Improvement
3 Biggest Mistakes In Chess
These Will Slow Down Your Improvement
Although Chess ratings usually showcase our true strength, we commonly make mistakes that make us look like total beginners.
To avoid these mistakes and level up your gameplay, follow me as we decode these common mistakes one by one.
1. Playing the same openings repeatedly
Chess openings are a key part of improvement, but it’s crucial not to study them excessively.
Your chess training time should be distributed closely to 30/30/40, when studying Openings, Middlegames and Endgames.
Many players, who are willing to seize an advantage from move 1, keep trying to master the same opening on a high level. Even experts are prone to this mistake.
What’s the problem with this?
You see, playing the same openings puts you in auto-pilot mode, “forcing” your mind to instinctively avoid creative, new ideas, as you’re accustomed to same old concepts you’ve learnt 1000 times.
Instead, mix up your openings, explore a bit, but mostly play with what you feel is best. That way, your creativity will broaden.
2. Crumble Under Time Pressure
Hikaru Nakamura or Magnus Carlsen are elite Grandmasters who have absolutely mastered their nerves.
Their secret? Constant practice.
You see, most of us find ourselves blundering under time pressure. Although that’s common, there’s a fix to it.
If you constantly force yourself to make a decision in seconds, over time, you’ll eventually get better at it.
It won’t be easy at first, but with enough practice, everything will unfold.
1. Play practice games.
2. In random positions, force yourself to make a quick decision.
3. Don’t make the move right away, analyze it and only then play it.
4. Don’t change the initial move. It may be bad, but at least you’ll learn a valuable lesson.
5. Change the speed slowly.
3. Not playing like their style suggests
I’ve seen many players play unlike their style all of a sudden. In most cases, it doesn’t have a good ending.
The reason? Not enough practice, unexpected behaviour change → frequent losses.
Experimenting with your style and piece play is a key factor to improvement, but it’s important to do it correctly.
1. Learn basic strategic concepts of your desired style. 1–2 weeks should be enough.
2. Slowly start implementing them in your games, see how you’ve learned them.
3. Analyze those games, see what you’ve missed. What could’ve been done instead?
4. If you like the desired style, keep following this method. In a couple months, you’ll get more flexible with it.
That’s it for today. I hope you learned something and enjoyed it!
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