Here is a breakdown of the main points you need to follow in order to improve your game:

TACTICS

Practice tactical motifs such as forks, pins, and skewers regularly to gain a decisive advantage over your opponent.

Tactics in chess are the key to winning games. They include the ability to recognize and execute short-term, forced sequences of moves that lead to material or positional advantage. These can include checkmates, forks, pins, discovered attacks, and other tactical motifs. To be a successful chess player, you must practice tactics regularly. This will improve your ability to spot and execute tactical opportunities, and to calculate variations quickly. You can find many tactics puzzles and exercises online or in books, which will help you develop a keen eye for tactical opportunities and recognize patterns that frequently occur in games. Add tactics practice to your daily routine to improve.

PROPER GAMES

Play against stronger opponents to improve your own abilities and understanding of the game.

To improve your chess skills, playing games is essential. However, not all types of games are created equal. Blitz and bullet games, while entertaining, do not provide the same level of learning opportunities as games with longer time controls. To truly benefit from your chess games, choose a time control that allows you to spend a couple of minutes on a critical move. This will give you the time to develop a plan and identify tactical opportunities in the position. Remember, no Grandmaster or International Master has achieved their level of play through speed chess alone.

SIMPLICITY

Keep your moves simple, reduce the chance of mistakes and make your decisions easy to execute.

Simplicity is an essential principle in chess. By focusing on simple plans and moves, you can reduce the number of potential options and make more accurate decisions. This can lead to more efficient play and fewer mistakes. In particular, when it comes to openings, keeping things simple can be especially beneficial. Some key principles to keep in mind when planning your opening strategy include developing your pieces, controlling the center, avoiding moving a minor piece twice in the early stages of the game, castling your king, and connecting your rooks. By adhering to these basic principles, you can create a strong foundation for your game and set yourself up for success in the middle game.

CHECKLIST

Follow a checklist to consider threats to the king, tactics, placement, and protection of all pieces.

It's important to always keep in mind the most forcing move possibilities when going through your mental checklist. This means starting with moves that put the enemy king in check, as they are the most critical to address. From there, you should assess whether or not you are in danger of being checked, and if any of your pieces are hanging or underdefended. It's also important to be aware of any tactical opportunities in the position, such as the ability to create a fork, pin, or skewer. Additionally, think about how you can place your pieces in a more active position, occupy or control key squares, and block enemy pieces. With practice and experience, you will be able to go through this process more efficiently and with fewer mistakes.

MIDDLEGAME

Create a plan to guide the placement and activity of your pieces until an opportunity for an attack arises.

A well-thought-out plan in the middle game can be the difference between a win and a loss. After the opening, it's essential to assess the current position and develop a plan based on the strengths and weaknesses of your pieces. This involves identifying imbalances in the position, such as hanging or underdefended pieces, and placing your pieces on squares where they can best exploit these imbalances. To implement your strategy, consider the following steps while keeping in mind the checklist from the previous paragraph: Identify the key areas of the board where you want to launch your attack, whether it be the kingside, queenside, or center. Determine the best squares for your pieces to occupy in order to support your plan. Generate a list of candidate moves to get your pieces to those squares. Calculate the potential outcomes of each move and choose the one that works best. Re-evaluate your plan after your opponent's response.

ENDGAME

Study endgame setups in order to improve your ability to convert advantages into wins.

The endgame is the final phase of a chess game, where there are fewer pieces on the board, and the focus shifts to converting an advantage into a win or saving a draw. It is important to have a good understanding of basic endgame concepts and techniques, such as pawn promotion, king and pawn endgames, rook endgames, and queen endgames. These concepts can help you to make the most of your material advantage, or to find ways to draw the game if you are behind. It's also important to be aware of the basic endgame principles like opposition, zugzwang, triangulation, and outflanking which can be used to improve the position of your king and pieces. Endgame play requires a high level of accuracy and a deep understanding of the positions that may arise. It is often the stage of the game where small mistakes can be fatal and where the most experienced players can really distinguish themselves. Therefore, It's essential to study and practice endgames regularly to improve your chess skill.

