OK, you may not be able to answer that question literally. But I cannot get this game. I know what the pieces do. I just can’t put that knowledge into practice. I just got a new chess game for iOS, Mastersoft Chess. I can beat it when I set it to (literally) Weakest strength. I can beat it on Weak. Once I set it to Novice level, everything goes south: I box myself in with my own pieces, I find myself constantly on the defensive, and my attacks end up only making me more vulnerable.
I know no one can teach me to play good chess over a BB. But I am wondering if there are some basic principles of chess that I simply never learned. When I was learning guitar, I never learned notation nor the finer shadings of music theory. But I learned the I-IV-V chords, I learned how to transpose: just a few basic principles that helped me find my way around the instrument. I’m wondering if there is a chess equivalent of the I-IV-V chords: something to at least get me started and build upon, so that one day I might actually win a chess game against a moderately capable opponent.
Sorry if this is a stupid question. Thanks, smart Dopers.
Gross oversimplification theater, dirt simple answer: Think ahead, and control the center.
Long-term skill at chess involves being able to consider and weigh the possible reaction to any move you make, so if you have a dozen things you could do now, you need to be able to consizer the twelve-dozen responses your opponent could make. The farther ahead you can think and plan, the better you’ll be at the game.
Controlling the center means being able to dictate what happens in the four center squares on the board: you don’t have to be able to occupy them, but you need to be able to capture any piece that lands there.
I am not a chess expert by any means, but until someone who is comes along, here’s my two cents:
How are you at thinking ahead, in general? At anticipating what your opponent will do in response to your own actions?
I suspect that any good chess program will have a way that you can undo a series of moves. When you find yourself in trouble—boxing yourself in, or leaving yourself vulnerable, or whatever—try backtracking to the move where you made your mistake, and see what happens if you pursue a different plan.
If only such a strategy could be applied to mastering Real Life!
My father was an excellent chess player and I was a profound disappointment to him, so I know where you’re coming from.
I’ll echo the above posters. The difference between being a good chess player and someone who pushes pieces around is being able to think ahead, meaning figuring out all the possible moves and countermoves.
I’ll never know how my father developed the talent to anticipate several moves, but he did teach me not to be so locked into a single combination (first I’ll move the knight to there, then the bishop to here and that will set up a long diagonal for the queen…) that you can’t figure out what to do when your opponent refuses to move the way you expect.
Computers are a poor test of chess skill for non-experts because they have a hard time overlooking tactical mistakes. Try signing up for a free account at a place like gameknot and playing until you find a level that works for you.
It might not be accurate to say you “suck” at chess. Chess skill is a continuum, and one guy’s “I’m awful” is another guy’s aspiration.
It’s more fun to play against a human than against a computer. Human opponents will have a limited bag of tricks, and you’ll learn to watch out for those tricks, and maybe steal those tricks. Also you’ll see how long they think before making a move, or if they seem dismayed.
As for getting better:
–Try solving the daily puzzle at www.chessgames.com (They get harder from Monday through Sunday.)
–Read a basic book (or online article) about openings. Learn the first three or four moves of the Queen’s Gambit, the Sicilian, the Ruy Lopez, the English and the Giuoco Piano.
–Although it’s not ideal to try to memorize lengthy opening sequences, I do enjoy checking out the won/loss/draw statistics on the chessok.comOpening Tree Explorer.
–If your software can analyze games, have it analyze your games and point out your blunders.
–Record your games against humans and have the computer analyze those.
Play through some classic chessgames, such as those of Morphy or Lasker. They may be easier to understand than those at today’s top level.
If you’re just playing, and not studying, you won’t improve very fast at all. There are lots of little tactics that would take you hundreds of games to notice yourself. e.g. Have you noticed how a single bishop can cover all of the squares that a knight against the side of the board can go to? Well, I didn’t, before I read it. How many games would I have had to play to notice it?
