How To Get Better At Chess

If you are just getting to know chess or maybe you have been playing against other people in your club or online for a while, surely you have asked yourself the question, how to get better at chess? That's why in this guide we are going to answer this question with practical tips so you can improve your level. No matter if you are a beginner player just entering this wonderful world or a much more experienced player who wants to increase your understanding in chess.

Before knowing the practical tips we recommend you to visit our articles with the best practices you can do according to your level - For beginner players - For intermediate players

How to get better at chess

If you follow the following tips we assure you that you will raise your level no matter what it is.

Become Sherlock Holmes

Every move of your opponent has a hidden idea, plan or threat, which we must discover and make a decision what to do about it.

If it is a threat that can damage our pieces and plans, what we must do is avoid it, making moves that do not allow your opponent to execute that move.

Black's last move was 1… Be6.

Now we should ask ourselves the question, what is my opponent's idea behind his move?

After a short time of reflection we will realize that our opponent's threat is to play Bb4 attacking our queen and once we move it so that it is not captured, the bishop would capture our rook on the e1 square leaving the black pieces with a lot of advantage.

Once we have identified the threat we have to find a way to prevent it from being executed.

In this case we have some options, which would be to move the rook so that it is not attacked after moving our queen, move our queen first so that we can move the rook when it is threatened or prevent the black bishop from reaching the square b4 with the move 2. a3 (we move our pawn to the square a3).

A professional player of the past who was a specialist and even managed to conquer the world chess championship by playing this way was Petrosian. He avoided the ideas and plans of his opponents, while advancing his own plans.

Check your moves before you make them

Before you make a move, you have to check that it is not a mistake. You have to ask yourself the following question: How can my opponent answer me?

You should not make the mistake of playing intuitively (playing the first move that comes to your mind).

If you have the discipline to stop and check your moves, even for a few seconds, I can assure you that you will save yourself many defeats just by asking yourself that simple question and if you add it to the previous point and try to find out your opponent's plans, I assure you that you will be like an impenetrable wall.

See all options

The most experienced chess masters and players have one quality in common, and that is that they do not stick with just one move or plan to play, but first collect all the possible plans for the position and then make a decision on which one to play, depending on what position they themselves wish to have or whether they want something more tactical or positional.

So before you start calculating moves or making your move, it is better to see what all your options are at that moment, so you can choose what kind of positions to take the game towards.

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