Imagine how amazing would be if you were a chess grandmaster, you can be one, but you will have to take care of some stuff first.
Chess is a complex game that involves a lot of mental energy and time to master in its entirety. You want to know how to improve in chess quickly, there are no magic pills, but sure there are some practical tips you can use.
Here I will leave you with 5 keys on how to improve in chess quickly that you can start using right now, to improve your chess immediately and assure improvement in the future.
Table of Contents
Solve and understand tactical puzzles
Actively looking for moves, calculating variations, and solving chess positions is necessary if you want to know how to improve in chess quickly. Many chess books talk about this topic because every chess game in the world involves tactics.
There are 2 simple and effective ways to train your tactical vision and become an eagle-eye of chess tactics.
- Calculate by yourself the variations in a position for as many moves as you can and compare them with the engine or book.
- Solve tactical puzzles on the internet, you can easily get a tactics trainer in almost every chess web.
Study chess strategy
You need to know the importance of concepts and general principles. Knowing them will give you a practical easy to apply a formula to play in position with different positional aspects.
It will make you more confident in any situation over the board because it is not the same to play in a position you know than in you don’t.
Play blitz… But not too much
How to improve in chess quickly? Blitz is not the answer. Playing blitz has something good and something bad when is played too much so you have to be careful.
The good side of playing blitz is that you learn to think faster, you get your ideas organized quickly. This can be useful to make your analysis, prophylaxis, moves, and plans organized in a snap.
But this can also negatively affect classic games, where you need to analyze carefully. You will be in “blitz mode” your mind will be used to think and play fast, and you will overlook deep analysis.
Study chess opening plans
It’s a lot better knowing and understanding chess plans than just learning variations. Here I don’t mean to tell you to learn long and complex variations of openings.
I want you to study typical plans for typical pawn structures that you can surely encounter in your games.
Or patterns, ideas, or pieces configurations to win in an opening, and really UNDERSTANDING the purpose of the moves in the theory. You don’t want to become an automatic machine of moving pieces purposelessly.
Watch grandmaster games commented by other masters
This is key, and one of the most powerful tools the internets give you on how to improve your chess quickly.
Many chess masters are offering free lectures, puzzles, and lessons on YouTube and different platforms. There are many pages you can use, Twitch, YouTube, Facebook, all of these platforms offer interactive free content.
This way you can have a different point of view of the positions and knowing how chess masters think while playing games, this is definitely how to improve in chess quickly.
Take your time before making a move
This is an important part of chess players, and especially amateurs easily forget when playing. You NEED to take your time to think about the move before making it, no matter your time control.
You have to learn how to adjust your mind to the time you have to make your move. But I have seen many players playing aimlessly, or sticking to a very flawed plan with plenty of time on the clock.
There is no excuse for this and we need to be more conscious about the time we need to think, don’t believe you are a machine, your mind needs time to process moves.
Be patient
I know you are keen on chess, which is good, but don’t push yourself so hard. Many chess players want to know how to improve in chess the quickest possible, and the truth is that if you really want to improve, you will have to spend a lot of time.
It is an investment in the long term, you will have to work hard, if you want something valuable, you have to do something that worth equal.
Learn endgames
Knowing an endgame is a fundamental part of chess progress, it is one of the answers to the question: How to improve in chess quickly. You imagine you can’t convert your advantage because you don’t know the endgame?
You can’t allow this monstrosity to occur in your games, you need to study the endgames so you are prepared. As the ex-world champion, Jose Raúl Capablanca used to say “we must study endgames”
Identify your mistakes
Identifying your mistakes by posteriorly analyzing your games is a pretty useful practice that will help you improve. Knowing your strengths and your weaknesses will let you know yourself as a player.
Also, it will tell you where you need to work to get better and what you need to do to improve. The next time you are about to commit the same silly mistake you will stop yourself.
Wait! There is something that smells bad here, I saw this in my previous game, I will not fall for the same rock again!
Define your playstyle
Knowing yourself as a player, your playstyle, is fundamental, it is one slow but important step you need to take. Knowing your playstyle will let you identify the positions you are comfortable with the most.
This way you will be prepared to set the positions and openings you like and play accordingly, and find how to improve in chess quickly.
Ok, I will go for the complications, because I am an aggressive player and I work efficiently under pressure. Can give you a lot of wins, what is the special factor you have that can assure you a win?
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