Understanding Improvement and Elements of Chess Strength

Before you can learn about improvement  you need to know what factors constitute “playing strength”: the main components are innate skills and (acquired) knowledge. Innate skills include not only the familiar mental ones we associate with chess, such as spatial relations, deductive logic, and long-term memory, but also “non-intelligence” mental and physical skills such as perseverance, will-to-win, stamina, etc.
Knowledge is gained via theory and practice. Knowledge through informal or formal play becomes experience. Theory is acquired in different ways: hiring a chess instructor, reading a chess book, stamina watching a video, having a computer analyze your game, or reading a web site. While it is obvious that you can enhance your knowledge much easier than you can enhance an innate skill, there are some aspects of your play that are commonly branded skill, when actually they are a combination of skill and knowledge, and thus also can be enhanced. For example, time management,may seem like a skill, but it is primarily acquired
through experience (knowledge). For example, your experience provides information such as how many moves are likely to be played, the predicted complexity of upcoming moves, which moves require
how much attention given the time control, and how well you play when short of time.

Another example of a perceived “skill” that is a combination of skill and knowledge is the “thinking process” that you use to determine your move. It requires your knowledge of what you are trying to do and how to do it, plus the use of your mental skills, such as deduction and spatial relationships. Very few chessplayers are originally taught any way to think, much less a good way.
There are only a few good books about the thinking process. The granddaddy of them all is Adrian DeGroot’s magnificent (but out of print) Thought and Choice in Chess, a thesis-like study about how players arrive at their move. On a more practical scale is the well-known Think Like A Grandmaster by GM Alexander Kotov. More recently super-instructor GMs Mark Dvoretsky and Artur Yusupov addressed this subject in the first three chapters of their book Attack and Defense. Finally, Chess Café article, The Secret of Real Chess.



What attributes does it take to become a good chess player?

1. The Work is Fun – This means the ability to absorb chess theory and knowledge through books, practice etc. in a great volume over a long period of time. Einstein had lots of #3 below, but his friend Lasker was the great player because of #1. To Einstein, discussing “time” was more fun. This is also why perseverance is not higher on this list: if the work is fun, it is easy to persevere; if it is not, you are never going to persevere so much that you can be a really good player. For lots of players, acquiring knowledge through practicing is fun, but acquiring theory through work is quite another story.


2. The Ability to Tolerate Losing Just Right – Losing does not bother you so little that you don’t care and keep making the same mistakes, but not so much that you are paralyzed by losses. The best is in-between: the ability to keep losing while simultaneously learning how not to repeat your mistakes.

3. Mental Abilities – Spatial relationships, deductive logic, memory, etc.
Obviously, perseverance, will-to-win, stamina, and other attributes are also high on this list. You can always learn a good thinking process or a good way to combat a gambit, but the above three are hard to overcome if you don’t naturally possess them.


From all of the above, we can conclude that in order to increase your playing strength, someone must recognize your current capability in each element that constitutes that playing strength, identify specific
weaknesses (I use the term “weakness” to mean an element that needs improvement), and then you must concentrate on improving areas of weakness which are most easily improvable and also most beneficial. In future columns I will take up many of the above aspects of improvement individually, with examples and suggestions. This month I want to overview what in general you need to do to achieve efficient improvement:

1. Identify your weaknesses.Most weaker players cannot possibly do this from reading books, but they try. Even if they are very bright, they might be either not objective, or too likely to believe that this particular book has “the answer.” A competent chess instructor should be able to do this for you, even if you are not taking consistent lessons from him. It is easy for me to say that 99% of players who will be using this column need, as a minimum, to consistently do tactical exercises to increase both their recognition of tactical patterns and enhance their calculating “ability.” However, there are many other factors that vary from individual to individual.

2. Learn a competent thinking method.
No sense spending a lot of time on other factors if, during a game, you don’t know what you should be looking for and how to efficiently find it. A good thinking method does not have to be done rigidly, but some
efficient and logical method should be understood and practiced so hat you have a chance to get better.

