To improve your chess rating… stop blundering (duh)

“The winner of the game is the player who makes the next-to-last mistake.” — Savielly Tartakower

For most beginner-to-intermediate level chess games, the aspects of chess that are studied the most, such as opening theory, tactics, and positional play are mere sideshows to the main event of the evening: a blunderfest.

A common site to see in intermediate-level chess games

Simply reducing the number of blunders made per game is the fastest way for most players to improve their rating. Yet almost every player I see spends the majority of their study time on tactics (which primarily train you to capitalize on your opponent’s mistakes, not fix your own) and opening theory.

How can a greater focus on blunders improve one’s rating? Here, white has worked diligently to get to an endgame where they have a clear advantage that should lead to a checkmate shortly.

This position is winning for white… but only if white is careful

But in chess, one wrong move can erase an entire game’s worth of effort. Indeed, the most natural move, b7+, draws the game on the spot. In fact, any move but bxa7 blunders an easy win for white.

White must retreat from the pawns or black will be stalemated.

I’m a 2100 rated player on Lichess and I still lose a shockingly high number of my games to simple blunders. Even super GMs like Hikaru forget to defend their pieces at times. Reducing blunders is not simply something that beginners need to work on, it’s a constant battle in every game you play, at every level.

Hikaru loses to Magnus after blundering a bishop

But surprisingly, when I tried to find a drill to improve my blundering, there weren’t any good resources in existence. That’s why we created Blunder Preventer puzzles at Aimchess.

Blunder Preventer puzzles give you a position with two seemingly normal moves. However one is a actually game losing blunder. It’s your job to determine which is which.

From my Aimchess study plan for the week: which of these moves is losing for white?

Selfishly, we made this for ourselves to improve our rating. But we also knew it would make a huge impact on the rating of players who used it. Since we released Blunder Preventer puzzles, my blitz rating has jumped 200 points and my rapid is up 100.

Give it a try and let me know what you think. Who knows, you might just find yourself becoming a little bit more pragmatic and a bit more consistent in your game play.

Ross | Chief Mediocre Chess Player @ Aimchess