings that 'feel' correct to you. Then choose 50 games where your opening has led to won games. Go through these games over and over again until you understand thematic play. You want to discover how these games were won. Were they won with precise play in pawn endings or do they typically end in a mating net around move 30. Naturally, these games will diverge from any simple classification scheme. However, that is the point!! You must have a better understanding of the resulting middlegame positions than does your opponent. By studying how players win in a given opening, you will discover how to exploit weaknesses commonly found in these positions.
    Once you demonstrate the ability to win your openings, you must develop the means to defend your openings. As pieces move weaknesses will arise in the position. Since you are making moves, your position will also have imperfections. Studying how great players beat your chosen lines will be much more satisfying than studying your own losses. You should understand where these weaknesses occur and what attacking lines have been successful in their exploitation.
    To do this, you simply reverse the previous strategy. Find 50 instructive games where your opening lines were busted. Look first at the areas of the board which proved decisive. Then you should look for specific squares or color complexes that led to those losses. You want to build a mental library of the tactical shots used during these games. Then you will need a defensive strategy. Typically, one simply avoids problematic lines altogether. However, much better is to find key defensive novelties in lines thought to be weak. If you are successful at this, you will certainly see positive results over the board.
    Now that you are understand how to win from your opening and you have a pretty good idea of how you are to defend your opening, you come to real heart of tournament chess. You are ready to 'prepare' for tournament play. That is right, the previous two steps simply help you execute your ideas over the board. But do not expect your first master's norm. You must take the next step which is to prepare your opening repertoire.
    To understand whether or not your opening repertoire is sound, you must study drawn games. Afterall, drawn games are the result of correct middlegame play on both sides of the board. In these games, you will find the strongest games played from your opening. The true strength of your opening will be found as you study these games.
    Your preparation will involve two steps.
    Step 1: Can you improve upon their play?
    Step 2: Should you avoid this line altogether?
    From this effort, you may find some novelties to use during play. The results may be mixed. Sometimes you will catch your opponent in an uncomfortable position. However, you will often find that you do not understand the intricacies of the position and can be outplayed. The problem with discovering novelties is that there are no games to study. Consequently, understanding the strength of your novelties can be a burden. In the end, you are left to own devices. So here's a little trick. Let strong computers play each other and from their play build a game database. You will find these games to be quite valuable as these silicon masters devise truly surprising novelties of their own.
    Prophylaxis!
    This section includes articles from Grandmaster Gabriel Schwartzman's Internet Chess Academy to help you improve your chess.
                          

    Your task in this position would be to find the best move for white. If you have followed my annotations of the 1996 FIDE world championship games you should by now be used to Karpov's playing style, so if I told you that Karpov played with white in the position above, it should make your task much easier...
    But before I expand on this subject, let's start with the beginning: the position analysis. What are the important factors we should include in the analysis of this position? Let's begin with the fact that we are equal on material! Then let's go on to white, what can we say about our position?
    Well, we have a relatively okay pawn structure apart from the doubled pawns on the 'g' file, we have a pretty strong knight on d4, our bishop looks better than its black counterpart, and the rook on c1 has better chances of getting inside the black fortress, than black's rook has of getting to e2 for instance. Moving on to black: he has an isolated pawn on d5, but which also happens to be a passed pawn, which we have to keep in mind, because in a pawn endgame for example it could have a decisive importance. I have already mentioned the relative weakness of the bishop and the rook...the knight on the other hand looks a little better: it is defending the d5 pawn and can go to the strong 'e4' position.
    Having in view this concise analysis of the position, that you are absolutely required to do at the board as well, we can say that white seems a little superior. Good! Now we have arrived to the point where we have to choose a plan and the move related with it. A very important point, indeed.
    Well, unfortunately something that is quite common for players of all strengths to do in such positions is to immediately think of ways to attack, to break into black's position. I mean it is pretty obvious we can not play at once 1.Rc7 because of 1...Re1 losing our bishop, but I agree, there are ways we could prepare Rc7...
    So, how do you find the right move in this situation? There are two different thought paths we can take to reach the right decision! One is to have just like Karpov, the habit of checking every single move the possibility of restraining the activity of our opponent's pieces. If you study Karpov's games you will realize that he has gotten so far mostly because of the perfect understanding of almost every single position he finds himself in, and his ability to either place his pieces wonderfully, or make his opponent's pieces life hard by restraining their activity. So, as I said, if you can get yourself (I am still trying myself) to check every single move this idea of putting a fence around one or more of the opposing pieces, you would observe a clear improvement in your games, even if you don't reach Karpov's level...
