My current goals:
- Go through my checklist before EVERY move.
- Stop playing hope chess: if you can find a single weakness in an idea, abandon it and find a new idea.
Before I move, every single time, I should first check the entire board for:
- Checks
- Captures
- Attacks
These three need to be applied to my side and my opponents side.
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
- 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
- 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
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
Dutch Defense:
black plays 1. f4
Narjdorf:
Other resources:
- Advanced French
- Caro Kahn
- Danish Gambit
- Evan's Gambit
- King's Indian
- London System
- Scandi
- Sicilian Defense
- Vienna Gambit
- Alapin Sicilian
- Caro Kahn
- Closed Sicilian
- Evan's Gambit
- Grand Prix
- King's Indian
- Queen's Gambit
- Ruy Lopez
- Sicilian Defense
- Vienna Gambit
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
- 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
- Eric Rosen vs DimonZh - 2021
Frequently focus on:
- forks
- going up the exchange
- forced checkmates
- pins
- piece sacrifices
Always look for these first:
- checks
- captures
@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.