Winning Chess: Fischer with Carlsen

Play Winning Chess

"The game of chess has with justification been called the art of human reason." ~ R.N. Coles

CHESS is a game which calls for all the best of the mental attributes - concentration, foresight, calculation, coordination, judgement and imagination. In order to be victorious in a chess battle, you’ve got to outsmart that guy across the board from you.

Useful Tips to Sharpen Your Chess Skill – Bobby Fischer

Concentrate.

Chess requires total concentration. For example, when I play I try to keep my mind completely on the game. I always try to put my best foot forward.

This means I want to win. No one’s interested in excuses if I lose. Many people who play chess are using only a fraction of their mind and the rest of their mind is off wandering somewhere.

Think ahead.

Don’t go by your first instinct in making a move. Try to look ahead, to picture how your opponent will reply. Remember, it’s absolutely essential for your development as a chessplayer that you play touch move – if you touch a piece you must move it.

So if you feel you lack self-control, you might try sitting on your hands as ex-world champion Smyslov of Russia used to do.

Study.

Study the recent games of masters in books and magazines and combine this study with actual play, against strong players.

With your young, fresh mind you should soon be beating your elders easily. And of course spend as much time at the game as you possibly can.

Learn from your losses.

Record your serious games and then later you can go over your games and try to find out where you made your mistakes – if you don’t already know. That way you aren’t likely to lose a game the same way twice.

The Cuban world chess champion, Capablanca, once said that he liked to lose more than he liked to win because he learned more from his losses than from his wins!

Top Tips to Master Chess – Magnus Carlsen

Play white. 

If you have the first move, the price of a mistake is much lower. So if you have the first move you can make a mistake and still be in the game. If you’re playing black and you made a mistake you’re likely going to be out, just because of that half-move advantage.

On every move, check whether any of your or your opponent’s pieces are unprotected. 

It’s amazing how far that will get you. Also look out for any checks in the position, because if there is a check it might be mate.

Remember patterns rather than individual moves. 

Good players actually use their long-term memory much more than inexperienced players, who use their short-term memory. Good players try to recall patterns, something familiar about this position that can tell you something that helps you.

More inexperienced players who don’t recognize those patterns have to start anew in every position. As you get some experience in chess you can easily visualize the board in your head, and then seeing far ahead is not very difficult.

Don’t overthink a move. 

If I’m thinking for more than 20 minutes about one move, it’s usually a waste. Sometimes you can come up with some amazing solution but most of the time you just end up looping.

You consider a move, you reject it, then you’re desperate, you come back to the move, you don’t remember why you rejected it, you have to make a move so you make it – then your opponent replies and you remember why you rejected it.

The longest wait I ever did between moves was one hour and five minutes – and the move was horrible.

Have a poker face.

You can’t look too annoyed or they’ll look for the mistake you’ve made. A lot of the time it’s about looking for these opportunities and if you give them a clue, the good players will find it.