Chess skill

[ronthepon]

I really think that it would help my wasteable chess playing skill if I asked everybody to please give tips.

I mean check out my style and tell me yours, people!


Wait for the opponent to move

Evaluate danger spots and threatened pieces

Evaluate possible profitable moves, and list them in mind

See the pros and cons of each move and make assumptions of what the opponent's gonna do

If there is no threat or possible good move, build a battle plan to go in.

Finally take the move and worry like hell that DID I DO ALL THAT RIGHT?!

Any tips to make me a faster player?
(75% of my opponents call me a boring player)

[Racoon]

faster with practice...

I don't play with a timer usually. But I understand when someone takes forever it gets boring! But thats the other person not wanting to lose.

I'm a fairly good Chess player,
Buts thats because I have gotten my ass kicked so many times!

I don't play with a strategy. Pawn in front of King first.

[ronthepon]

Hey, I don't think that practice is my missing thing. I've been playing for about six years now.

No big deal? Yes it is for me. It is about 40% of my life!!

[cwes99_03]

I too play like you Ron, but let me tell you that I learned from playing against a computer. Setting up a strategy and running through it against a computer is pretty good. Granted the computer will often run the same moves over and over, but if you build a strategy you will begin to see the faults of your strategy by playing it through over and over again.
You will also become a much quicker player, putting more of the pressure on your opponent, and most common opponents play much worse when on defense.

[ronthepon]

I've tried the distract the opponent tactic also, by the way...
It works sometimes, though. But when some smart guy who takes his time confronts me, I'm skinned alive.

Even I have been trying various programs that play chess, cwes99_03(Now that's a complex robotic title). But the major fun of playing chess: major surprises and smart tactics are not very prominent in computers.

[InfiniteNow]

I tend make wildly unpredictable moves when I notice in their eyes they have locked onto a certain strategy. That way, any oppenent planning multiple moves in advance will get screwed up since I didn't do what they predicted. This turns out to be the only way I was able to beat my father who planned move sequences in his head.

[TheBigDog]

You certainly need a stratagy in the beginning of a game. There are whole volumes on the various strong openings. The first 6 to 12 moves could almost be done from memory. Just be observant of you opponent so if they step differently, you act accordingly. Fisher always used the same opening when he played white (well, 99% of the time). For him it was all about controlling the middle of the board.

Before Deep Blue Kasparov beat the then world computer chess champion as one of ten simultanious opponents in a blind tournament. (He could see the written moves, but not look at the boards) He beat the computer with a queen sacrifice that lead to mate is 8 moves. All in his head while playing 10 games without seeing the boards!

I don't need to be that good.

Look up Susan Polgar online. She posts some excellent lessons.

Bill

[ronthepon]

Originally Posted by TheBigDog

Look up Susan Polgar online. She posts some excellent lessons.

Introduce me please, will you?

[Mercedes Benzene]

I've never played chess in my life.
I suppose that's a little surprising....

[pgrmdave]

I'm not a very good chess player, partially because I'm not patient enough, and partially because I don't care enough about the game to spend time learning it well, but I have found certain ways to overcome my poorer skills.

- If I'm playing against someone much better than me, I recognize that the peices have different values for each of us. I can't use my knights to any great effect, but my bishops and rooks tend to win me the few games I win. While my queen is very effective, a queen in the hands of a much better player is worse to me than having my queen is to me. Thus if I can capture one of my opponents knights, or their queen, by losing one of my knights or queen, it is beneficial to me. If taking one of their bishops or rooks would mean losing one of mine, it is detrimental.

- If I'm going to lose a peice, I try to always make it tit for tat. I play defensively so that it any attack my opponent makes will cost at least something.

- I find that it is easier for me to play on a less cluttered board, so in the beginning of the game I try to capture many pieces (even if it doesn't move me into better board position) and sacrifice my pawns(again trying to keep tit for tat, but it's more important to have an open board for me than to have eight pawns).

- I try to make my moves in under one minute unless I can see that there are obvious strategies. This makes my moves less predictable, because I don't try too hard to plan my moves beyond three, and it can unnerve some of the better players.

While I don't often win games, I have found that following these guidelines has helped me keep the games more even.