hi guys, recently i became part of my schools chess team, and i am under huge pressure and obligation to make the "A" team in my club which is comprised of people of ratings between 1850-2500 Uscf
there is one spot left in this team, and the best player of the school tournament gets that spot, i am tied for first currently and the tie break is next week, can you guys tell me ways to improve my chess? not necessarily in a week of time, but over the course of the years.
p.s. please dont be vague by saying stuff like tactics or endgames or openings, please help me out by being more specific
If you don't want to learn tactics, endgames and openings how do you expect to improve? Those are key aspects of the game. I don't see how you're gonna get better without them.
He didn't say that he didn't want to learn tactics, endgames, and openings.
Do you have records of the other contender's games (perhaps his/her games in the current tournament)? You could study those and look for any particular weaknesses or opening preferences you can exploit.
You cant massively improve in a week. But if I could tell you to do one thing it would be to find out what your weakness is in your games currently. I took a brief look at some of your games and one thing I noticed is that you sort of dogmatically develop and castle without too much reason behind the moves. Something you can work on in that time is to develop with more logic or develop to put some pressure on your opponent and not just for the sake of development. Also simple stuff is missed that can be corrected more or less with lots of thinking about LPDO and tactics training. Loose pieces drop off rule. If a piece in your camp is not defended you should defend it before doing stuff then you wont blunder it to tactics. Also keep your majors (king queen and rooks) off of the same colored square to avoid forks. Whenever a knight or bishop forks your stuff its because all your stuff is on the same color.
en.lichess.org/6XCldM4len.lichess.org/zNjPtNQAHere is a good example of LPDO in your games.
en.lichess.org/EXFUB6yy#15for example 9. Nf3 (the incorrect move.) Nh3 is what bobby fischer played in this position and what the best or book move is. after Nf3 then black can play the annoying move e4 and if the knight for example goes forward to e5 then a queen forks the two loose pieces.
Hope that helped and good luck on making the team! Also I sent you a PM with some additional stuff if you want to check that out as well.
There is a known and checked way to get better.
- Play games with classical time control or rapid chess. Blitz or bullet is mostly just for fun.
- Analyze each game with classical time and some rapid chess game with someone else, best a trainer. If you can't afford a trainer take someone being stronger from your club.
As they give the spot in the team to a youth player winning the school tournament there must be some interest in helping young players to get stronger.
- There's a great method recommended by Aagaard in his training series of the Quality Chess blog. Note your four weakest spots. Train on them or one of them. If you become stronger there make a new list. There will be other points for improvement after some time.
B.e.: You blunder pieces. You train to see opponents attacks before moving. You recognize now, that mostly double attacks from rooks are the weak spot atm. You collect one hundred rook double attacks from your games and from collections of tactics. You solve these positions three times or four times till you know them when looking at the diagrams. Now blundering pieces under rooks double attack will disapear and a now problem will be more urgent. Go on with this problem.
- Don't expect miracles. A really talented player can gain about 100 rating points per year. But this isn't a straight line. You will have good and bad tournaments.
- Most important! Training must be fun. Else you will not keep it. 2nd important! Four times 15 min to 20 min on different days in the week helps more than once 2 hours.
3rd important! Live is to short to read bad chess books. Ask around. There are a lot of good books out today. But it's a matter of taste too. What I like may be boring for you.
Good luck!
I like your ideas, jupp53! And chessanalyst's advices are also nice.
Play several hours every day for a year or two.
When you lose, always ask for rematch and try harder the next game.
If you are playing against a better opponent try to last longer than you did the last game or try to make it a closer game than the last one was.
Improving in chess is all about the will to improve. You also need to love the game to put in the hours. But to improve you need a mentality of never giving up, you need to lose for years and still always want a rematch.
It's like learning to walk, how many times did you fall and still kept trying? That is the energy you need to use!
How you learn over the years is not so important, everybody has their own way of learning, but if you play every day and never give up, there is no limit to what you can achieve.
Prepare for your opponents openings, play some training games with the same time control. A day or two before the tie break, dont do any chess. Instead go into the sun and relax.
During the game, say to yourself every move: The game just started. No hurry, just good moves.
If the time control allows it, ask yourself before every move you make: What would i answer to this move if i was my opponent? Calculate his options while he thinks.
If you have to choose between giving a pawn and giving an exchange, give the exchange.
