Avoid These Mistakes Beginner Chess Players Make
It is impossible not to make mistakes. There are an almost endless number of moves that could be played in a chess game, and many of them are blunders. An experienced player may blunder less, but chess blunders happen to everyone. Whether it is as small of a mistake as an unnecessary pawn move, or as large as blundering checkmate, we can learn to blunder less. By understanding some of the most common mistakes that beginner chess players make, you can avoid those simple blunders and improve your game.
Types of Chess Blunders
When you are first learning, it may feel like every idea that you have turns out to be a blunder somehow. But if you didn’t understand the rules or traffic laws of the road, and decided to drive through downtown, you would have an accident! Understanding the basics of chess and basic beginner mistakes to avoid can set you up for success instead of failure. There are different kinds of chess blunders to understand.
Tactical Chess Blunders
In his book Learn to Play Chess Like a Boss Grandmaster Patrick Wolff describes a tactic as, “a move or sequence of moves designed to achieve a goal.” They are more than just mistakes beginner chess players make. Blundering a tactic means you allowed your opponent to play a move that helped them achieve a goal of either winning some of your material or even checkmating you. In order to best avoid the common beginner chess mistakes and tactical blunders, you need to familiarize yourself with these tactical ideas. Here are some of the most common types of tactics to blunder.
- Forks
- Pins
Black to play and utilize a pin. Because the queen and king are on the same diagonal, black can attack the queen, and the queen cannot move without endangering the king and having king safety problems.
- Discovered Attack
White to play. White has a discovered attack against blacks queen here. They an move the bishop out of the way with a check, and win the queen.
- Many more. Learn from these sources and practice.
Positional Chess Novice Mistake
Tactical blunders usually allow your opponent to immediately gain some sort of material or obvious checkmate advantage. Positional blunders are mistakes that don’t give up material, but cause a long-term problem in your position. Here are some examples of positional mistakes and advantages for your opponent.
- King is weakened.
- King can’t castle.
- Passed pawn.
Opening and Endgame Blunders and Mistakes Beginner Chess Players Make
Two areas that tend to give beginners problems are the opening and endgame. You do not have to become an endgame master before you can win chess games. Similarly, you do not need to know twenty moves of opening theory to win games. But what do you need to know? The best way to avoid blunders in the opening and the endgame is to learn the general rules and principles to follow.
Opening Principles That Will Help You Avoid Blunders
I give my students three opening principles to follow when they are first learning chess that I think can get you far in chess. Those three rules are to control the middle, develop your pieces, and get castled. Now, if you follow these rules without looking at your opponent's moves, then you will blunder. So here are some things to watch out for or avoid to not blunder in the opening.
What Did They Do?
Look at what your opponent's last move does in the opening. Did they just threaten a pawn? Then don’t castle yet! Did they play a random pawn move on the side of the board? They may have given you a chance to control the center of the board more with another pawn move before you develop more of your minor pieces.
Don’t Move the Same Piece Twice!
This is a common piece of advice, but it is a good rule of thumb to try and follow. Remember my previous advice, though, if they just attacked one of your pieces, you may need to move it again, but as a general rule we want to try and develop more of our new pieces instead of just moving the same ones again.
Don’t Weaken Your King!
One problem I see beginners fall into in the opening is that they will quickly play some sort of move that weakens their king for the rest of the game. Instead of blocking a check they will step their king to the side, or they will push a pawn that opens their king up. You have to think of the entire game when solving problems in chess, so don't ruin the game for your future self by playing a silly move now.
Chess Blunders in Endgames
Endgames are even tougher than openings. There are some general rules you can follow in the endgame that will help you improve and avoid blunders.
Use Your King
In the endgame, if you let your opponent activate their king, and you do not, you will often lose those games. When many of the other pieces have been traded, especially if there are only pawns remaining, the king becomes a very versatile and powerful piece. Especially when you compare them to pawns. Use your king and don’t let your opponent have that advantage.
Watch out for Passed Pawns
In an endgame, your opponent will likely focus on getting a pawn to the end of the board. One common endgame blunder I see from beginners is that they will completely forget that the passed pawn is a problem for them. Or they will realize it far too late. Once your opponent has been promoted, it might be time to resign.
