Silman’s Suggestion for Making a Plan

1. Figure out positive and negative imbalances of both sides, i.e., (Material, Pawn Structure, Superior Minor Pieces, Space, Control of a Key File or Square, Lead in Development and Initiative).
2. Figure out the side of the board you wish to play on.
3. Dream up your fantasy position.
4. Figure out if you can reach your dream position? If you can't then dream up another dream position.
5. Now calculate different candidate moves and select one for execution.

How to Make a Plan in Chess?

Following two questions are the basis for making a plan:

1. What type of pawn-structure is it?
2. What is good and what is bad about my position?

Once answers to questions 1 and 2 are clear, next stage in planning is to develop a plan and make it more specific. Following questions, help us in developing our plan:

1. Which pieces do I want to exchange, and which to keep?
2. Which side of the board should I play on?
3. What is my dream position?
4. What does my opponent want to do?

Last stage of planning is about how to carry out the developed plan, which is done by exploring the answers of these two questions:

1. Can I take a step in the right direction?
2. Which moves are worth taking a closer look at?

8 Tips for Analyzing your Chess Games

 

One of the best habit a beginner needs to develop in order to improve his game of chess is analysis of one’s own game. Here are few tips for chess novice on how to analyze his game:

1. It is highly recommended that you must maintain a database of all your games.
2. Analyze your game as soon as possible, preferably, immediately after the game has finished. It will help you in putting your thoughts which you had during the game easy. This practice help in remembering and understanding the reasons why you made the mistakes.
3. Run your chess software to run through your game in blunder check mode, to know major blunders you and your opponent made during the game.
4. Try to identify the critical moments of the game. Critical moments are times when evaluation of position significantly changes and advantage shifts from one side to the other?
5. Don’t forget to analyze the opening used in the game. Update your opening repertoire, if necessary.
6. Don’t just analyze the game in terms of variations, instead give verbal comments on critical positions. If in your opinion white is better explain why.
7. After you have completed analysis, give a short summary of the game. Where was the game decided – opening, middle game, endgame or tactical blunder?
8. Periodically, look at the trends in your games. Is your opening play weak or you play bad in the endgames? Can you fill the gap in your chess knowledge by study?

The Queen's Gambit Declined : Semi-Slav

The Semi-Slav Defense Variation of Queen’s Gambit resembles a mixture of the Orthodox Queen’s Gambit Declined and the Slav Defense.



Encyclopaedia of Chess Opening has assigned codes D43 through D49 to Semi – Slav.
You can practice the opening here.

// Image Credits: www.wikipedia.org

Queen's Gambit Declined: Three Knights Variation (D37)

In Queen's Gambit Declined (QGD) Black rejects a pawn sacrifice offered by White. Black achieves a solid position in the center. This opening has the reputation of Black’s most reliable defense to 1 d4.

In Queen's Gambit Declined, White tries to exploit the passivity of Black’s light-squared bishop and Black will try to activate the bishop, exchange it or will use it for defensive purpose.

Click here to practice the opening.

// Image Credits: www.chess.com

Four Knights Game (C46)

Four Knights opening is popular among the beginners who strictly adhere to the opening principle, "Develop Knights before Bishops." This opening was quite popular till world war I on higher level play. But it was abondoned in favor Ruy Lopez. During the last decay of the 20th century, it again rise to popularity among chess players.

Usually the four Knights leads to quite positional play but there are variations where fireworks is common.
For practice of this opening click here.
// Image Credits: www.chess.com

Italian Game: Giuoco Pianissimo, Italian Four Knights Variation (C50)

Italian game was first developed in the 16the century and is most oldest of chess opening. Throughout the 19th century it was popular but later on it is supplanted by the Ruy Lopez. Italian Game with Giuoco Pianissimo Four Knights Variation (C50) often leads to aggressive open positions.