ANALYSIS

Review and analyze your own games — focus on identifying patterns that need improvement.

Analyzing your chess games, especially your losses, is a crucial step in the process of improving your chess skills. By reviewing your games, you can gain a deeper understanding of the patterns in your play, which can include common mistakes or areas where you need to focus your improvement efforts. This process can help you to identify and correct any weaknesses in your game and to develop a more sound and effective chess strategy. Additionally, analyzing your games can help you to better understand the strategies and tactics of your opponents, which can give you an edge in future games.

IDOLS

Who are your chess idols? Pick one and study their games and the concepts they use to improve your own chess abilities.

To truly excel in the game of chess, it is important to study the games of stronger players and understand the concepts they use. This can include studying the games of grandmasters, studying the intricacies of different openings, and studying the advanced concepts of endgames. By studying the games of stronger players, you can learn from their successes and mistakes, and gain a deeper understanding of the game. Additionally, by studying the games of your chess idols, you can gain insight into the strategies and tactics that they use, which can help you to improve your own game.

BALANCE

Avoid becoming overly focused on any one area: opening, middle, or endgame. Use the 20/40/40 rule.

Achieving a balance in your chess study is essential for improving your game. One approach to achieving this balance is to use the 20/40/40 rule. This means that 20% of your time should be spent on tactics, 40% on strategy, and 40% on endgame concepts. This approach can help you to balance your study and improve in all areas of the game. By dedicating a significant portion of your study time to each of these areas, you can ensure that you are working on both short-term tactics and long-term strategy and that you are developing your endgame skills. Additionally, this balance will help you to avoid becoming too focused on any one area, which can lead to neglecting other important areas of the game.

ENJOY

Take it easy and remember to have fun and find pleasure in the process of learning and improving.

Do not lose sight of the fact that chess should be enjoyable. Obsessing over your rating is not a good idea. While it is important to take your studies and training seriously, it is also important to find pleasure in the process of improving and to enjoy the game itself. Taking breaks, playing casual games and not getting too upset over losses are some ways to keep the game fun. Experimenting with different openings, playing different variants of the game can also help to keep things interesting.

https://strangerchess.com/tips/

If you live in Berlin and have walked by Schönhauser Allee 185 between the hours of 8 and midnight on any day in the last 12 months, you have likely seen me in front of Brother’s Night Shop with a couple of chess boards. Yes, every day. Yes, even in the rain/snow/cold. Yes, even when no one else showed up.

My name is Wolf Bōese. I am a designer, artist, and the founder of StrangerChess. And this is the story of how my life got turned upside down.

2020 — Another lockdown.
Just like groundhog day
but with nowhere to go.

You stare into the screen until
the screen stares into you.

In my life, I have spent a lot of time on my own, but never in indefinite isolation like this before. It was Christmas and in order to cope with the heightened sense of loneliness, I started numbing myself with day drinking.

The city felt so empty.
I felt empty.

I fell deeper and deeper into depression and had little to do to distract myself. Due to the impact of the pandemic on my clients, my commissions were non-existent.

Fortunately, I had savings,
but I didn’t have a purpose,
inspiration, hope, or goals.

I had seen all of my favorite shows over and over to the point of absolute and total boredom.

After every means of distraction had been exhausted I began looking inwards, where I rediscovered my artistic side which I hadn’t given proper attention to for the longest time.

I had never worked with that medium in this intensity but photography became my main occupation during that time. I would spend entire days setting up a single shot.

Instead of a thousand clicks,
all it took was one.

Working across multiple disciplines I always found it’s the most brilliant thing when you acquire a new skill and get to mix it with the ones you already had.

Multiplication.
One foot in what you know
the other in the unknown …

You listen to Tom Odell on repeat and invent your own language to write an open diary. Upload your heart to Instagram.

