improve chess
Want to test your chess skills? Play chess online
Chess is a thinking game that not only provides fun and entertainment to the player, but also challenges his brain and indirectly nurtures and trains his brain and mind. Similar to the physical exercises one person does to keep his bones and muscles fit, one can play the game of chess to exercise his brain and keep it fit, agile, sharp and healthy.
Brain is one part of our body with billions of neurons capable of guiding our body to do wonderful things in life through the mind. The unique feature of this brain is that the more you use it, the more it will be helpful. If you do not use the brain, you naturally lose the benefit of the brain. One ideal exercise for the brain is to play chess regularly and enhance your expertise in the game.
Though there are only 64 squares in the board, the opportunities and the challenges that the squares or the board itself provides to a chess player is innumerable. The game of chess is both a science and an art, and mastering this unique game that challenges the mind is the most fascinating and also difficult one.
It is in this context the contribution of the technology and the importance of playing chess online comes to the picture.
Many of us, having not heard of online chess or experimented with online chess, would have played chess with friends, relatives or other persons for the sake of fun and excitement. Depending upon the opponent, you might have ended up winning all the time or losing all the time. Chess is mostly viewed as a game played for fun. But, chess has invaluable lessons to offer for life. If we understand the game and realize the importance of it, then many of us will definitely give more importance to this game.
Knowing where you stand in the level of expertise is one way of motivating yourself to play the game more often and develop the passion for the game. For example, if I were to say you that your rating, depending upon your skill set, is 1100, and that of your friend or a relative is 1500, then obviously you will be enthused to achieve the rating of 1500 or more. How do you know your rating? Playing game in the conventional way with friends and relatives might not provide you with the means for knowing your rating on the game.
It is here that the contribution of online chess comes to the fore. Many online chess sites provide means to rate your game depending upon the basic skill set. If you describe yourself as a novice or a beginner, the online chess site assigns you some basic rating of say, 700, or so and assign that rating to you. Depending upon the number of games you play and win or draw, your rating will be calculated and assigned. If you lose a game, your rating will come down automatically.
This numeric barometer of the level of expertise will help you gauge your knowledge in the game. The more you play and win, the higher will be your rating. As you grow up the ladder of rating and get more points, the level of expertise will increase. From a novice or beginner, you will upgrade yourself to an expert.
The ideal way to improve in the game of chess is to select partners having more experience than you, play with them, and try to win a game over them or at best try to settle of a draw. If you constantly try to play with more experienced players and get reasonable success in settling for a draw, you are bound to gain more experience than by playing with beginners or players having similar skill set as you have.
How to choose an experienced player in online chess when you do not know who they are? It is here the rating comes to the picture. If you manage to enhance your rating from say, 700 to 1350, then you can look for a player having a rating of 1400 in the online chess site and virtual chess room, and invite him to play a game with him online.
In this way, playing chess online not only helps in understanding one’s own level of expertise or where he stands, and also paves way for improving the rating. This urge to improve the rating will make him or her play more often and enhance his rating. This is possible only through online chess. Let us exploit this wonderful concept of online chess and prosper in our qualitative way of living.
Four simple steps to improve chess skills
Chess is one game in the world that can be compared with the life. The battle between the two kings in the board of chess is akin to the battle faced by a person in his day-to-day life with the opponent called Time. This unique similarity with the life and the challenges the game poses to a person’s mind is the primary reason for the worldwide popularity for this game, which, first played earlier in the 6th century AD is still very popular and would be there as long as humanity exists in this universe.
Many of us realize the importance of the game of chess and out of curiosity, learn the game with great interest and enthusiasm. Mere learning the game will not be sufficient to explore the depth of the game. One needs to gain expertise in the game, practice more, learn and implement new strategies and tactics in order to gain control over the board. It is here that many of us lack the strength or will power, and having failed to win the games in the early days, get dejected and fade out without becoming masters in the game.
Practice makes perfect – this saying fits for this game as well. One needs to play more number of games, learn from the mistakes and ensure that such mistakes do not recur – to gain expertise in the game. Playing with a same partner or just a group of players might not help you gain expertise, as you tend to anticipate the routine approach of the opponent. One needs to play more number of games with different kinds of players to gain expertise. How is this possible in this fast-paced world where finding a partner to play the game and allocating specific time for the game is becoming next to impossible for many of us? It is here the boon of Online Chess and Computer chess comes to our rescue. Thanks to the advancement of the technology and the patronage of our computer engineers, playing chess has been made much easier through the concept of online chess. Anybody with a computer and Internet connectivity can learn the game of chess, and start playing the game either with the computer or with other players available in dedicated online chess sites.
Each player or novice in the game should know and master chess vocabulary. The common concepts like castling, check, checkmate, enpassant, mobility, material, and such other concepts that are frequently used in the game of chess should be learnt and understood by the player. Knowledge of these concepts, their meaning and the importance will make it easy for the player to understand what is mentioned in the tons of books and material available on the game of chess. Without understanding the concept, there is no point in reading chess books written by grandmasters and experts in the game.
The game of chess typically has three distinct stages entwined together. The three stages are the opening game or opening stage, the middle game and the end game. It follows the same order. As a novice, one should understand each stage and should appreciate the difference and importance of each stage. A thorough understanding of the end game, especially the various strategies deployed in the end game, will help a player realize the importance of each piece in a better way. Typically, in the end game, the number of active pieces in the board will be relatively less and more open spaces. How the pieces move around, deploy effective tactics and corner the opponent king, or instead safeguard the king from opponent’s onslaught – all these are part of the endgame and one should take special efforts to learn the intricacies of the end game. A better understanding of the endgame will help a person gain expertise in the game.
The fascinating part of the game is the middle one, where each player, having laid the foundation work of opening up the pieces and occupying the strategically vital points, will deploy tactics and strategies to weaken the opponent and gain material advantage.
As a novice, one needs to play more games with different kinds of players, using the power of Online Chess, learn the chess vocabulary, and understand as well as appreciate the different stages of the game. Reading more chess-related books and trying to play out grandmasters’ games also will help in fast tracking the learning process.