9 Tips To Make Mastering Chess Easier

Chess isn’t easy. Mastering chess is even harder. There are some things to keep in mind, however, if you are trying to improve at chess. Don’t make your chess improvement more difficult on yourself than it has to be. The first step, however, is to set the right expectations for chess improvement. Often, success and failure are arbitrary and just come down to where your expectations lie.

Setting Expectations for Improvement

Because chess is hard, it is exponentially more difficult to become a chess master. If you are picking up today, it is best to set low expectations for yourself. In reality, you will still be in an incredibly high percentile around the world just by being a 1000-rated chess player. That is to say, don’t shoot for grandmaster, but instead see if you can improve from where you are now. If you have never played before, that could be as simple as aiming to reach your first official rating. It is valuable to set high expectations for yourself, but it is even more valuable to set reachable goals where you can truly see your progress.

What Does It Mean To Get Better At Chess?

Improving at chess doesn’t always translate directly to wins. As you start learning more and more, you may actually overwhelm yourself and your mind during games. Chess is a complex game, and if you start playing as a beginner and try to keep everything in your head, you will inevitably fail at first. If you put time into your chess, you will be improving, even if you aren’t immediately winning more games.

1. Find Good Resources

Like any skill, game, or hobby you are trying to learn, a good first step is to learn from those who already know. In chess, there are hundreds of valuable resources, chess books, and chess videos, that are all equally valuable learning tools. I would advise choosing one beginner chess book, whether it is something like How to Play Chess Like a Boss by Patrick Wolff, one of my favorite beginner chess books, or  Everybody’s First Chess Workbook, which is a valuable workbook option that lets you practice tactics as well as learn the basics. You may think you are beyond something like a beginner's workbook, but you may be surprised by the things you missed when you learned the game before.

2. Mastering Chess Basics

If you want to make mastering chess easy, you have to build on a solid foundation of chess knowledge. Think of chess as learning a language. If you jump into a language and all you do is learn complex vocabulary words, without understanding basic grammar, you will never be able to string together cohesive sentences. In chess, the building blocks of a successful game start with understanding how the pieces move, where they like to be, check and checkmate, basic opening and endgame ideas, and basic tactics. These are all things you can learn from beginner chess books, but Lichess also has a page dedicated to learning the basics for free, and Chess.com has a number of great beginner lessons. If you want to master something quickly, start by mastering the basics.

3. Repetition, Repetition, Repetition

It’s not enough just to learn these basics once, especially when it comes to tactics. Just like when learning a language, it takes repetition! Chess is a game of patterns, and our brains can become very adept at recognizing patterns, but only if we experience them enough times. By repeatedly using tactics, you expose your brain to those patterns. Seeing something once in chess is almost never enough to really learn the idea. You can do many puzzles by type on Lichess, or you can use a puzzle book to learn those patterns.

4. Play Chess Matches Regularly

Not only is doing puzzles repeatedly important to learn patterns, but you should also be playing chess games on a regular basis. Many beginners get discouraged while learning and decide instead to focus on practicing openings or playing bots online. Instead, I recommend pushing through the frustration and playing regular, real chess games. Online chess is very useful for modern chess players, because you can almost always find someone to play a game with someone in your general skill range.

5. Avoid Chess Training Too Narrowly

Instead of playing games of chess, too many beginners narrow their focus on just one area of chess improvement that they enjoy. For some, that may be spending too much time on openings, or only doing something like Puzzle Rush. If you find that your chess training is only one note, I recommend trying many different ways to improve. To improve, you should play games, solve puzzles, study openings, endgames, and master games, among other things.

Avoid Bullet

One thing I see beginners focus on that will not necessarily help you quickly master chess is bullet chess. Blitz and Bullet can be useful when practicing openings, but I see to many students spend a majority of their time just playing these faster time controls, and wondering why they are not improving. If Bullet is what you find fun in chess, then find a way to include some, but not too much, in your study plan.

6. Find the Fun

You should still have fun with chess! If you hate every minute that you spend with chess, then it is unlikely that you will continue to play the game. Ultimately, it is most important that you enjoy your time playing and learning chess. If you don’t, you're very likely to quit. The balance, if you want to master chess quickly, is deciding on how to spend your time when studying chess. Another way to make chess fun, is to turn it into something you do with other people.

7. Find Other Chess Players

Finding chess players or clubs near you can be an excellent way to improve. One reason is that it gives you partners to practice with. You could play games together, but you could also work through puzzles, drill endgame positions, or basic checkmates, and both improve at the same time. If you do find a chess club, you will likely also meet players who are a higher level than you. Those players can be a vital resource when it comes to reviewing games that you have played. They can help give you another set of eyes and more analysis on positions that you might not have learned as much from otherwise.

8. Find the Time

If you want to improve quickly at chess, there really isn’t a secret; it just takes time. You can optimize your time by focusing on what is appropriate for your level. There is not always time to go to your local chess club, or to read an entire chess book, so what are some highly effective, and low time ways to improve at chess? I recommend playing ten-minute games, at least. This gives you enough time to think in your games, but moves quickly enough to be time-effective. If you do have more time, playing 30-minute games is also a very effective way to apply what you are learning.

9. Don’t Focus Too Much on ELO

ELO is how we track our chess rating. For many players, especially beginners, ELO is a driving force behind their desire to improve. You see the number go up when you win games, and it becomes addictive. The problem with that addiction is that it can also take away. When your rating goes down, it can be disproportionately negative on your mental health if you give your ELO a ton of value. Losing is never fun, but it’s even less fun when you value your rating above all else. Improving at chess is not a straight path. There will be times when 

Can Chess Really Be Mastered?

With all these tips in mind, the question remains: can chess really be mastered? Chess is a game of vastly differing skill levels, and almost everyone who plays will not master it, but we can strive to play the best games we can. Like with art, it is unlikely that I will ever paint like Picasso, but that doesn’t mean there is no value in my spending time painting. Now that you have these tips, as a beginner, do your best to win games and improve.

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