    Another very useful habit, that players of any strength should have, is to ask this question at every single move: "what does my opponent intend to do?" After all, isn't this why chess is considered such an intelligent game? Because we, chess players, are supposed to always know what our opponent's intentions are. Well, I think it happens to everyone (including myself) that we get caught in the excitement of our own plans and forget to ask this very important question, or ask it but respond only superficially. The reason I have brought up this question, is that in this position black's intention of placing his knight in a more active position is obvious: the rook and the bishop can't improve their situation a lot, but the knight can - by jumping to 'e4'. Knowing this, the right move should be easy: 1.f3

                          

    That's exactly what a prophylactic move should do: prevent something! Now, in this case the move f3 has one more important endgame advantage, which is why I said that you could use 2 thought paths. We all know that in endgames every piece counts, so we always have to think of ways to activate our king. This position is no exception, and a well exercised eye will immediately observe 'd4' as a great king position once the rooks are gone.
    At the same token, we are interested in not letting the black rook come in if we move our knight, or otherwise put, we don't want to have our knight pinned to the e2 square. All these facts should point us either to the passive Kf1 or the better f3. Why is f3 better? Because in chess we're only allowed to move one move at the time, so we have to make each move as useful as possible! So, if a move like f3 does more than one thing, that's even better! And in our case, it certainly does. 1.f3 stops the knight from coming in, which actually transforms the position of the black knight from potentially active into plain passive, and at the same time prepares the perfect f2 square for the king. Before we move, however, we have to check one important disadvantage related with f3: the weakness of the square e3! Every pawn move is bound to make some sort of weakness and f3 is no exception. The question is if it really matters. Well, since the knight or the bishop can't get there, the only other potential customer is the rook. A quick look will show us though that after 1...Re3 2.Kf2 the black rook has to leave the same way it came, without posing the slightest danger. And since Kf2 is our intended next move, we won't have to worry about Re3 anymore. 1.f3 is a typical Karpov move!
    The game continued for another 18 moves before white claimed the victory, but this is the point where the position became clearly better for white, and only 1.f3 could have achieved that. So, you see, prophylactic moves don't have to be passive!
    I.  Keep the best bishop
    II. The problem of isolated pawns
    Without evaluating a specific position, it is difficult to answer this question. If you are under attack, you may need to keep your bishop. However, if you were on the attack, you may very well need to exchange your 'good' bishop for a key defensive piece in your opponents position.
    There is a simple strategic assessment which helps clarify the role your bishops play. Define bishops as either an 'attacking bishop' or a 'defending bishop'. The attacking bishop is used to control space or remove key defenders in your opponents position. The defending bishop is kept close to home and guards weak color complexes in your own position.
    The role to which each bishop is assigned is defined by the pawn structure. A familiar pawn structure in openings have pawns at d4 and g3. With the other pawns on their starting squares, Now there are 4 pawns on dark squares and 3 pawns on the light squares. Consequently, the dark-squared bishop is the attacking bishop while the light-squared bishop is the defending bishop.
    The rule is simple, the attacking bishop is the bishop which travels the colored squares upon which you have placed the majority of your pawns. If you have an equal number of pawns on both the light and dark squares, both bishops are defending!
    When you have determined what roles your bishops are to play, you can better place them. Let's look first at the use of the defending bishop. The role of the defending bishop is to control the weak color complexes in your position. If the majority of pawns are placed on dark-squares, it stands to reason that your light-squares must be controlled by pieces. The defending bishop is well suited to plug holes left in your position by pawn moves.
    Looking at this opening structure with pawns on d4 and g3, you will instinctively place your light-squared bishop on g2. However, the reason you do this is not so clear. Are you placing your bishop at g2 to attack along the a8-h1 diagonal? Or are you placing it there to secure your kingside? Given a particular chess position, you may be able to answer this question. However, more likely you are placing your bishop at g2 to secure the kingside against a middlegame attack while keeping an eye out for tactical opportunities arising on the long diagonal.
    Using the role defined for your bishop by the pawn structure, you will understand the Bg2 is a defensive piece. It controls key attacking squares; namely h3, f3, e4, and d5. This is the primary reason you do not exchange your fianchettoed bishop.
    On the other hand, your opponent likely has the opposite scenario. His pawns are placed on the light square, therefore, his light-squared bishop is attacking. In such a case, remove the defensive bishop fits well into its role. As you will recall, the attacking bishop is used to control space or remove key defenders. The exchange of the fianchetto bishop is a good example of the latter.
