How to good in chess

Hi BannermanGM,

I'm not too good at chess, but I think I should be able to help you a little.

You are currently at the 600 elo level for rapid, so you should know a bunch of different tactics, the basic checkmates (King + Queen, King + Rook, King + Bishop + Bishop), the opening principles, the basic King + Pawn vs King Endgame theory, and key chess principles. If you are lacking knowledge on any of the above, I recommend that you try to fill the gaps as quickly as possible.

I recommend that for openings, you maybe watch a video (Chess.com lesson or YouTube) on some openings for white and black :

If you want to play e4, some good beginner openings are the:

- Vienna

- Scotch

- Ponziani

- Four Knights

For d4, I would recommend:

- Queens Gambit

- Jobava London

- Trompowsky (vs Nf6)

For the black pieces vs e4, I would recommend that you learn an individual opening system that leads to familiar middlegame. For this reason, contray to popular belief I wouldn't recommend e5 (as there are so many openings you have to know as black - e.g. King's gambit, scotch, ruy lopez, italian, ponziani, vienna, four knights, the tayler etc), Instead I would recommend some of the following:

- Caro Kann

- Scandinavian Defence

- French Defence

- Alekhine's Defence

- Sicilian Dragon

And finally for openings, against d4, I would recommend:

- Slav/Semi-slav

- Nimzo-Indian

- King's Indian Defence

- Queen's Indian Defence

- Benko Gambit

For the openings, if you don't like any of the options I have listed, feel free to pick your own, though make sure they are not too complex (e.g. Ruy Lopez).

The most important thing at you level is tactics. I recommend to do them either on ChessTempo or Lichess (as these are free tactics sites). If you develop good pattern recognition, you will easily gain tons of rating.

For the middlegame and endgame, you can find lots of good videos on YouTube. I recommend checking out some instructive channels such as CoChess, and ChessFactor.

You should also definitely make sure you analyse your games. I had no idea how to correctly analyse my games when I was at you level. I recommend finding a way that suits you - though make sure you pay attention to this part as even though it may seen boring, it's a way to easily speed-up your improvement.

For your time management, per week, I would recommend splitting up you chess time into the following:

- 10% - Learning Openings

- 40% - Tactics

- 15% - Learning Chess (Middlegames + Endgames)

- 25% - Playing Chess

- 10% - Analysing Your Games (EXTREMELY IMPORTANT!)

Some good instructive chess YouTube Channels include:

- ChessFactor

- CoChess

- ChessDojo

- Daniel Naroditsky

- Chess Vibes

- GothamChess (How to Win At Chess Playlist)

Some good chess sites include :

- Chessable

- Chessify (Stockfish 17 Analysis)

- ChessTempo

- Chessmood (Currently all courses are free - its a thanksgiving gift)

- Lichess

Thing's won't happen instantly and will take some time. The most important thing is to stay consistent. I highly recommend you stick to 30, 15 | 10 and 10 min time controls, as these will help develop your chess thinking.

Feel free to ask any questions.

Hope this reply helps.

Learn and apply the most important principles of chess. - (core of my teaching)
Always blunder-check your moves.
Solve tactics in the right way.
Analyze your games.
Study games of strong players.
Learn how to be more psychologically resilient.
Work on your time management skills.
Get a coach if you can.

Hi!

You might check out my blog with free content: arielfernandez’s Blog - Chess.com

Good luck!