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Last active July 19, 2024 06:04
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Training for Chess
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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

Resources and General Tips

Openings

Beginners focus too much on this.

King's Indian Defense

black plays 1. Nf6 2. g6 3. Bg7

Dutch Defense:

black plays 1. f4

Narjdorf:

Other resources:

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

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

Play for Stalemate

Tutoring / Courses

Chess 960

Real Games for Example

Novel, Ending in Castling-Checkmate

Books

Chess Puzzles

Frequently focus on:

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

Always look for these first:

  • checks
  • captures
@john-science
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@asimihsan

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

Thanks for that!

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