Woooooooooooo

This is a lot longer than I planned.

The key thing is to do things that you can focus on that are also fun - more than at least a little bit fun. If you like/love puzzles - do more. If puzzles aren't your thing - do as many as you can before you get tired of them.

• Find an app or a site to practice against the computer.

• If you like speed chess - play it. It's different from regular chess - it's like a 3 minute super-fast MMA fight.

• Find an app or a site to do puzzles.

• Forums. I hardly ever use them. I find r/chess to be mostly tedious. If I say "Speed chess is like MMA" - I'll get at least one person being annoying and acting like I'm an idiot. I think r/chess is yet another sub where redditors dream about being good at something but never put in the actual effort.

• Play through famous games. chessgames.com is free but it's lame in that it's very barebones with no computer goodies. But see the next list item.

• PGN files are great. You can download a PGN and put that into an app or upload it to chess.com (which has computer goodies).

• Play other people. At chess.com I think the default setting is +-50 points. I changed it to be harder -25/+100.

• Watch games online.

• For games you watch - use the analysis board to help you understand them.

• For games you watch - start at an arbitrary point - say, move 31 and play against the computer at a strength you like. My favorite thing to do is to practice endgames against the computer at the highest setting which is stronger than any human being. When When the evaluation bar shows I have a huge advantage - I start to play. I play from the same starting point usually 10+ times. So times as many as ~25. It's not boring to me because I learn when my plans are best, good, weaker, bad, or "what the fuck was I thinking?"

• You watch more vids.

• You read books or similar.

I assume sites/apps have exercises where you can learn how to use pieces effectively, learn tricks, etc.

• Pawns. They are the soul of chess. When to move them and when not to move them is no simple thing. Pawn forks.

• Rooks.

• Knights. Knight forks.

• Bishops. They are a long range piece. Learn how they work on the diagonal.

• Queen. Queen sacrifices. See the "sacrifice (chess)" link.

• King. It is often a sort of attacking piece in endgames.

• Openings. Start with a simple opening like the London system.

• Middlegame.

• Endgames. In my super-fast MMA game analogy - this is equivalent to endurance. Many MMA fighters don't work hard enough on their endurance so they can suffer as the fight goes on. I think most chess players have weak endgames.

Overall concepts - to study and practice against the computer

• Chess tactics. It's related to attacking. Mikhail Tal was a genius on tactics and he was one of the greatest attacking players ever. He was famous for his sacrifices. See the "sacrifice (chess)" link.

• Chess strategy is strongly connected to positional play. There's a strong component of defense. Tigran Petrosian was a genius on positional play and he was one of the greatest defensive players ever.

Tal's games are amazing but they are easier to understand the logic of than Petrosian's. Why? It's easier to "see" an attack than to try to figure out how Petrosian was trying to stop attacks before they even happened. Both of them have a large number of games you can learn from. And they played games against each other too.

A list of some tactics - to study and practice against the computer

• Discovered attack

• Double check

• Fork (chess)

• Pawn storm

• Pin (chess)

• Sacrifice (chess). Shortened to "sac"

• Skewer (chess)

One more.

• Stalemate. Playing the computer will help you avoid traps set by your human opponents and it might help you to set your own traps. This can be especially true in speed chess.

Check this out this speed chess game I just played.

I'm black. On my 44th move - I played bishop to c5. Why? Notation form...

44...Bc5

https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/live/108351034937?tab=analysis&move=87