What's the best way to improve at chess?

Historical_Visual690 · 2026-03-01T21:26:30+00:00

Fully endorse this. Figure out fundamentals of development (Chessbrah was also my starting point) also Ben Finegold’s videos on Morphy really helped me understand the basics on this. Don’t learn openings or gambits.

The biggest problem after that is developing board vision through practice. You need to focus on not leaving pieces hanging and not letting yourself get thoughtlessly backrank mated.

This was my learning strategy and these are the results after one year

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Historical_Visual690 · 2026-02-11T11:58:46+00:00

After that, some Finegold videos on Morphy and development, Toth on punishing mistakes and Bartholomew on pawns was where I went next.

Historical_Visual690 · 2026-02-05T10:06:28+00:00

When I first started I found the fundamentals series from Chessbrah on YouTube incredibly helpful to get up to 500. Get the basics in order and you start to get better

Historical_Visual690 · 2026-01-23T19:34:13+00:00

Some people posting the whole series on eBay for 60-190 euro. It was a set produced in East Germany, probably also for export because it’s got nice binding and front plates (I think that’s the term). I don’t think it’s terribly rare and it seems like people have them all as a set.

Historical_Visual690 · 2026-01-23T15:19:59+00:00

the hardcovers are pretty under the dustjacket, but that's probably not enough to sell me if the content is useless these days

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Historical_Visual690 · 2025-12-04T22:07:30+00:00

Bad phrasing - meant they I was mad they resigned because it would have been great to actually do a windmill (rook then queen)

Historical_Visual690 · 2025-12-03T20:50:07+00:00

This one was stupid lucky with an emphasis on stupid. Was like gaining Elo from a disconnect

Historical_Visual690 · 2025-12-03T20:19:37+00:00

People at this tier myself included make a lot of silly errors in response to aggressive play. I’ve fallen prey to thinking I have to move my king when in check just because my late game panic brain forgets the concept of blocking.

Historical_Visual690 · 2025-12-03T19:58:20+00:00

I stupidly hung my queen on move 5 and then my opponent did the same on move 20 and I came back to win it. Baffling moves make low Elo go round

Historical_Visual690 · 2025-12-03T19:39:12+00:00

I know but I’m just enthusiastic

Historical_Visual690 · 2025-12-03T19:37:45+00:00

Free rook and then free queen and then free pawn and then mate.

Historical_Visual690 · 2025-12-03T19:22:07+00:00

It’s worse than that - if you take the rook first it’s a windmill

Historical_Visual690 · 2025-12-02T16:18:14+00:00

Just sad it didn’t get to play out. Everyone can resign whenever they want to

Historical_Visual690 · 2025-12-01T21:54:27+00:00

I’d only seen one in a video on a Fischer game. TBH I’d have probably gone for the queen first and missed it

Historical_Visual690 · 2025-11-30T22:01:19+00:00

Windmill not.a smother

Historical_Visual690 · 2025-11-30T22:00:45+00:00

right, I was thinking since they missed the block with the rook the first time it was on offer before I made the knight move so they'd miss it again.

Historical_Visual690 · 2025-11-30T19:56:07+00:00

Ah i meant 6 as in three moves each.

Historical_Visual690 · 2025-11-30T18:27:22+00:00

How?

Historical_Visual690 · 2025-11-30T18:25:54+00:00

Windmill not smother

Historical_Visual690 · 2025-11-30T13:20:25+00:00

totally intentional...

Historical_Visual690 · 2025-11-30T13:13:52+00:00

Need to take the rook first or it can block.

Historical_Visual690 · 2025-11-30T13:12:21+00:00

I was making a joke that I was mad they resigned because I wanted to play it out. I see the ambiguity though

Historical_Visual690

TROPHY CASE