    Another common use of the attacking bishop is to pin and/or remove a well placed knight. This actually fits both roles. A well placed knight is both an attacking and defending piece. By pinning the knight, the bishop indirectly controls the squares attacked by that knight. In many cases, the knight is also a key defender. So when the pin is broken, it may be beneficial to remove the knight.
    However, you should first look and see if retreating the bishop to another square allows it to control a number of key squares. If so, then exchanging may not be the best alternative. Which approach is best will depend on the specific position. However, this is summarizing the use of the attacking bishop as annoyance to your opponents position. If you can not annoy your opponent with the attacking bishop, you should seek to exchange it.
    You will find this approach incorporatess the concept of'good' bishop vs. the 'bad' bishop. Once you apply the roles defined above, you will notice that you have less bad bishops and at times two good bishops. In summary, simply follow the roles established for your bishops by the existing pawn structure. You are sure to find success over the board!
    Isolated Pawns
    Understanding pawn play is one of the most important and often most difficult aspects of chess. Consequently, the following is a paraphrase of Drazen Marovic's book "Understanding Pawn Play in Chess", GAMBIT Publishing, 2000.
    ... We have learnt what an uncertain life an isolated pawn leads. The centre characterized by such a pawn-formation, therefore, requires sober evaluation and careful treatment. The position is so sensitive that even small errors, imperceptible to an inexperienced eye, cause grave difficulties. ... each of these central situations, no matter how similar they may seem, is different. A pawn advance on the wing or one piece placed at a different position can change everything. Strict, constantly valid rules how to play these positions remain ... out of reach, no matter how many examples we examine.
    However ... some general guidance can be applied, covering a very large number of possible cases. These general maxims are the only directions we can depend upon. If we absorb them by studying typical cases, if they are a fruit of our analytical work, all the better. So in order to formulate some general advice we can trust ... our simple, practical observations.
    ... there exist two types of central isolated pawns: one movable, aggressive; the other immovable, controlled and blockaded. These cases result in utterly different situations.
    If the breakthrough us possible, as a rule, it releases a remarkable amount of energy, which is manifested in several typical cases:
  • Attack on the opponent's castled position, carried out after direct, combined threats on the diagonals b1- h7 and a2-g8, and often supported by threats on the open e-file
  • Penetration of the king's knight in the footsteps of advancing isolated pawn
  • Transformation of the initiative into a strong, active centralized piece
  • Transformation of the initiative into a better endgame
    • In all these cases, and the record does not leave room for any doubt, the side which successfully prepares and carries out a central thrust achieves a very high percentage of wins. The conclusion is self-evident: a central isolated pawn must be blockaded.
    We have seen that it takes patience, precision in the choice of the move order and sometimes cunning, too, if we wish to be successful. The counter measures against an isolated pawn are concentrated on the full domination over the square in front of the pawn. If such a balance of power is reached in the centre, the side with the isolated pawn will create activity based on his mobile pieces: in the first place a dominant centralized knight, supported by the isolated pawn, or a rook maneuver on the third rank, coupled with bishops exerting pressure on the diagonals towards the opponent's castled position. Note, however, that such activity does not come of itself. As a rule, it is a fruit of better development, a spatial advantage and actively posted pieces.
    The side fighting against an isolated pawn ... must ... simplify the position through exchanges constantly watching that no central thrust is possible. Unquestionable authority over the square in front of the pawn is an imperative.
    Taking all this into consideration, one can ... emphasize ... two crucial maxims.
  • As the side with the isolated pawn, save your pieces; do not exchange them lightly, because an isolated pawn needs company badly. At the same time stay alert to all the possible tactical blows inspired by the breakthrough, even at the cost of making a sacrifice.
  • When playing against the isolated pawn, try to blockade the isolated pawn, concentrating your effort on the strong square in front of it, reduce material (most exchanges are welcome) and try to reach an endgame, because it is not a natural habitat for an isolated pawn and because in endgames, as a rule, it becomes a lame duck, an immovable target.
    • And finally, White or Black, when playing a position characterized by an isolated pawn in the centre, should after each move ask the essential question: can the pawn advance or not? And the next question: what can I do to prepare the breakthrough? Or vice versa, what can I do to stop it for good or make it innocuous?
    During a game much will depend on how seriously you ask these questions and how responsible your answers are. Be responsible.