[Q] How good can I get at Chess in one week?

Garnet

Vietnam9022 Posts

April 26 2013 04:01 GMT

So I just signed up for a Chess tournament in my school, it starts in about 1 week.
The thing is, I'm a complete newbie. I know the rules, but the last game I played was a very long time ago, and even then I was pretty bad. In SC2 terms I'm just a silver who knows the first few steps of a basic build order and has horrible mechanics.

That's why I'm asking you all this question: where should I start, and how do I proceed from there?.
I don't think I can find any practice partners in real life, so it will be 100% online practice.

Thanks!.

MysteryMeat1

United States3292 Posts

April 26 2013 04:30 GMT

Cheese yo!

beat them grandmaster chess players

SilverSkyLark

Philippines8437 Posts

April 26 2013 04:58 GMT

Chessmaster 9000 or Chessmaster Grandmaster Edition gives a very very good introduction to the game as well as early, mid, and late game tips.

Cambium

United States16368 Posts

April 26 2013 05:06 GMT

speaking of this, any good ipad chess games? preferably free, but doesn't really matter

jrkirby

United States1510 Posts

April 26 2013 05:11 GMT

I pretty much guarantee you won't win the tournament, unless you have a very small school. Chess is a game of practice, and someone with under 100 games played will almost never take a game from someone with over 1000 games played. And 100 games in one week is pretty hard to do.

Salivanth

Australia1071 Posts

April 26 2013 05:29 GMT

I don't know about how well you can do in one week, but here's how you get better at Chess: Tactics.

Tactics are small combinations of moves that lead to an advantage. Chess puzzles are almost always about finding a tactic, like checkmating the opponent or winning a piece. Tactics are the macro of Chess. If you're better at tactics than your opponent, you'll be able to defend against all his threats while executing your own, and eventually you'll take an advantage and can trade off pieces until you have an endgame. Being better at tactics is enough to win games until a high level of play, jus like macro in SC2, as long as you know the very basics of openings, endgames, and strategy.

I'd like to second SilverSkyLark's recommendation. Chessmaster 10th Edition works really well too, it's the program I used and it made me much better at Chess quite quickly. In order to take advantage of tactics, you must know the basics. Chessmaster will teach this to you. In order to see tactics, you must know the tactical themes. Chessmaster will teach this to you as well.

Here's a good tactics trainer website, once you've gone through that.

http://chesstempo.com/chess-tactics.html

If you go through one of the Chessmaster programs and then study tactics with sufficient obsession, you should be able to at least avoid a total beatdown at the hands of casual players. If the tournament includes people who actually play in other chess tournaments, you don't have a chance. Similar to the fact that a week of obsessive practice could give you a shot against a Gold, but not against a Master.

RenSC2

United States1060 Posts

April 26 2013 05:48 GMT

One resource I used to get off the ground in chess is: http://www.chesskids.com/lessons04.shtml

It won't make you a superstar, but it'll give you start. If you've got a school of newbies, learn the Scholar's mate (in the lessons above) and cheese your way to victory.

If you don't have a school of newbies, you're not going to beat them with one week of training. However, if you get some of the basics together and take your time to be careful before making each move, you'll at least force most opponents to think and maybe earn a little respect.

Mothra

United States1448 Posts

April 26 2013 05:55 GMT

Play through as many of this guy's games as you can trying to guess his moves:

http://www.chessgames.com/player/paul_morphy.html

This is excellent tactical and strategic training. It's like training with a professional rather than reading a textbook. If you play against experienced players you're going to get pwned no matter what, but this may give you a fighting chance.

zanzib

China152 Posts

April 26 2013 05:58 GMT

You can probably learn some really easy fundamentals and not die within like 5 moves if you start hunkering down and read some basic books if you can find them, like Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess or Silmans A-Z. They're pretty crap books that I would normally never recommend, but you can learn the basics and probably go through it in a sitting.

If you're playing for the long haul there's way better content to learn from, it's an endless list of recommendations, but heres a few off the top of my head that cannot be bad recommendations, Yussupov's beginner to master book series, Chessmaster software (10th or Art of Learning is like 10$), and ChessBase software (probably a little advanced).

If you got less than a week, here's a collection of games during chess's primitive years. There's plenty of examples of what NOT to do in chess! Place EXTREME priority in getting your pieces out, castle, don't commit to too many pawn moves, all of these, before doing any middle game operations, and obviously don't lose your shit anywhere for free.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/ezsearch.pl?search=morphy

and another free resource

http://www.chesstempo.com

]343[

United States10328 Posts

April 26 2013 08:34 GMT

#10

yeah if you just practice tactics a bunch (and learn basic things about developing pieces / openings / endgame) you can probably get to 1500 level

but if you have a week... your goal is probably to get a good feel for how to develop your pieces and find tactics, plus basic endgame theory (king + rook, king + pawn vs king)

hp.Shell

United States2527 Posts

April 26 2013 13:00 GMT

#11

Tactics won't help much at the ~1000 level. Tactics help at the ~1250+ level.