Practice this opening here.
// Image Credits: www.chess.com

Ruy Lopez: Morphy Defense (C78)

Ruy Lopez is one of oldest and popular opening. It is also called Spanish Game after a spanish priest who wrote a book about this opening. Ruy Lopez has remained a favorite opening of world champion, Gary Kasparov and Boby Fischer.
There are several variations of Ruy Lopez, among which Morphy Defense is most popular among black’s responses.

You can practice Ruy Lopez – Morphy Defense (C78) here.
// Image Credits: www.chess.com

Top 8 Rules to the Chess Opening!

 

There are rules and principles for different stages of a chess game, but in this post the focus will be on Chess Opening and the level of advice will be kept for beginner chess player in mind.

Rule #1 - Develop Your Pieces!

Development means to bring out your chess pieces from behind the pawn to center of the chess board. Development of pieces should be your first goal to achieve in the opening stage of the game. Development ensures your entire army is available when the action start in the chess game.

Generally, develop your minor pieces (Knights and Bishops) first. It is best to introduce Rook and Queen (Major Pieces) later in the game.

Rule #2 - Don't Move a Piece Twice Before Move 10!

This rule is obvious and needs no explanation.

Rule #3 Don't Bring Your Queen Out Early!

Queen is worth more than any piece besides King. If you bring her out early, she will become target of minor pieces of the enemy and you would lost your valuable time in defending her. So don’t bring queen out ealry!

Rule #4 Get Castled (Before Move 10)!

Castling will make your King safe. Try to achieve this goal within first 10 moves.

Rule #5 Attack (Develop) Towards the Center!

Controlling the center of the board is a useful time tested strategy. Besides, pieces are more active when they are at center of the board.

Rule #6 Connect the Rooks!

After castling, connecting the Rook is an easy task. If you have done this step, it means your minor pieces are out, you have castled your king and your queen is out on a safe square. You have nearly completed successfully your first stage of the game.

Rule #7 Develop Your Plans!

Remember that I have told your to develop your pieces, but it does not mean development without a plan. So, develop your pieces keeping in view some objective. This might be to develop Knight to attack a pawn or to develop Bishop to pin a Knight etc.

Rule #8 Attack "In the Direction" of Your Pawn(s) Structure!

Don’t take pawns lightly in the game of chess. Pawns are the only pieces that can’t go back. Their moves are of permanent nature. Learning to recognize and exploitation of pawn weaknesses is the key to understanding positional chess.

These are eight basic rules for novice chess player. Use them in your chess play and your play will definitely improve.

Italian Game: Two Knights Defense, Knight Attack Normal Variation (C57)

Two Knights defense was first recorded by Polerio in the late 16th century. This particular sequence of moves were adopted by many aggressive player like Mikhail Chigorin and Paul Keres, and World Champions Mikhail Tal and Boris Spassky.

To practice this opening click here.
// Image Credits: www.chess.com

Queen's Gambit Accepted (D20)

The Queen's Gambit Accepted is among the popular second move of the black. Here white will make an endeavor to take advantage of the space while black will defend the position and aim for the queenside counterplay.

 

Click here to practice this opening.

// Credits: www.chess.com

Two Valuable Tips to Improve Your Chess Game

During reading first chapter of “Chess Training for Budding Champions” by Jesper Hall, I found following two valuable tips:

1. Create a database of your chess games and combinations along with other chess gems that may inspire you.
2. Annotate your own games as deep as you can.

I will definitely give them a try.

Why Novice Corner Blog?

During my childhood, I really had a longing for chess. I used to play chess with my friends, occasionally. But then ordinary living got in the way, and I lead the life without the game of chess.

But now for reasons of mental health, I have once again taken up chess. This time I want to seriously pursue chess. I have purchased the Chessmaster Grand Master Edition and some nice collection of chess books. I am planning to play chess against chessmaster and online on chess.com.

I will post about my chess adventures in this blog along with the latest news update. I hope this blog will also be helpful for other chess novice players that want to upgrade their chess play.
I would appreciate if you share your suggestions for the improvement of this blog in the comments.