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.

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?

My Chess Improvement Plan

Preparing an improvement plan in chess is as important as it is in the different aspects of life. I have taken help from Dan Heisman and Susan Polgar to work out a plan for my self. Detail of the plan is:

1. Play at least one game of chess per day.
2. Improve my knowledge by reading chess books cover to cover, at least one each on opening, middle game and end game.
3. Pick one opening to specialize with when playing white and learn it well.
4. Learn two good openings as black to use against 1.e4 and 1.d4.
5. Learn to avoid recklessly attack but to play defensively when the situation requires it.
6. Annotate my own games immediately after playing them.
7. Study some annotated games of the top rated players.
8. Update my blog at least twice a week.

This is my initial plan. I’ll review it after a month to evaluate my progress.

3 Easy Tips on How to Improve Defense in Chess

Defense in Chess is as important as the offence in winning a game. Following are 3 easy tips on how to improve your defense:

1. Avoid back rank mate. Give your king an escape.

2. Don't give your opponent open lines.

3. When getting attacked, swap off pieces.

Strategy of Winning in Chess By International Master Jeremy Silman

Jeremy Silman, an International Master, described the following strategy for winning in chess:

• First I create some difference to work with, such as, a Bishop versus the opponent’s Knight.
• Next I create an atmosphere in which my Bishop will thrive – a nonlocked pawn structure so that my Bishop will have open lines; getting his pawns on the color of my Bishop so that they will be vulnerable in an endgame; taking away advanced squares from his Knight so that his minor piece remains inactive.
• When all this is done I will steer the game into an ending in which my speedy Bishop eats his gimpy Knight alive.
• In other words, I create an imbalance and devote all my energy into making it a positive force.

How I Play Chess

There are many decent books on the topic of how to think during a game of chess. This post is not an attempt to challenge Grand Masters’ advice but instead is focused on how I play chess.

1) Threat scan. Scanning the chess board for threats from both sides is my first task. If there is a threat from the opponent, I think about how to counteract it.

2) Planning. I try to develop a plan by considering strategic goals, namely, piece activity, King safety and pawn structure. Once a plan is made, I focus on sequence of possible moves through which I can achieve my objectives.

3) Calculate Variations. First I prioritize available sequence of moves (candidate moves) and then analyze one by one critically. At the end I select the candidate move with the bright future.

4) Blunder Check. Before making the move selected in step 3, I quickly check once again one-move offensive or defensive disasters.

If all is clear, I made the move.

How to Improve Your Chess Instantly Within a Day

Chess novice can improve his/her game instantly, if following four point thinking process is followed in every chess move he/she plays:

1) Avoid en prise blunders
Right after opponent's move, think which of your pieces are under direct attack and your opponent can capture them in one move.

2) Find en prise blunders
Look at the board, after opponent’s move, and note which of your opponent’s pieces, you can capture.

3) Chess vision defense
Right after opponent's move, look at the board and think which of your pieces can be forked, skewered, or pinned on his following move.

4) Chess vision offense
Before you move, note which of your opponent's pieces can be forked, skewered, or pinned.

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.