3. Come up with a way to input theory (that addresses your weaknesses) so that the work is fun.
 If you like books, read books. If videos are more interesting, buy them instead. If you like people helping you and  respond better to vocal information, hire an instructor; but as IM and author Jeremy Silman humorously but correctly wrote in Chess Life, “If you can’t take (constructive) criticism, consider taking up another game, perhaps solitaire.” (!) Of course having a good instructor has one big advantage: he can look at your play and see what is wrong. As stated in #1, it isn’t easy to do this for yourself.

4. Practice and play as much as you can.
Don’t worry about your USCF or Internet Rating (besides, it may be going down because of inflation even if you get better!). If you play a game and learn something, then you are better; the more you learn, the better you are. Since you cannot practice good thinking techniques and learn to burn patterns into your long-term memory in fast games, most practice time should be in slow games (on the Internet, at least give yourself 30 minutes); use fast games to practice openings or to relax once in a while, not as a steady diet. I always tell my students, “The world’s best fast players are also for the most part the world’s best slow players, and they learned to play well by playing slow games!”

5. Use your practice to focus on immediate problem areas
After you finish your game, make sure to try and identify where you went wrong and see if you can do  something about it. For example, if you are in an opening line that you don’t know, look it up in Nunn’sChess Openings or Modern Chess Openings-14. Or go over your game with a chess program like Fritz or ChessMaster 10000 and if you made a tactical mistake such as missing a basic “removal of the guard”, then
for your next tactical study session go over that motif in a basic tactics book like John Bain’s Chess Tactics for Students or Al Wollum’s The Chess Tactics Workbook.

6. Have the open-mindedness to accept your weaknesses so you can enhance those areas.
 Many weaker students make the same mistake dozens, if not hundreds of times even though they know it is a mistake because they are either too stubborn to admit to themselves they are wrong or not willing to pay the price (in work or ego) to make the adjustment.

7. Have reasonable expectations
Potential students who contact me and say “I am 1200 and I am willing to work hard. My goal is to be an expert (a rating of 2000) in a year.” are being unrealistic. I tell them that any chess coach who promises this (or any other fantastic improvement) to you should not be trusted. Gaining even 200 points in rating in one year is a wonderful accomplishment for a working adult. Unrealistic goals lead to frustration and possibly even anger, so be patient.

Dan Heisman.(2001)

When You're Winning, It's a Whole Different Game

When you lose your fear of a rating, you can become that rating.



One of the most common problems beginning chess players have is 

that they do not know how to win when they are “up” a large amount 

of material. By this is meant that they are ahead at least the exchange 

(rook for bishop or knight) or more, and their opponent has no 

compensation. Even when they are ahead a full piece (bishop or 

knight), they often still do not understand how to capitalize on such a 

large advantage and give it all away.

Very few chess books contain much information on how to win when 

you are up a piece. That is because it is supposed to be “easy” and 

“common sense”, but unfortunately many players have never been 

taught this common sense, and therefore they draw or even lose what 

should be easily won positions. Moreover, when strong players fall 

clearly way behind against other strong players, they almost always 

resign since they know their strong opponents inevitable will win. 

However, weaker players spend a fairly high percentage of their  games 

trying to win won positions, so knowing the “technique” of how to 

play such positions is important.

1. Think defense first!
This does NOT mean play passively or not to consider offense. I also 

believe that “think defense first” does not mean the same as “play 

defensively”.

“Think defense first” simply means that the more you are ahead, the 

more likely it is that any reasonable plan of yours will win so long as 

you do not let your opponent win back material or generate an 

enormous attack. Therefore, HIS moves become MORE 

IMPORTANT than yours!

The further ahead you are, the less important your attack is and the 

more important your opponent’s threats become. Looking for which 

checks, captures, and threats he has is more critical than looking for 

the ones you have. So long as you do anything reasonable you can 

always win later with your superior force, but if you give that force 

away carelessly, you no longer have the superiority with which to win. 

