Play Slower

There is no way to get better at chess fast. Everything takes practice and patience in order to reach perfection. You must avoid playing blitz or bullet too much, especially when you are in the learning phase. The thrill of playing fast games is tempting but then chess becomes more like a video game rather than something that you want to seriously study and play. Before focusing on opening theory, you should have a good understanding of endgame. Do lots of puzzles, this makes you think more tactically; and if you are young, then you'll pick this up relatively quickly. Playing against strong computer opponents is also a great way to improve your tactics. That doesn't mean you shouldn't play with human opponents. And like others said, you have to pay attention in game and try to analyze as much as possible. Don't just always think two or three moves ahead, try to think deep but at the same time you must try to understand which combinations are worth spending time on (it'll come gradually). In addition, analyze your games after you've played them, both your wins and your losses. See what you could have done better. See what your opponent could have done better. Post game analysis is very important in developing your game. A good way to train yourself to get rid of most of the "blindness" that makes you blunder pieces and fail to see simple tactical combinations is to practice solving tactics puzzles. Play online at sites like freechess.org or chess.com, where you can see if your rating is improving or not. In each of the following worth-solving puzzles, Black is to play and enjoy.

Sacrificing Material Successfully

Sacrificing material successfully is one of the most exciting rewards the game of chess can bestow. To play a truly excellent game brings confidence and a true belief in one's own ability. Sometimes we look at the sacrificial masterpieces of the great players in awe. Could we imagine ourselves playing in that grand manner?  Some good trainers can show that we could. Romantic notions aside, the fact is that more sacrifices fail than succeed and especially today, when computing power is at a new level and gambit play is reducing to a very narrow field at master level. The advice to the newcomer to chess is still the same: learn to make combinations and sacrifices early and to let your imagination fly. Some trainers will try to keep to this maxim, but inject a dose of realism at the same time; the realism that modern chess compels us to look out for. The most important thing to understand about sacrificing is that, adhering to the maxim of Steinitz everything is geared to the needs of the position. You have to be able to recognise situations throughout the game where a sacrifice might become possible. Joining with the trainers entering the world of the chess sacrifice will be an exciting journey. In each of the following worth-solving puzzles, Black is to sacrifice material successfully or beautifully and enjoy.

Training and Practice

Training is the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and competencies as a result of the teaching of vocational or practical skills and knowledge that relate to specific useful competencies. Training has specific goals of improving one's capability, capacity, and performance. It forms the core of apprenticeships and provides the backbone of content at institutes of technology; also known as technical colleges or polytechnics. In addition to the basic training required for a trade, occupation or profession, observers of the labor-market recognize the need to continue training beyond initial qualifications: to maintain, upgrade and update skills throughout working life. People within many professions and occupations may refer to this sort of training as professional development.

Practice is the act of rehearsing a behavior over and over, or engaging in an activity again and again, for the purpose of improving or mastering it, as in the phrase "practice makes perfect". Sports teams practice to prepare for actual games. Playing a musical instrument well takes a lot of practice. It is a method of learning and of acquiring experience. In American English practice is used as both a noun and a verb, but in British English there is a distinction between practice, used as a noun, and practise, used as a verb (spelling differences). Sessions scheduled for the purpose of rehearsing and performance improvement are called practices. They are engaged in by sports teams, bands, individuals and similars. "He went to football practice everyday after school," for example.

In each of the following worth-solving puzzles, Black is to play and enjoy.

GM Árnason

Born 13 November 1960, Jón Loftur Árnason is an Icelandic chess grandmaster, three-time national champion, and a successful businessman. Not unlike fellow Scandinavians Simen Agdestein and Magnus Carlsen, Jón Loftur Árnason in his youth was hailed as a potential world champion after a string of startling results. In 1976, while only 15, he tied first in an event for players under 21. The same year, he won an Icelandic open tournament with the outstanding score of 9.5/11. Just a year later, playing in a telex match for Iceland against England, he drew as Black against Jonathan Mestel, an established master. Also in 1977, at Cagnes-sur-Mer, he won the World Under-16 championship, ahead of other distinguished young talents, including Garry Kasparov, before becoming Icelandic champion on the first of three occasions (1977, 1982 and 1988). Shortly thereafter, he accepted an invitation to join the Botvinnik chess school. In 1979, FIDE awarded him the title of International Master. In international competition, he took first at Husavik 1985, Plovdiv 1986 and Helsinki 1986 (shared). 1986 was also the year that FIDE awarded him the International Grandmaster title. In individual encounters with some of the world's best players, he showed that he was always a very dangerous opponent. He defeated world championship contenders and super-grandmasters of the calibre of Short, Korchnoi, Shirov, Adams, Dreev, Vaganian and Larsen. He has also drawn former world champions Petrosian, Smyslov, Tal, Karpov, and Khalifman. Representing the national Olympiad team between 1978 and 1994, he helped Iceland to very respectable 5th and 6th place finishes in 1986 and 1992 respectively. From 1982 onwards, he consistently turned in high scores in this arena. Jón Loftur Árnason ceased playing competitively around 1995, in order to concentrate on his other passion, business and finance. He obtained a Degree in Finance and Accounting from the University of Iceland and embarked on a career that took him to Icelandic dot-com firm Oz Communications Inc., where he was appointed company Secretary and Treasurer. Perhaps due to his elevated position, the company showed an affinity with chess and in 2000, sponsored the prestigious rapid chess@iceland tournament, won by Kasparov ahead of Anand. Jón Loftur Árnason took part, but was by then short of top class practice and finished in last place. Since then, he has continued to play only in a minor capacity, mainly in local team tournaments.

