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Not long ago, the University sent a mass e-mail to every student at our university informing us of an upcoming chess tournament that will be taking place next week.
For some reason I strongly feel I can do something man! But as you see, I suck balls at playing chess even though I consider myself of low to intermediate level.
Are you a pro chess player? If you are, is there some way you know that will help me improve quickly in my openings, mid and late game? I'm mostly concerned about the openings as I suffer from the same syndrome many writers experience: Not knowing where or how to start!
I'm so willing to spend this next whole week just preparing for this.
Thank you!
 
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Pfft, not what I was expecting.
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On January 25 2009 05:31 Azrael1111 wrote:
Pfft, not what I was expecting.
Same here 
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On January 25 2009 05:31 Azrael1111 wrote:
Pfft, not what I was expecting.
Indeed
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On January 25 2009 05:31 Azrael1111 wrote:
Pfft, not what I was expecting.
actually i was going to come here and make a joke about chess.
won't really work anymore
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Judging from the posts above...
I'm never using a deceiving title again t.t
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On January 25 2009 05:31 Azrael1111 wrote:
Pfft, not what I was expecting.
Huge Dissapointment
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I could recommend you books to read and stuff but there isn't TOO much you can do in a week to get really good at it.
Typically openings at a beginner level shouldn't be your main focus of study. A lot of GM's (grandmasters) will recommend a beginner/low level player to study tactics, lots and lots of them. I think this should be at least 30% of the time you spend studying. If you can't find books I'm sure you can look online for free webpages that will help you out.
Once you start to improve your sense of tactics move on towards the endgame. Learn basic endgame situations (King-pawn vs king, King-queen vs king, King-Rook vs King should be where you start off as these are the most basic and are pretty common). Since you only have a week I don't think you should do much more than this right away. It can take some time to get it down.
From here I'd say this is where you want to put some study in the openings. From my point of view you shouldn't aim to memorize the opening but rather understand it. If you memorize one opening out 30 moves deep and he plays a completely different one your time is wasted. If you learned some basic/advanced opening principles you'll kind of be able to walk yourself through a bunch of different scenarios. I would say just focus on just a few openings and get them down pretty well. Most people will either open with a king or queen pawn opening (1.e4 or 1.d4) so get a response to both of them. When you're white I would recommend opening with the king pawn (1.e4) as the position tends to open up faster which makes things a little less complicated.
The middle game is pretty complicated and I think you should study this last as the ideas are harder to grasp and you don't want to get stuck trying to learn everything or you may run out of time.
If you have any questiosn lemme know and I'll try to answer them as best I can. ^^
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Wow I hit post and my screen is flooded with animal porn. 
Infested you might want to spoiler that. Its most definitely NSFW
to OP: its hard to give advice because I don't really know how good you are already. You said low/intermediate or w/e but I don't know what that means. :s
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True, intermediate level sounds a bit ambiguous
I mean, I know all the moves that can be made on the board by which pieces and so on, as well as a couple of the tactics such as a fork, discovered check, x-ray, etc but honestly I suck.
http://www.chess.com/play/computer.html
That computer can beat me real bad on Easy t.t that might serve as a hint of my skill level...
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I can show you how to get mated. At least that's what happens to me whenever I play.
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On January 25 2009 06:04 EsX_Raptor wrote:True, intermediate level sounds a bit ambiguous I mean, I know all the moves that can be made on the board by which pieces and so on, as well as a couple of the tactics such as a fork, discovered check, x-ray, etc but honestly I suck. http://www.chess.com/play/computer.htmlThat computer can beat me real bad on Easy t.t that might serve as a hint of my skill level...
Not to discourage you, but if that's the case then most likely you'll get rolled by anyone who spent more than a few months with studying chess... U.S. universities even do scolarship programs for good chess players (one of my friends went to the U.S. with such a scolarship)...
I wish you good luck nevertheless! And if you got that dedication, and start now, who knows - you might achieve something and be prepared for the upcoming tourney (the one after this)
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Chess is actually pretty sweet once you get into it. I would have gotten more into it if I joined a club or something.
Ya just read up online, you will find standard openings, etc.
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Just ask her out. Otherwise you'll never know!
Oh, um...
I recommend Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess, which is a great book for developing some tactical acumen; as well as How To Think Ahead In Chess, which is a nice old book that's extremely helpful for beginners, as it teaches exactly three openings: one to use as white, one to use as black against P-E4, and one to use as black against P-E4. It's very well written, talks through lots of illustrative games, and shows how basic principles can be applied even by a novice player to get the advantage. After reading it carefully (it's not too long) and playing some games with the recommended openings I actually got a lot better very fast (although it won't make a grandmaster out of you  )! (edit: it's by IA Horowitz and Fred Reinfeld.)
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United States1106 Posts
beat easy on 2nd try! :D im out of practice
cant win as black
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United States24664 Posts
I bought chessmaster grandmaster edition recently and it feels like a very useful tool.
I just beat my colleague at chess yesterday for the first time so I'm feeling pretty good about it.
There's only one kid in my club who can consistently beat me at chess, I believe :D
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On January 25 2009 05:48 SnowFantasy wrote:
I could recommend you books to read and stuff but there isn't TOO much you can do in a week to get really good at it.
Typically openings at a beginner level shouldn't be your main focus of study. A lot of GM's (grandmasters) will recommend a beginner/low level player to study tactics, lots and lots of them. I think this should be at least 30% of the time you spend studying. If you can't find books I'm sure you can look online for free webpages that will help you out.