Strange days.

Vevo Presents: Tom Odell
Live at Spiegelsaal, Berlin

In a noisy world like the one we live in, making anyone besides your mom care about your art is virtually impossible.

That hadn’t bothered me before.
What I did I did for an audience of one.

The days and the results started to appear incredibly meaningful. This is how it feels when you are right on the edge …

Leslie Clio — Twist The Knife

… between order and chaos.

The things you can do with sorrow, a dead bouquet, eggshells, and your neighbor’s kid’s unwanted plastic toys. I was absorbed in a microcosm of my own memory and imagination.

So needless to say I’m odds and ends
But that’s me, I’m stumbling away
Slowly learning that life is okay
Say after me
It’s no better to be safe than sorry

The Last of Us 2 — Ellie Singing
“Take On Me” In the Music Shop

No milk today,
my love has gone away
The bottle stands for lorn,
a symbol of the dawn

Herman’s Hermits
No Milk Today

Time to move on.

Simple Minds
Don’t You (Forget About Me)

At the start of 2021, I threw myself back into pure type design work. Still no commissions. I dug out projects from my archive. Dozens and dozens of designs that I had worked on for the better part of a decade.

A never-ending to-do list …

My plan was to publish as many as I can as fast as I can, and I worked around the clock till it hurt. And it did. Spending every waking hour on the computer wasn’t sustainable …

… I had injured my wrist and
it took forever to heal properly.

As a self-employed designer, I had already been working from home prior to the pandemic. In order to cope with the isolation that went along with it, I would spend most evenings in bars trying to socialize. And just like that 12 years of Berlin life creep up on you and all of a sudden you find yourself with a veritable drinking and drug habit.

I recall being in line to order another one. Around me, only guys whose best days are long gone. Fast forward another 10 years?

No thank you.

As the final escape from this spiral, I took the chessboard a friend had gifted me years ago onto the streets. I admit I hardly ever had played on it.

Hey Georgina,
how are you?

During long walks in the neighborhood, I struck up conversations with strangers on the side walk, on playgrounds, in the parks, and on benches and stairs, in front of museums and theatres.

Initially I was a bit rusty with my approach but that changed quickly.

1. Smile as you walk up
2. Make eye contact
3. Say hello
4. How are you?
5. Repeat

My health app showed a significant increase in steps per day like never seen before.

I had begun to form better habits.
I found a new balance in this routine.

Now I took long walks every evening starting at Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz. I’d find people in front of Volksbuehne and if not I kept going all the way to Bode-Museum.

Black pants, White shirt,
Checkerboard under the arm.
Go!

The whole thing was an exercise in making a good first impression. It worked well. Many people played with me each day and the ones who couldn’t then were handing me their phone numbers for another day.

At that point, I realized I needed to build a community online to keep in touch with everyone …

… after all, a stranger is a friend
you haven’t met yet.

Enter my little wonderland.
The enchanted fairytale forest where unicorns meet Kings …

… and Queens.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness…

…only light can do that.

8 by 8,
64 squares,
365 days a year.

Due to the ease of the restrictions, Friday nights were buzzing with people who wanted to party. A risky environment for me as I didn’t want to fall back into old patterns.

One weekend I found what would become our permanent spot. Benches had been occupied by drunkies and fuck ups. Every other minute you would hear the sound of a breaking bottle.

I had set up my board on a table between the sidewalk and the bike lane. My heart was pounding as I took on challenges.

It lasted an hour or two before a group of boozed-up guys was grabbing my pieces on their prowl down the Alley.

“I’ll have to pack my things
and go (that’s right)”

There’s the most interesting story of how wolves changed the course of the rivers of Yellowstone National Park.

Fascinating stuff.
I like to draw a parallel here …

Learn about how Wolves
Change Rivers

Showing up every single day is immediately outperforming any effort the drunkies, or coked-up bullies could put in. Yes, there was harassment. Aggressive and obnoxious behavior. I didn’t go from one board to ten over night and without complications.