My ChessCube.com Recent Performance

ChessCube.com was founded in 2007 by Mark Levitt, and offers live play, chat, and ChessCube Cinema. In 2009, ChessCube hosted the world's first FIDE-rated online matches played in the SA Open 2009.

Advertising

Engines Detected    :  Successful
Playing Style           :  Enjoy

Performance Rating

A performance rating is a number reflecting the approximate rating level at which a player performed in a particular tournament or match. It is often calculated by adding together the player's performances in each individual game, using the opponent's rating for a draw, adding 400 points to the opponent's rating for a win, and subtracting 400 points from the opponent's rating for a loss, then dividing by the total number of games. For example, a player who beat a 2400-rated player, lost to a 2600, drew a 2500, and beat a 2300, would have a performance rating of 2550 (2800 + 2200 + 2500 + 2700, divided by four).

The Elo System, used by the United States Chess Federation, FIDE, and many other online chess sites, is popular for two reason.  It has been around for a long time, and it is simple. The idea is that given two chess players of different strengths, we should be able to calculate the percentage chance that the better player will win the game. For example, Garry Kasparov has 100 percent chance of beating someone 4-year-old daughter. But he may only have a 60 percent chance of beating another grandmaster. So when playing that other grandmaster, if he wins 6 games out of 10, his rating would stay the same. If he won 7 or more, it would go up, and 5 of less, his rating would go down. Basically, the wider the spread of the ratings, the higher percentage of games the higher rated player is expected to win. So to calculate a person's rating after playing a few games you calculate the average ratings of his opponents, and then how many games he was expected to win, and then plug it into a formula that spits out the new rating. Simple enough. Well, it turns out, that is maybe too simple.

The Glicko System, used by Chess.com, the Australian Chess Federation, and some other online sites, is a more modern approach that builds on some of the concepts above, but uses a more complicated formula. This only makes sense now that we have computers that can calculate this stuff in the blink of an eye - when Elo created his system they were doing it on paper. It is a bit trickier than the Elo system, so pay attention. With the Elo system you have to assume that everyone's rating is just as sure as everyone else's rating. So my rating is as accurate as your rating. But that is just not true. For example, if this is your first game on Chess.com and you start at 1200, how do we really know what your rating is? We don't. But if I have played 1,000 games on this site, you would be much more sure that my current rating is accurate. So the Glicko system gives everyone not only a rating, but an RD, called a Rating Deviation. 

In each of the following worth-solving puzzles, Black is to play and enjoy.

Positional Play

Positional play is dominated by long-term maneuvering for advantage rather than by short-term attacks and threats, and requiring judgment more than extensive calculation of variations, as distinguished from tactics. Some positional players who love to relishe slow improving moves like to keep the pawns and pieces neatly organized and hold off dynamic decisions but do not like messy positions as much. Positional players like to incrementally improve their position and only when they have spent enough time coordinating their pieces do they want to attack or take decisive action in some way. They tend to like positions of a more static nature, with no huge surprises lurking for many moves to come. They are not as comfortable basing their game off of something dynamic and temporary, like a developmental advantage, but would prefer to slowly and safely nurture something more stable and permanent, like an advantage in space, pawn structure, or material. This pretty much describes in terms of preferences. Any good chess player has to ignore their style as much as they can except concerning opening choices and be objective about what they should do in their particular position. Positional play moves to accumulate advantages in their position, such as more space controlled on the board, better pawn structure, greater control of the center and others. The purpose of this is to set things up so an attack against the enemy king can be successfully orchestrated, while thwarting your opponent's efforts to do the same. In each of the following worth-solving puzzles, Black is to play and enjoy.