Don’t Resign Too Early
Resigning too early is another Mistake beginner chess players make. Ask yourself, should you resign? If you are playing other beginners, they may not know how to convert their winning advantage into a victory. If your opponent doesn’t know how to mate with a queen and king, or even two rooks, then you may end up with a draw even in a losing position. They also could blunder away a game with a stalemate.
How to Avoid Chess Blunders
If you can learn to avoid blunders, your chess will improve drastically. There are a few concrete things you can do before making a move that will help with this. Start by looking at forcing moves. Scan the position for checks, then captures, and then threats.
Checks
You should start every new position on the chess board by looking at you and your opponent’s most forcing kind of move, the check. Most tactics and tactical blunders revolve around the king. Examining every way that you can check your opponent, or that your opponent can check you, will help you to avoid obvious blunders.
Captures
Not every blunder is a check, however. You also need to look at all of your opponent's captures. This will stop you from blundering hanging pieces, but also this can help you spot tactics coming from your opponent. Captures are forcing moves because unless you want to lose material, then you will probably want to recapture your lost piece. Quickly looking through your opponent's captures can save you from a blunder.
Threats
Next, take a look at any threat they could play. Maybe your pieces are lined up and they can play a pin on the next move. That is not a check or a capture, but you need to spot the threat on your piece that the pin would cause and stop it. Be on the lookout for moves that make dangerous threats in the position.
“What Will My Opponent Play?”
I always tell my students to ask themselves this simple question before playing a move. Often we can get very caught up in our own ideas or maneuvers that we want to make with our pieces, and we can miss the simple moves are opponent will play in response. Asking yourself what your opponent will play, and putting yourself in their chess-playing shoes for one moment, can save you from embarrassing blunders.
What to do Once You See the Threat
So what do you do once you have spotted the move that your opponent will play? Now it turns into a puzzle of how to stop them. But don’t just jump to the first move that stops the threat that they have! Take a moment to look through your options and find the best path forward. Sometimes there is only one solution to the threat they are making, but you likely have multiple moves that could work, so find the best.
Avoiding the Small Mistakes That Will Ruin Your Game
Chess is full of smaller mistakes that can end up giving you a bad position. While beginners certainly can throw away games with big blunders, it can also be many smaller mistakes. Death by a thousand cuts on the chessboard. Here are a few of these smaller mistakes to watch out for.
1. Weakening your king.
Be careful anytime you are thinking of playing a move that opens your king up in some way. This could be as simple as playing f4, or you might miss that your opponent can trade a piece and force you to recapture with a pawn in front of your king. Either way, be careful that you don’t weaken your king voluntarily.
2. Losing important pawns.
Another very common mistake beginner chess players make is losing critical pawns. Often, I see a student build up a very solid position where they have developed their pieces, gotten castled, and are ready for a fighting game, only for them to blunder a central pawn out of nowhere! Don’t let the desire to go on an attack cause you to forget what pawns are being defended. These central pawns are sometimes the linchpin that holds our entire position together. Keep them defended!
3. Forgetting Pins
Sometimes, we have the memory of a goldfish in our chess games. We will remember a piece is pinned on one move and then blunder away our queen by moving a knight on another. Remember to ask yourself what your opponent will play if you move a piece. If it captures your now exposed queen, then you need a different move.
4. Not looking if squares are safe.
Not checking if the square you are moving to is a safe square is possibly the number one cause of blunders in beginner chess. Even if the piece is a pawn, we don’t want to lose material unnecessarily. Make sure the square you are moving to is safe before you make the move.
5. No room for your King.
Another common mistake is not making room for your king and getting back rank checkmated. If we just push a pawn at some point here, then we will be safe. But we need to be proactive here and keep our position solid.
6. Playing for Tricks.
Another mistake beginner chess players make is playing one-move threats, cheap tricks, anything that can be thwarted by your opponent thinking for a half second can be an unnecessary waste of time in your game. Instead of hoping your opponent blunders and misses your attack, focus on playing solid moves that improve your position. That is not to say that you can't play a good move that also gives a threat, but don’t worsen your position just to play a trick.
7. Not looking at your opponent's checks
This goes back to looking at forcing moves. Failing to look at the checks your opponent might play in a sequence can swing a line from good to terrible. You might almost have a good tactic, but if you don’t look to see if your opponent has any checks, you might end up worse.
8. Trading Quickly without Thinking
I always joke that players should “always trade.” In reality, trading is often worse for your position. I think beginners feel like it simplifies the position, but often you are just giving away your developed pieces and not improving your position.