any advice on how the become a good chess player?

Answer 1

practice makes perfect, try and play your move then think what you'll opponent will do, that way you become better in all situations

Answer 2

When you want to improve your play, improve your openning (the start of the game). There are lots of types you can learn but in general: - Develop your pieces! Bishops, knights, rooks and later on the queen - this will all be used to attack and if he simply plods forward with pawns on the a or h files you have more pieces to swamp him with. Don't move the same piece twice in the opening unless you have to! - Take the centre! The centre is important. If you control the centre, you control more space and if you have more space your pieces can move around faster - faster attack! Try to get a pawn on either e4/e5 or d4/d5 (or both) or attack it with your knights and bishops directly or indirectly - Protect the king! If the king stays in the centre he's get blitzed by rooks coming down open files and checkmate isn't far off. Castle into a safe position so that he's protected. - Hold the queen back! Some players seem to want to chuck the queen out on the second move. Yes its the most powerful piece but just like any other piece it can't do anything on its own. If he gets it out too fast attack it as much as you can and while he's zooming around dodging you, moving the same piece, you're getting more and more pieces out! As for the middle game that theories a bit more tricky and comes better with practice and to master the end game you have to read tonnes of theory books...

Answer 3

The same goes with almost any other activity. You must first defeat/win against people of lower talent and/or equal before you try to advance the talent of the activity.

Once you can win against a certain level of player then you have to challenge yourself. The game of chess can be won quickly or dragged out. You will never learn anything if the game is over quickly.

Chess is one of those games that isn't won before you move the first piece. Since most good chess players are reactors and not proactors.

Answer 4

Hi. Here are a few tips from my bag-o-tricks (from books I've read) and then I have some great resource recommendations for you:

In the opening, avoid moving the same piece twice.
This will help you get your pieces activated quicker. Clear out the area between your king and rook as soon as possible so you can castle early.
Move pawn to e4 on your first move.
Then focus on controlling the center of the board.
Always capture towards the center whenever possible.
Avoid placing knights and bishops on the edge of the board.
Use pawns to support bigger pieces, never have bigger pieces support other big pieces or pawns. This will keep stronger pieces available for attacks.
Always ask yourself, "If I were my opponent, what would be my next best move?" Then find a way to either prevent that move or plan a counter move that will make your opponent sorry for making his.
If you are even in material or slightly ahead, don't be afraid to trade off pieces evenly including queens. This will clear the board of clutter and make your lead more obvious. It will also make for a quicker game.
*Remember that a lone bishop can only capture on 50% of the board. (White squares only, or black only depending on the bishop). But a lone knight can capture on 100% of the board. (Both colored squares as he alternates on each move.) This may be important if you have to decide which one to sacrifice or trade off near the end game.
*Pawns are insignificant at first, but they become mightier as they move forward towards the eighth rank and become queens! Don't underestimate them!
Seek out a target and hit it! Whenever your opponent leaves a piece unprotected, make that your target!
Most pieces work better as a team closer together than they do apart.
Don't just watch for opportunities for forks, pins and skewers. Look for ways to create them! Entice your opponent into those situations with small sacrifices.

RESOURCES:

Bruce Pandolfini's book, Beginning Chess is the best book by far that I've seen which will train your eye to see golden opportunities that are regularly overlooked. It's a fun way to learn because it gives you chess drills and scores your perfomance. That way, you can always go through the book again and try to beat your previous best score!

Also, Susan Polgar's book, Chess Tactics For Champions ($17 at Barnes & Noble) is a great way to learn how to create forks, pins and skewers. My game improved greatly after reading just the first 10 pages! A very exciting book! After spending a little time with it you can't wait to play a game and try out what she shows you! A really great book!!You would probably enjoy her website, too: Polgarchess.com.

For $10 at Staples you can get the PC software called Majestic Chess. I highly recommend it for this reason...It has a very unique "story mode" which is the most entertaining way to develop your chess skills that I've ever seen! In the story mode, you are riding a horse to progressive locations. At the first location, you are taught chess basics (you may skip any location at any time if you feel already know that particular lesson.) Then, after it teaches you, you are challenged to a drill (a test on what you've learned.) If you pass the test you are given a chess piece to play with in the next challenge. You are given additional pieces as you pass the tests along the journey and you will need them to win the challenges that lie ahead. So, you are being trained piece by piece until you have built an entire chess set to play with. The challenges are excellent and really make you think. The training really does develop your ability to recognize opportunities and pitfalls that you wouldn't have seen before playing this excellent chess game. And a word should be said about the magnificent environments in which you play your games. Very soothing and pleasing visuals and music make this game a joy to play. And of course, you can just play a regular chess game against the computer at any time as well...so you have the nice story mode, or you have the computer opponent ready to play a regular game at any time. So it is a well rounded chess tool.

There is another great chess program called "Chess Mentor" available online at http://www.chessmentor.com/ . It's available in three different levels. I recommend you download the generous free trial. I did and loved it so much I bought the Deluxe edition! The software is a series of chess lessons. It gives you a position and you click on what you think is the best move. You can ask for varying degrees of hints which is nice. But the beauty of this package is no matter what you do, a complete and thorough explanaion of why your move was good or bad is given. It's truly like having a grandmaster at your side! It's a little pricey, but I find it worth every penny! If nothing else, you will benefit from just the free trial...it's a very generous sampling of what you can expect from this software.


Good luck! I hope this helped!

Castle early!

Answer 5

Play good players
Write down your games and study them
Get a good beginners manual (Chess for Dummies) and study it carefully.
Play often and play hard - fooling around is a waste of time.
Learn endings. They are VERY instructive.

Answer 6

Your strategy must be less obvious or you could play your foe's mind by leading him to a false sense of security. It works for me! Take my word for it (Want to see my trophies?) ~ I went from losing streak to rookie of the year. Chess is fun if you understand the main objective. It would make a helluva sense, creating your own winning streak.

Want to know what is it?

Answer 7

play chess more often with people who are good at it and ask them to explain to you all the rules...

it is a very mind stimulating game and if you play often you would get better. you have to be a good thinker too and think of the strategies and future moves of your opponent...

Answer 8

Brain

Answer 9

Practice and play with any old political junkies or Nhilists.

Answer 10

the opening is crucial to winning practice openings so you can leap out at your opponent, then follow up with strong postion, get an advantage and hold it !