So, find some chess lessons or videos for beginners and work through them. I recommend the chess academy within Chessmaster (for beginners). Then put it into practice in online play.
I recommend against learning too much about openings initially; you’ll get the most bang for your buck learning tactics and mid-game strategy.
I have problems visualizing the moves. Plus I get bored and/or distracted while playing. So I’ll work out some possible moves and the potential followups from that by me and my opponent, but it’s just a set of steps without any image of what’s happening to adjust as the play continues. That means it’s like re-evaluating everything on each move, and then I get bored and/or distracted and next thing I know the other guy is saying ‘Mate’ and I’m looking at some picture on the wall that’s crooked.
If you’re not going to have a person teach you (friend, online, or local club), then it’s slow going at best. Advise you to get a beginner’s book and go through all the exercises on a real board. Then get a slightly more advanced book, rinse, repeat. Periodically check back against the computer for fun.
Overall, the whole “self-taught” idea doesn’t convey how absolutely hard self-teaching is and how much extra time is required to “learn” the things that an actual conversation could provide in a fraction of the time. People have formal and informal coaches for a reason. Not that I’m not guilty of trying to self-teach in other hobbies. So good luck to the both of us:D
As I play chess, I recall Spock’s words in Star Trek II: “His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking.” I simply am not perceptive enough (yet) about all the ways in which an attack can come (or be defended against). I also realize my natural caution works against me: I’m reluctant to give up material or to play very boldly, so I figure I’m probably condemning myself to lose just from that. Anyway, I’m checking out Gameknot and really enjoying learning the tactics, and will act on others’ suggestions to try playing a live opponent. Thanks, and keep the remarks coming; I like to hear from people who know what they’re talking about.
You need to answer a few more questions in order to assess your level of suckitude:
Do I regularly lose pieces without getting anything in return? Do I even understand why this matters?
Can I execute basic checkmates with a King and Queen against a bare King? How about King and Rook against bare King? How about mating patterns with Queen and Knight against a castled King? With other pieces?
Note that you do not need to calculate many moves ahead. Two or three moves at a time, and an awareness of some basic patterns, is what’s mainly needed.
I’m not playing much at the moment, but I can be found either on gameknot or on chess dot com as “Gil-Gandel” (for historical reasons ).
A friend of mine who is a pretty good player said he would play that game with four pawns and a king (i think) over and over with his father. He felt that and other exercises was an important step in developing the more advanced skills. I’ve never read a book on playing chess or done any other skills exercises, so these things may be very important for a game that is much more complex than it appears. It’s certainly far more complex than just learning how to move each piece.
Assuredly. A chess book I used to have about the place (I’d learned to play long before I got it) had some training activities involving Queen against eight pawns, two Rooks against eight pawns, and any other two pieces against eight pawns. The pawns win if any of them promotes without being lost at once (or if they take the piece(s)). Between players who know what they’re doing, in the first two cases the pieces win easily and in the other cases they lose, but there are valuable lessons to be learned along the way for beginners. He also suggested King and eight pawns against King and eight pawns.
But the basic endings (K&QvK especially) need to be learned and understood. I’ve seen many beginners reach a hugely winning position and then find themselves with nothing to do but queen as many pawns as possible and hope a mate happens by accident - and even then, they’re uncertain as to what the rules say about how many Queens you can have on the board at once.
You can have nine Queens at once if you see fit (and take care not to lose the one you began the game with) but, to be honest, if you’re not winning the game when you’re one Queen up, throwing more Queens at the problem can be more hindrance than help. Rookies not unoften end up stalemating the enemy King despite themselves because they have so many Queens they’re treading on each others’ toes; then they get all butthurt and protest that stalemate’s a silly rule anyway. (Tough. It was in force when you sat down so it’s too late to argue for a revision at this stage.)
And I’ll be sure to defer to him once he pitches up, but to be honest, the questions being asked here aren’t yet deep enough to call for a professional teacher or Master-level player (neither of which am I, alas).