Kotov Syndrome

Kotov syndrome is a phenomenon, first described by Alexander Kotov, that can occur when a player does not find a good plan after thinking long and hard on a position. The player, under time pressure, then suddenly decides to make a move, often a terrible one which was not analysed properly. In Kotov's 1971 book Think Like a Grandmaster, he described a situation when a player thinks very hard for a long time in a complicated position but does not find a clear path, then running low on time quickly makes a poor move, often a blunder. The term has been applied to similar non-chess situations, and is the title of a song on the album Appeal to Reason (7 October 2008) by the Punk Rock band Rise Against. In each of the following worth-solving puzzles, Black is to play and enjoy. Avoid Kotov Syndrome if possible.

Hedgehog

In chess, the Hedgehog is a pawn formation adopted usually by Black that can arise from several openings. Black exchanges his pawn on c5 for White's pawn on d4, and then places pawns on squares a6, b6, d6, and e6. These pawns form a row of spines behind which Black develops his forces. Typically, the bishops are placed on b7 and e7, knights on d7 and f6, queen on c7, and rooks on c8 and e8 (or c8 and d8). Although Black's position is cramped, it has great latent energy, which may be released if Black is able to play ...b5 or ...d5 at some point. These pawn breaks are particularly effective because White usually places his own pawns on c4 and e4 (the Maróczy Bind).


Black Manoeuvring

Once the basic Hedgehog structure is in place, and depending on how White responds, Black has various ways of reorganizing his pieces. The knight on d7 often hops to c5, where it attacks a white pawn on e4; or to e5, where it attacks a pawn on c4. The knight on f6 can go to e8 (when Black placed his rook on d8) to defend the d6 pawn, or to d7 or even to h5, if unoccupied. The black queen can be moved to b8 (unmasking the rook on c8 and perhaps supporting ...b5) or a8 (eyeing d5). A rook placed on d8 serves to defend the d6 pawn and support its push to d5. Sometimes Black plays ...Bf8, ...g6, and ...Bg7 (or more simply ...Bf6 if f6 is vacant) to exert some influence over d4. Or the same bishop can be brought to c7 (via d8) to target White's kingside (in conjunction with a queen on b8). There are also situations where Black can create a kingside attack, by playing ...Kh8, ...Rg8, and ...g5, often followed by doubling rooks on the g-file and pushing the g-pawn to g4.

Traditional chess strategy would have frowned upon Black's setup, since his pieces have little room in which to manoeuvre. In the early 1970s, hedgehog was a generic term for any setup that was cramped, defensive and difficult to attack, but today refers specifically to this formation. The Hedgehog first became extensively analysed in the 1970s, when players began to appreciate the rich variety of strategic ideas that arose from it. While Black's position is cramped, it is also relatively free of weaknesses. There is no obvious way for White to attack Black's pawn structure, but as outlined above, Black has several methods at his disposal for creating counterplay. Thus the Hedgehog has retained its popularity as a system of development in modern praxis.

Counterplay

A counterplay is an active maneuvering by the player in an inferior or defensive position. A counterplay is also a chance you get to fight back and start stirring up trouble for your opponent later on. Depending on when you see the term used it could mean a variaty of things. But almost in any case it will refer to someone who is considered to be losing, has a worse position or has a more passive position and is going to try to stir up some trouble for the opponent. From another meaning, a counterplay is an attack that is intended to counter the opponent's advantage in another part of the board. In each of the following worth-solving puzzles, Black is to play and enjoy.

Physical Training

There was a story that the legendary former world chess champion GM Bobby Fischer prepared for a chess match the way football players do. He even wanted to work on his wrists, with a goal of squeezing 100 pounds using his palms. He played tennis (with GM Eugene Torre as his partner), and indudge in the pool for extended time, even late at night. 

A source told that GM Eugene regularly visits a gym somewhere in Libis, Quezon City to maintain his physique; a self-discipline beyond compare. At the age of 59, GM Torre served as the cornerstone of the Philippine Men's Team that won the historic Silver Medal for the country in the 2010 Southeast Asian Games. 

In his 1985 world championship match against GM Anatoloy Karpov, GM Garry Kasparov trained like he had to fight Mike Tyson in the ring. He went running barefoot on beach shore. He also regularly engaged in swimming at sea in addition to cycling and football. 

Sixth world chess champ GM Max Euwe did a lot of cycling and shadowboxing. 

GM Vladimir Kramnik called GM Mikhail Botvinnik the first true professional in chess, becuase of the inclusion of physical training in his preparation. Let's listen to Kramnik: "Botvinnik definitely represented a new era in chess. I would call him the first true professional. He was the first to realise that chess performance was not only dependent on chess skills. He developed comprehensive preparation for competitions which consisted of opening studies along with healthy sleep, daily routine and physical exercises. He was a pioneer in this field." 

Women know it, too. Former women world chess champ GM Alexandra Kosteniuk even participated in a 5K marathon which she finished in only 22 minutes and 42 seconds. She loves regular jogging and recommends it to chess players who want to have a good balance between chess training and physical conditioning. In a game, GM Kosteniuk showed why physical training is a must in competitive chess. In the game, she  needed to do a marathon over the board, a game that lasted for 237 moves. 

