Training for Chess

chess_training.md

Chess Training

My current goals:

1. Go through my checklist before EVERY move.
2. Stop playing hope chess: if you can find a single weakness in an idea, abandon it and find a new idea.

The Checklist

Before I move, every single time, I should first check the entire board for:

1. Checks
2. Captures
3. Attacks

These three need to be applied to my side and my opponents side.

General Beginner Advice for the Opening

DO

• control the center of the board
• try to bring out your nights and bishops first
• connect your rooks
• castle your king

Don't

• don't move the same piece twice before your four opening pieces are out
• bring your queen out early
• make too many pawn moves

Beginner Advice

• Don't play Hope Chess: make moves that support some idea
• Don't trade for fun
  • Only make a trade that provides good numbers, or good positioning

Learning Strategies

• How to Get Good at Chess Fast - blog from small-time teacher who has improved his own game significantly.
• On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years

Resources and General Tips

• Reddit Chess resources
• Magnus Carlsen's 5 Tips for Beginners
• Lichess Studies
  • So Many Traps

Openings

Beginners focus too much on this.

• For White: the London System
• For Black: King's Fianchetto Opening??

King's Indian Defense

black plays 1. Nf6 2. g6 3. Bg7

• Hanging Pawn's YouTube series

Dutch Defense:

black plays 1. f4

• Hanging Pawns on YouTube

Narjdorf:

• Ecosia search

Other resources:

• Chess.com blob - Opening Principles

Suggested Beginner Openings

• Advanced French
• Caro Kahn
• Danish Gambit
• Evan's Gambit
• King's Indian
• London System
• Scandi
• Sicilian Defense
• Vienna Gambit

Suggested Intermediate Openings

• Alapin Sicilian
• Caro Kahn
• Closed Sicilian
• Evan's Gambit
• Grand Prix
• King's Indian
• Queen's Gambit
• Ruy Lopez
• Sicilian Defense
• Vienna Gambit

Vision - Board Coordinates

• lichess coordiante naming practice
• chess.com's less good coordinate naming practice

Chess.com has some training tutorials called "vision", but those only train the names of the board coordinates.

This paper recommends training your vision daily at the beginning:

• 14 days visualizing forks and skewers
• 14 days visualizing knights and how they move

Visualization - Seeing Moves Ahead

• This Great YouTube Series
• Here are some famous chess games to try it on

Play for Stalemate

• Chess.com - The Art of Playing for Stalemate
• The Fortress Technique
• Quora.com - Top Answer is Good

Tutoring / Courses

• GothamChess

Chess 960

• Good 4-part blog on chess.com
• Opening Principles - with NM Caleb Denby
  • look for opening weaknesses
  • target a piece to keep it from developing

Real Games for Example

Novel, Ending in Castling-Checkmate

• Eric Rosen vs DimonZh - 2021

Books

• Good Beginner Chess Books
• Chess Tactics Explained - online book
• Silman’s Complete Endgame Course

Chess Puzzles

• A few, free daily puzzles on chess.com
• lichess puzzles

Frequently focus on:

• forks
• going up the exchange
• forced checkmates
• pins
• piece sacrifices

Always look for these first:

• checks
• captures

I'm an adult chess learner, trying to pick up chess. You can contact me via https://asim.ihsan.io/contact/.

I'm an adult chess learner, trying to pick up chess. You can contact me via https://asim.ihsan.io/contact/.

@asimihsan I'd love to get back into learning chess! I need a month or two though, to get through some family obligations.

I'm not a very competitive person, but I find chess quite intriguing. So far, I like the Chess 960 variation a lot, as it means I'm at less of a disadvantage for not having a decade of memorizing openings.

I'm not a very competitive person, but I find chess quite intriguing.

I'm also not competitive and playing against real people gives me a bit of anxiety! But I'm trying to stick to one quick game a day.

So far, I like the Chess 960 variation a lot, as it means I'm at less of a disadvantage for not having a decade of memorizing openings.

Hah, I've taken the opposite approach and dove head first into the memorization. It isn't going well! I'm using https://chessmadra.com/openings/ but already I've attempted to memorize too many lines and they're not sticking.

Other things I'm doing to get back into chess:

• Doing a few Lichess puzzles a day, including a puzzle storm a day: https://lichess.org/training
• Doing a few Chess.com puzzles a day, including the puzzle rush: https://www.chess.com/puzzles
• Subscribed to Aimchess: https://aimchess.com/. It's OK but I'm not convinced the puzzles are better than the Lichess puzzles.
• Trying to go through How to Reassess Your Chess. I haven't been consistent.
• Summoning the courage to play at least one Blitz or Rapid game a day!

Whenever I get into a topic I like dipping my toe into whatever research is being done in the field. Some things of interest

• Maia, a human-like chess engine. They train LC0 on moves for particular ratings. When I play the Maia Chess 1100 bot on Lichess I feel like it is quite human like. I was really impressed by this example but when I reproduce it locally I can't find any interesting moves like they do.
• Acquisition of chess knowledge in AlphaZero was a fun read.

Hope you get time soon, I'll practice Chess 960 and let me know in a few months if you'd like a game.

@asimihsan I am nerd-core on chess.com, if you are interested.

Thanks for the links to various places I could do chess puzzles online. I see that you can do nearly infinite puzzles on chess.com, if you pay for an account. I just started getting back into doing the 3 free puzzles they give you every day.

Have you had a chance to play Chess 960 yet? I've been playing a couple games where everyone gets 1-7 days per move, which is a slow enough game that I can fit it in to even a Very Busy workday.

Mostly, what I like about Chess 960 is it feels more like pure chess. It's all tactics, and no memorization. I really like that. But I'm sure people that play 12 games a day still have a huge disadvantage over me. So no system is perfect.

@asimihsan

I really like https://lichess.org/training , I hadn't seen that before.

Thanks for that!