You want a strong opening game. Don't learn a bunch of openings, just focus on hanging pieces and developing properly. Most games at your level are decided by who gives up a piece for free because it was overlooked, or left "hanging." Focus on this and your checking moves (moves that will place your opponent in check) and you will win a lot of games!

docvoc

United States5491 Posts

April 26 2013 19:09 GMT

#12

You won't get that great in just 1 week. To get as good as possible, as fast as possible, learn 2 builds, 1 white, 1 black. Don't focus on tactics, focus on general play and logical play. If you can capitalize on enemy failures without blundering too much on your own, then you can win a LOT of games. Then again, I was never that great, I don't think I ever broke up farther than 1500 or something like that. I played for like 5 years and then now off and on more than anything. The game is amazing, the only issue is that if you don't have practice partners near one's skill level, the game is incredibly unsatisfying :/.

Salivanth

Australia1071 Posts

April 26 2013 19:36 GMT

#13

Shell: That IS tactics. Capturing an undefended piece and avoiding putting your own pieces into danger is the most rudimentary form of tactics.

Docvoc is right. His advice is essentially the same as "Pick one build for each matchup, and focus on macro" in SC2. Though I will add to not focus too much on the opening. You don't need to be good at the opening, you just need to not screw it up.

KillerSOS

United States4207 Posts

April 26 2013 19:54 GMT

#14

On April 27 2013 04:36 Salivanth wrote:
Shell: That IS tactics. Capturing an undefended piece and avoiding putting your own pieces into danger is the most rudimentary form of tactics.

Docvoc is right. His advice is essentially the same as "Pick one build for each matchup, and focus on macro" in SC2. Though I will add to not focus too much on the opening. You don't need to be good at the opening, you just need to not screw it up.

Tactics is more about a large series of move with forced pins and combos with only one possible move for each side.

I suppose at a basic level you're kinda right.

Mothra

United States1448 Posts

April 26 2013 20:17 GMT

#15

I think the artificial division of tactics and strategy just stifles appreciation of the game. Study it organically as a whole. Playing through master games and trying to apply the ideas to your own games leads to comprehension and more importantly beauty that is otherwise marred if you try to divide and learn things piecemeal. A strong player will benefit from specialized focus, whereas a beginner needs to build a broad foundation.

GolemMadness

Canada11044 Posts

April 28 2013 16:51 GMT

#16

Like most things other than tac-tic-toe, you can't. The best that you can do is probably to just play a bunch of games and learn basic principles like controlling the centre, developing pieces, etc, and learning some basic mates.

NTTemplar

609 Posts

April 29 2013 21:18 GMT

#17

On April 27 2013 04:54 KillerSOS wrote:

Show nested quote +

Tactics is more about a large series of move with forced pins and combos with only one possible move for each side.

I suppose at a basic level you're kinda right.

Only one possible move is forcing.

A tactic is a plan to make something happen with the next few moves, they don't always work out, as compared to forcing someone which always works since each side only has one move to make, so nothing can go wrong.

and as for how to learn chess in a week, then it is about learning chess, which means learning end game.

Wonders

Australia753 Posts

April 30 2013 01:54 GMT

#18

I think the first thing to learn for a complete beginner would be the most typical developing moves (e.g. Nc3, Nf3, Bc4, Be2, castling, etc.) - there's not too many of them and they're easy to pick up quickly. After that just focus everything on not leaving pieces hanging.

Like many people here I also highly recommend just grinding the problems on chesstempo.com. They have every level of problem, the easiest being simply taking a hanging piece, and the next level up would be something like exchanging/chasing off a defender then taking the hanging piece. Get the sub-1k rated problems down and you'll have taken the first step towards being good.

doner0

United States233 Posts

April 30 2013 05:48 GMT

#19

i hae to say it but it is basically impossible to get good at chess in a week let alone a year. Just try to playa lot and watch a lot of youtube to learn the basic formations and opening movements. Hopefully this will help but honestly the only way to get good at chess is to play it a lot and then be incredibly smart to back it all up

Kashll

United States1117 Posts

April 30 2013 06:51 GMT

#20

This is like asking how deep you will get into the Korean Pro-Starcraft scene in a week.

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[Q] How good can I get at Chess in one week?

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