Hello everyone, I'm a beginner and I practiced on tactics and checkmates.
But I'm still not good at some chapters such as "Queen VS rook"or"knight&bishop mate".
I play games everyday and do some puzzles as well, it used to work, but I think I made little progress these days.
Could you give me some advice on how to improve my skills step by step?
I think the "study" part will be useful, but I don't know what to learn first. I also plan to buy some books, but don't kwon which part to buy, opening? tactics? endgames?......
Anyway, I'm really confused now.
Master your board vision. This applies to pretty much all beginners. You'll see steady improvement until about the 1600 elo level. It's the fastest way to improve and a necessary step before you can play with complex strategy, openings, endgames, or deep calculations.
By "board vision", I mean that you should always know exactly which squares every single piece on the board can move to. If you ever have a situation where your opponent captures a piece you didn't know they could capture, your board vision isn't good enough (No one actually has perfect board vision. Even Kramnik missed mate in one once. However, your board vision should be reliable enough that this doesn't happen on a regular basis). A good exercise is to, whenever you see a board, whether it's in puzzles, studies, or your games, spot out every single legal capture available.
If you like to learn through videos, I'd recommend GM Ben Finegold. He's pretty good at teaching beginners these sort of fundamental skills.
After you've mastered board vision, your path to improvement will become more subjective, and there will be no catch-all advice just based on your rating. You'll have to start analyzing your games for different motifs.
Read chess and practice chess. Everybody gets a point where rating doesn't rise at all. Same is here. Focus on your weaknesses. On lichess, your improvement areas and strengths are shown according to how good you solve puzzles. Focus on the improvement areas but do focus on strengths as well though a little less than improvement areas. See your game insights which you can find in your profile. Also analyse all your games and see where you made mistakes.
@coffeeorzzZ said in #1:
> ... I'm still not good at some chapters such as "Queen VS rook"or"knight&bishop mate".
It appears to me that the late IM Silman would have suggested that you do not need to read past page 54 in Silman's Complete Endgame Course. You can see up to page 58 for free at
www.amazon.com/Silmans-Complete-Endgame-Course-Beginner/dp/1890085103?asin=B00H273OJS&revisi5a3244f2&format=2&depth=1 .
> I play games everyday ...
In the 10+0 game
lichess.org/wmkQEjAoafter 1 Nf3 d5 2 d4 f6 3 h3 Bf5 4 e3 Be4 5 Nfd2 e5 6 f3 Bg6 7 Bb5+ Nc6 8 Bxc6+ bxc6 9 f4 e4 10 Nb3 Bb4+ 11 Bd2 Bd6 12 Qg4 Ne7 13 Nc3 Nf5 14 O-O-O Qd7 15 Rhf1 c5 16 Na4 O-O 17 dxc5 Be7 18 Nd4 Qxa4 19 Kb1, if you had thought for more than ~8 seconds, do you think that you might have played 19...Nxd4 instead of 19...Rab8 ?
“... You need a game slow enough so that for most of the game you have time to consider all your candidate moves ... Many internet players are reluctant to play slower than 30 5 [(30 minutes with a five second increment added every move)] so you might have to settle for that as a 'slow' game." - NM Dan Heisman (2002)
web.archive.org/web/20140627010008/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman12.pdf> ... I don't know what to learn first. I also plan to buy some books, but don't kwon which part to buy, opening? tactics? endgames?...... ...
"... Logical Chess [(Batsford edition by Chernev)] ... a collection of 33 games ... is definitely for beginners and players who are just starting to learn about development, weak squares, the centre, standard attacking ideas, and the like. In many ways, it would [be] a wonderful 'first' book (or first 'serious' book, after the ones which teach the rules and elementary mates, for example), and a nice gift for a young player just taking up chess. ..." - IM John Watson (1999)
theweekinchess.com/john-watson-reviews/assorted-recent-bookswww.amazon.com/Logical-Chess-Every-Explained-Algebraic/dp/0713484640?asin=0713484640&revisi&format=4&depth=1 - I suggest the "Chess Fundamentals" 1 and 2 from John Bertholomew on YouTube.
- Study your games to find the most recurring error and find the solution to diminish it.
Play a lot of chess
Consume chess content frequently
Practice puzzles with puzzle storm
Have fun
Thank you very much!
I read all your advice and I'm recently changing my ways of playing and learning, but I guess it will take some time to see my progress since I have to learn something else as well.
\ O v O` you guys are so nice! Have fun, too!
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@coffeeorzzZ said in #1:
> But I'm still not good at some chapters such as "Queen VS rook"or"knight&bishop mate".
Those offer probably the lowest return of investment possible. I recently defended against B+N in a classical OTB, and my opponent managed to win only after going wrong several times, it was almost a draw (albeit starting with the king already in the wrong corner). And that was 1900+ FIDE... and you get those really rarely.
Focus on things that matter more. More tactical patterns, strategic ideas, how to think and calculate, etc.
In my opinion, at your level there are two areas in which an improvement will see the greatest payoff-
1. Accuracy in calculation
You already know some tactics, but are you finding them in your own games? Or seeing your opponent's threats? And not making blunders? No need to calculate deeply, just a few moves but be aware of the candidate moves and ideas for both sides.
The road to improvement- practice your calculation skills, play through books with entire games rather than fragments, watch live tournaments, think what you'd play and use the engine to see if it's reasonable.
2. Strategic assessment
How do you get those winning positions from the openings you play? This needs a strategic understanding of their principles and what the middlegame plans are for both sides.
The road to improvement - find opening books that explain the principles at a basic level. Like the everyoman 'starting out' series and there are many others.