Therefore, immediately after your opponent moves, take the time to 

ask yourself those questions you should always ask anyway:

a) Is his moved piece safe?
b) Why did he make that move?
c) What can he do to me now that he could not do to me before? 

(And what can he not do? For example, his moved piece may no 

longer be guarding something)

d) What checks, captures, and threats does he have next move if I 

don’t stop them? In other words, say to yourself, “Suppose I pass 

and make no move. If I were he, after that pass what move would I 

make next?”

Any candidate move you select which does not meet your opponent’s 

threats should likely be discarded.

2. Avoid The Seeds of Tactical Destruction

The Seeds of Tactical Destruction are piece patterns (discussed in

detail in a prior Novice Nook column) that lend themselves to a tactic

for the opponent, such as:

a) Loose, unguarded pieces (LPDO: Loose Pieces Drop Off),

b) Pieces on the same file, rank, and diagonal that are pinnable or skewerable,

c) A weak back rank or weak squares around the king with the queens on the board,

d) Pieces that can be forked by pawns or knights,

e) Under-protected pieces,

f) Overworked pieces that can be subject to the “removal of the guard” tactic, etc.

3. Get every piece into the game fast!

What good is being up a piece if your material superiority is not being used? I would like to have a nickel for every time a student was up a piece, but started attacking in such a way that his opponent’s pieces outnumbered his in the attacking area and the student ended up losing material. One good guideline is “Don’t start an attack until your entire army is ready” and another is “Don’t attack in an area where you don’t have superiority.” Think of being ahead material like coaching a hockey team on a power play. Would your correct strategy be to sit some of your players on the ice until the other team is back to full strength? That is how silly you look (in a strong player’s eyes) if you are up material but don’t develop your pieces to make use of your superior force. So just get all your pieces into the game every time and don’t hesitate or fool around before doing so. For example, if you win a queen for a piece early in the game, don’t use your queen to go around the board winning a pawn here or there! That is penny wise and pound foolish. You are already ahead enough

material to win easily, and winning more material is not only not necessary, but often loses tempos that enable your opponent to generate an attack. Instead, get all the other pieces helping the queen and your material superiority should soon prove quite decisive.

4. Avoid complications.

Don’t do anything fancy or clever. Keep it simple! You almostundoubtedly don’t need complications to win.

When Steinitz said, “If you have the advantage, you must attack” he was not referring to positions where you are up a piece or more! He was trying to say that if you have an advantage in space or time, you

must use that advantage to keep the initiative by being aggressive. But if you are way ahead in material, then your extra material will eventually guarantee that you can apply superior force to an opponent’s position, so being overly aggressive can actually backfire. Look at it this way: complications make it more likely for a human to make a mistake. Who has more to lose, the player who is winning, or the player who is losing? Of course, the player who is winning has more to lose from mistakes (or time trouble or whatever), so the player

with a large advantage should be striving for positions where big mistakes are harder to make. Contrarily, a player down considerable material is likely lost anyway, so he has nothing to lose and a lot to gain by creating complications where a big mistake is likely. As an example, suppose you are up a piece and your opponent attacks an unguarded bishop with a knight. Then the WORST thing you can do is counterattack one of his pieces, thus creating complications. Your opponent might be able to move his attacked piece and attack

another one of yours and then you would have two pieces attacked, and might have to lose all of your advantage! But if you just move the attacked piece to a safe square (preferably one where it is also guarded), that is usually much simpler and less likely to lead to the loss of your advantage.

Fischer Returns

The legendary Bobby Fischer who in his heyday, declared his contempt for women players by saying that he was ready to give odds of a knight to any women player, found his match in nineteen year old Zita Rajcsanyi of Hungary who checkmates his heart and inspired him to the historic comeback match against Boris Spassky in September last year, a full two decades after defeating him foe the world championship in Reyjavik,Iceland in 1972.