Lane - Improve Your Chess in 7 Days

Chess Trivia At Brighton chess club in England during the 1930s, a Mrs Sydney was allowed to bring her dog along but only if the dog joined the club. Later, the dog, called Mr.Mick, was mistakenly picked for the clubs second team. He lost on time....

Chess is fun but it is even more fun when you win!

Though most people will never have enough time to devote to a deep study of chess, it is still possible for anyone to make rapid and significant advances in the game. For example, one way to achieve better results is simply to cut down on your own mistakes while grabbing any opportunity to exploit those of your opponent. Easier said than done, perhaps, but you can train yourself to reach a higher standard by adopting the right attitude.

There is no shortage of chess playing sites on the internet but you should resist the temptation only to play games without thinking and at breakneck speed and thereby learn absolutely nothing. In fact my first words of advice to a friend who wanted to improve was to stop playing for a while. I wanted him to study chess a little before playing again and also record his games so that he could analyse the moves later with plenty of time to think or consult a computer to check on possible mistakes. He had fallen into the trap of playing games on the internet where speed was often more important than accuracy and purposeful play. Sometimes it did not matter if he was losing on position so long as he won on time. He had also been playing offhand games occasionally against the same group of players at the local club, where he had not only picked up bad habits but also failed to identify and learn from his mistakes. Nevertheless his curiosity in chess was further aroused when he discovered there were chess openings with weird and wonderful names such as the Frankenstein-Dracula Attack or the Dragon and great chessplayers such as Bobby Fischer and Garry Kasparov. However real improvement came only when he started to make plans. This, together with a knowledge of simple opening principles, a grasp of tactical themes and key strategies in the most regularly occurring endgames really did produce results. It may sound too good to be true but with a little guidance players of every level really can make rapid improvement at chess.

How many moves do you think ahead?

This is the question chessplayers are most frequently asked by nonchessplayers and our suggested answer is seven. Sure, you could try to impress everyone by saying that the number of moves depends on whether the position is a highly complex middlegame or a mathematically precise pawn endgame with few pieces on the board but why bother? True or false, seven is a good choice. Its a magical number and chess is truly a magical game. And there is no need to feel guilty about the fact that really you can only see one move ahead, whatever the position. History will provide you with reassurance and comfort. As long ago as 1946 the New York magazine Chess Review related what happened when former world champion Jos Capablanca had just lost a game which always caused a sensation because it was such a rare occurrence: in fact during one period of his career he didnt lose for eight years Apropos is the story of the game between the invincible Capablanca and Charles Jaffe, pride of the East Side. Capa forgot he was invincible: he lost. A reporter who was present asked the Cuban, How far do you see ahead? Capa replied impressively, About ten moves. Then the reporter went over to Jaffe: How far do