Once you start to improve your sense of tactics move on towards the endgame. Learn basic endgame situations (King-pawn vs king, King-queen vs king, King-Rook vs King should be where you start off as these are the most basic and are pretty common). Since you only have a week I don't think you should do much more than this right away. It can take some time to get it down.
From here I'd say this is where you want to put some study in the openings. From my point of view you shouldn't aim to memorize the opening but rather understand it. If you memorize one opening out 30 moves deep and he plays a completely different one your time is wasted. If you learned some basic/advanced opening principles you'll kind of be able to walk yourself through a bunch of different scenarios. I would say just focus on just a few openings and get them down pretty well. Most people will either open with a king or queen pawn opening (1.e4 or 1.d4) so get a response to both of them. When you're white I would recommend opening with the king pawn (1.e4) as the position tends to open up faster which makes things a little less complicated.
The middle game is pretty complicated and I think you should study this last as the ideas are harder to grasp and you don't want to get stuck trying to learn everything or you may run out of time.
If you have any questiosn lemme know and I'll try to answer them as best I can. ^^
I think this is the best advice. Here's a good tactics training site: http://chesstempo.com/
If you want books I would go for the oldschool but awesome, "Chess Fundamentals" By JR Capablanca, or "Manual of Chess" by Emmanuel Lasker. These guys were two of the best that ever played and they wrote some good books.
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Haha thanks yoshtodd.
I was giving him quick basic direction so he had something to start off on right away. I could go more indepth on specific books after taking a look at my dad's chess library.
As far as the two you recommended, I would say those are not too bad. I haven't looked at them too much. For Lasker's Manual of Chess, I don't really like it. The information is great but since it is old the english (at least in the version I have) is worded weird compared to what I'm used to.
Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess was recommended and I remember that being good for me when I was young so I endorse that fully.
I don't remember what other books I worked out of when I started learning so like I said I'd have to look around.
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United States3824 Posts
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On January 25 2009 05:31 Azrael1111 wrote:
Pfft, not what I was expecting.
Ja.
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Keeping in mind that it's a long shot for you doing well in this tournament and echoing most of the advice already given:
- Take your time. Doublecheck every move before you move to make sure that you aren't losing pieces due to simple tactics. Also, make sure that if he drops a piece for nothing, that you take it.
- Screw the openings. Take a few (see: 3-5 max) openings and find out the defining characteristic of the opening, types of positions and then common motifs and themes. This doesn't take much time and will help you much more than memorizing lines. If you play according to common sense, are aware of the tactical possibilities and follow the strategic goals of the position, you'll do much better and get much more out of the openings than if you follow theory like a sheep. Also, at our level (amateur), people tend to deviate from the 'best' line very very quickly so it's likely that the memorizing will get you nowhere. Understanding the position will.
If the position isn't exactly what you looked at, then hopefully you'll have seen enough in your adventures to be able to improvise. Remember, if you're improvising, then odds are that you'll come up with something that your opponent hasn't seen before.
- That all hinges that you don't lose your queen off the bat to a simple knight fork. Tactics, tactics, tactics. Even the quietest positions have tactics that hold it together and make it playable. It's so important that you should spend at least 80% of your time learning about tactics and how to make them work.
- Ending technique. Of course, this is an area of chess that even the best have trouble with, but with the limited amount of time you have left, make sure that you know how to mate with like a rook and king versus king, how to win (or draw) a king and pawn versus king endgame (if possible), stuff like that.
- Don't pay attention to the guy's rating. Play the position. You'd be surprised at how much mood/fatigue/rustiness/form can affect a person's playing strength so that guy with a low number next to his name could do better than a person with a really high number, or that unrated guy (that's you ) could surprise everyone and kick ass.
- That said, keep calm and have fun!
Hopefully you'll try and keep on playing after this. Chess is a great game. You won't be world champion, you probably won't even become a grandmaster. So don't worry about results and rating and junk like that. Just keep on improving and having fun and you'll see how far you can go. Good luck!
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I just drew a national master (USCF 2200ish) on Friday in a blitz game (in person) using the opening 1. B4 as White. Its an opening that no one prepares for (it is non E4 or D4) and it has a lot of traps, and most games go into quick tactical play (no long drawn out-closed position shit). I think in your situation, you might get pwned by playing e4 or d4 because someone will be known there opening really solidly and will have it well memorized.
Anyways,
My suggestion as Black
Whatever they do, always play e6, and try to get the game to morph into the French or that gets the pawn structure of the French. Your pieces will tend to get on the same squares in most games and then its just up to skill. If you can play a lot of games and yahoo chess and you can get your skill up pretty fast.
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Eh I think at his level e6 isn't so good to start out with.
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On January 25 2009 05:31 Azrael1111 wrote:
Pfft, not what I was expecting.
I thought it was kind of obvious.
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Freaking infested got here before me.
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just get chessmaster, its so easy to learn from that.
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...this seems very...
tamed compared to the last one
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EPT![[image loading]](http://images.google.com/url?source=imgres&ct=tbn&q=http://www.hickerphoto.com/data/media/162/ad_22555n.jpg&usg=AFQjCNF9tX_x3zXDt1keIoZM1ImNfGP6hg)
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![[image loading]](http://images.google.com/url?source=imgres&ct=tbn&q=http://www.ces.purdue.edu/pork/images/ansci/mating.jpg&usg=AFQjCNEx2Wc9LWu2YpVq2E9llz47_0_lSQ)
![[image loading]](http://images.google.com/url?source=imgres&ct=tbn&q=http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/Cassowaries%2520Mating%2520blog.JPG&usg=AFQjCNErpsNJF-Uuoc-tDYVtB0m1GboXXg)
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