I kept holding up the chess flag day in and out and the community grew steady. I had learned how to deal with troublemakers. And the kind of people that would populate the sidewalk ultimately changed.

Brother’s (K)Night Shop had turned into a vibrant center of Berlin’s street chess culture.

This responsibility has been immensely rewarding and helped me to develop the discipline to overcome my own substance abuse and self-destructive behaviors.

The everyday commitment has been the fail-safe that left no time for me to fuck up. If you mess up one move, don’t resign the game.

I had a young man come to talk to me about his struggling friend, seeking my advice. Have I become a role model?

Tonight, like any night, I will be setting up the boards outside Brother’s Night Shop. Where the owners embrace us and the neighbours love us. Where we see new faces every day … as well as regulars.

During the colder days many people had asked why we are not looking for a place inside. They seemed to have forgotten that we never would have had any conversation if we weren’t outside.

No doors need
no open door policy.

I put a lot of work into spreading the word about our daily meet-up. But the serendipity of people randomly passing by and stopping in awe at the sight of us is magical …

I used to joke that the minimum requirement for joining us is that you must have seen at least half an episode of the Queen’s Gambit. But really, anyone who’s curious enough to try is welcome.

Most nights I can only keep one eye on the board, the other is scanning the side walk for chess curious people.

You’d be surprised how often I see people wearing some glorious kind of chess patterned outfit … I always jump on the opportunity to snap a picture.

Of course not everyone who’s eyeballing us is a chess enthusiast. Some pedestrians are just intrigued by what’s going on. But more often than not there are entire groups of friends that raid us.

Such energy,
much chess …

One thing is for certain. We are not a hidden gem anymore. Here we are off the street at our second indoor event at SOHO Friends. A great opportunity to challenge our strongest Strangers with a special guest: my friend Elisabeth.

She’s a Grand Master and you have not the slightest chance against her.

I had the strangest dream …
I still have the strangest dream.

“If you build it they will come”

It didn’t even take a year to get noticed by the chess establishment. Here we are at the final day of the FIDE GRAND PRIX 2022 together with WGM Dina Belenkaya for our 3rd live stream collaboration …

After mating her during our 2nd Stream, I was able to score yet another point for team StrangerChess in the outfit battle.

From left to right: Laura, Yoschi,
Miss Belenkaya, Wolf, Vadim, and Ian

@TheBelenkaya
on twitch

We’ve made so many new friends. Not only in Berlin but also across the community online internationally … I’ve never felt as welcomed, such generosity.

Hey Rock!
How are you buddy?

@THE.FORK.POWER
on Instagram

Of course, we are not the only chess initiative out there:

CHESS UNLIMITED
Kineke Mulder, Vienna

CHESS AND JAZZ
Clemens Lotz, Berlin

OTB SOUTHBANK
Harry Lewis, Ellie Walton, London

FOUR CORNER CLUB
James Richards, London

LONDON CHESS COMMUNITY
Jake Williams, London

In Vienna there is Kineke Mulder, she’s the founder of Chess Unlimited and she reached out to us in the most old-fashioned way: with a charming postcard and a handy chess clock to top it off. What an amazing gift!

SOMEONE’S MISSING?
Shoot us an email …

Throughout 2021 the number one question I heard the most was: “Have you seen the Queen’s Gambit?” — Yes, yes and yes!

FIDE has declared 2022 the year of the woman in chess. I hope we will continue to see many more Queens killing it on the board.

The Vogues
You’re The One

You’re the one that I long to kiss
Baby, you’re the one that I really miss
You’re the one that I’m dreamin’ of
Baby, you’re the one that I love

On the board and beyond there’s a circle of people who I can count on and who can count on me. Hosting the event has given me purpose and inspiration.

Thank you Strangers.
See you tonight, tomorrow,
or any other night!

David Bowie
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange

Last but not least:
The doggo tax

The end…

https://strangerchess.com/origin/