In each of the following worth-solving puzzles, Black is to play and enjoy.

Planning and Chess

Planning (also called forethought) is the process of thinking about and organizing the activities required to achieve a desired goal. Planning involves the creation and maintenance of a plan. As such, planning is a fundamental property of intelligent behavior. This thought process is essential to the creation and refinement of a plan, or integration of it with other plans; that is, it combines forecasting of developments with the preparation of scenarios of how to react to them. An important, albeit often ignored aspect of planning, is the relationship it holds with forecasting. Forecasting can be described as predicting what the future will look like, whereas planning predicts what the future should look like. The counterpart to planning is spontaneous order.

In playing or studying chess, it is very important to remember there are two players in the game and watch out for your partner’s activities. If his threats are superior to yours, you should neutralize his plan first and only then, when there is no danger, perform your own plan. For instance, you are attacking the enemy’s king, and he or she comes back with a mighty counter-attack in the center. His or her counterattack looks very dangerous, so you have to switch your attention and forces to neutralizing it and only then proceed with your own ideas. Or, on the contrary, there are some quiet positions when both partners have a lot of time to improve the location of the pieces. You may go on with your plan, but also still keep your opponent’s actions in mind. During the game the position and its evaluation usually changes a few times. New opportunities and threats appear. One should react adequately and modify his or her plans in accordance with the changes.

In each of the following worth-solving puzzles, Black is to play and enjoy. The hints are at the end of this post.

Selected hints : exd4, g6, dxe5, Bb7.

Seirawan’s Advice

Seirawan used to replay his games and write down the thoughts that he had during the game. So not only variations but the ideas and plans behind his moves. After doing this he replayed the game again but this time together with a stronger player. This stronger player or coach showed him alternative plans an ideas. By doing this Seirawan enlarged his tool kit of chess thinking. In Seirawan’s vision if we use this method consistently you simply can’t go wrong. Your level of play will increase as your insight in the game will grow. The interesting thing about Seirawan’s advice is that he is not just telling us to analyse our own games, like everybody says, but also emphasizing that chess is above all about ideas and plans. Knowing how to make plan and discovering new ways to approach a position is a great key to chess improvement. In each of the following worth-solving Smith-Morra puzzles, Black is to play and enjoy. The hints are at the end of this post.

Selected hints : Bxd5, Nxe5, Nd5, Bg7.

Become a Grandmaster

Someone who wants to become a grandmaster must dedicate many hours every day for study and constantly participate in strong tournaments. During the night they usually dream chess positions and opening variants. They must have a fantastic memory and nerves of steel. They also need a partner for study and training of at least the same level. The hobby becomes a passion and the training becomes a way of living. It is a great hobby for all of us. The path to improvement is more fun than the result. Chess is a great hobby, no matter your rank as you always compete against people of the about the same level as you. Your hobby is highly intellectual; it keeps your mind active and healthy. And as it is so complex, every step you make forward to understand it better, to discover its secrets, will bring you more joy and reveal more of the game’s beauty.

In each of the following worth-solving puzzles, Black is to play and enjoy. The hints are at the end of this post.

Selected hints : Nxd2, Qd2, Kf8, Qe4.

GM Hansen

Curt Hansen, born September 18, 1964 in Bov, Sønderjylland, is a Danish chess grandmaster and a former World Junior Champion. A strong junior player, he had major successes in international youth competitions, commencing with the then Groningen based European Junior Chess Championship, where he finished first in 1982 and second in 1983. The following year, he became the World Junior Champion in Kiljava, ahead of Alexei Dreev and was awarded the International Master title. In 1985, he became a grandmaster after earning the necessary norms. In domestic chess, he succeeded Bent Larsen as Denmark's strongest player and between 1983 and 2000, won the Danish Championship six times. By 1992, his rating had reached the 2600 mark and later the same year rose to 2635, giving him his best ever ranking amongst the World's best players, a share of 14th place on the FIDE list. Hansen has represented his country five times at the Olympiad between 1984 and 2000, always playing first board and always scoring in excess of 50%. His list of International tournament successes includes outright or shared first places at Borgarnes 1984, Vejstrup 1989 (Politiken Cup), Groningen 1991, Tastrup 1992, Aalborg 1994, Vejle 1994, Malmö 1994 and Reykjavík Zonal 1995. As of the November 2009 FIDE list, he had an Elo rating of 2619, making him Denmark's second-ranking player, although he has rarely played since 2006.

In each of the following worth-solving puzzles, Black is to play and enjoy. The hints are at the end of this post.

Selected hints : c6, c6, Rd2, Rxf7.