I think the middlegame is one of the most difficult areas of chess to improve in because there are no easy rules to follow like the opening or the endgame, and as a result very often you find yourself run out of ideas after 20 or 25 moves. In this post I will describe my ideas about the middlegame and what I have learned in my own improvement process.

Know the Plans Coming Out of the Opening

One of the most important things to do while studying openings is to understand what kind of middlegames certain openings will lead to, and what type of plans you should have in these middlegames.

This game is an example of what I mean. When I am playing black against d4 openings I try to get the queens off the board early on in the game, and if my opponent allows that then I know what kind of plans work in that structure.

In the game above I play 12…Bb4 with the clear idea of exchanging my bishop for his knight, and saddling him with double isolated pawns on the c file. I love my bishops, and almost never give up a bishop pair for anything, but this position is an exception due the weakness you saddle white with, and after that white has no play on the queenside.

In this particular game white creates a further weakness for himself on the open g file, and I shift my efforts on the king side, and specially against this weakness and keep putting pressure on white, and eventually win the game. This brings me to the second point about planning in the middlegame.

Exploiting Your Opponent’s Weakness

All your attention should be towards identifying a weakness in your opponent’s camp – it could be a weak square, or a doubled pawn, or undefended piece and once you have identified that weakness you should be focused on exploiting it.

The other side of this coin is that you shouldn’t be creating weaknesses in your own camp, and when you are giving up squares or creating a structure with a backward pawn you should know how you are going to defend that weakness, and if there is anything else you can do to distract your opponent from exploiting that weakness.

Improve your pieces

The more mobility your pieces have the better they are, and this is the simplest and easiest principle to understand. You look for outposts for knights, open files for your rooks, and open diagonals for your bishops, and then place these pieces there. And perhaps the best outcome of any middlegame is creating a passed pawn.

Similarly, you are always looking to make the position of your pieces worse than it is – you can take away squares from a knight or lock your enemy’s bishop behind your pawn wall.

Exchanging your bad pieces for your opponent’s good pieces

At all times you should be evaluating which of your pieces are worse than your opponent’s pieces and force a trade on them. Sometimes this will be a dark squared bishop for a knight as in the game above, and at others it will be a knight for a bishop if your opponent allows it. Every trade that increases the range of your remaining pieces, and reduces the range of your opponent’s pieces is favorable to you, and you should try to make them happen.

Improve Your Position Slowly

Finally, I think the hardest thing to do is to play in a manner that you improve your position slowly. Don’t do anything flashy, don’t get scared by your opponent’s ideas – just keep improving your position slowly while you look for tactics. Don’t make unnecessary trades, and harm your pawn structure by too many pawn moves. Play it slow and calm, and work towards improving your position, and wait for your opponent to make a mistake.

 

 

1. How to improve as an adult chess player – Par 1: Introduction
2. How to improve as an adult chess player – Part 2: Swindles
3. How to improve as an adult chess player – Part 3: Openings 
4. How to improve as an adult chess player – Part 4: Middlegames

I’ve always had a terrible memory, so I never really expected to be able to memorize the co-ordinates of the chess board properly, and never imagined that one day not only would be I be able to memorize the co-ordinates – I will also be able to remember the color of each square!

Till recently, I didn’t even consider this very important, and it was only until I hit a road block in the difficulty level of puzzles that I could solve did I realize that I need this skill to improve further.

Why should you memorize the co-ordinates of the chess board?

In order to calculate and hold several positions in your head you need to be able to see your desired position in your mind’s eye. Knowing the co-ordinates and the color of the square helps this process immensely. I would go as far as to say that beyond a certain level you can’t improve in tactics if you don’t have the squares memorized. They provide an anchor in your mind to navigate the sequence of moves, and without this you won’t be able to retain two or three variations in your head which are essential in an actual game.

Knowing the color of each square will help you in your memorization by a factor of at least ten because if you know that e4 is always white then you’ll never look at a square and wonder if this is e4 or d4. My own calculations were greatly improved after I learned the co-ordinates and colors, and my method to memorize this was quite natural, so it didn’t ever seem like a chore to me beyond the normal effort required to learn anything new.

How to memorize the color of each square?

There is research that shows that it is easier to remember that someone is a baker than it is to remember that their name is Mr. Baker. This is because your mind has certain associations with a baker and it holds some meaning for you whereas a name is a meaningless label.

This was the starting point in my attempt to memorize the colors of the squares. I had to give a meaning to every square, and while that may be impractical I was very easily able to give meaning to c4. I am an English player, and always open with c4 which I know to be a white square. This is easy enough to remember.

Due to the symmetry of the board I know that if c4 is white then c2, c6, and c8 should also be white. So, great – all even numbers in the c file are white. Now, look at the board closely – you will see that this is true for every alternate file to c. So, the a, c, e and g files all share this characteristic.

For a couple of weeks I used to think in my head that aceg even is white when it hit me that aceg is an anagram for CAGE. 

This was a breakthrough moment for me as remembering CAGE EVEN IS WHITE is the easiest thing in the world. This combination of a mnemonic and a meaningful pattern quickly enabled me to identify all the CAGE square colors instantly. It took about a week’s practice to internalize this and after this it was only natural to transpose this, and say OTHER ODD IS WHITE. Another week or so of practice made me remember this but I have to admit I haven’t internalized this as much as I have the CAGE squares. At this point, it needs some more practice but I’m getting there.

How to memorize the co-ordinates of the chess board?

Once you memorize the colors – the co-ordinates become very easy. My technique is to solve a puzzle, and then close my eyes, and solve it in my head voicing the co-ordinates. I also voice the co-ordinates while watching any chess Youtube videos or when I’m reading any chess books.

The most impactful method by far is to close my eyes, and solve a puzzle in my head. Often I will solve a puzzle, and then solve it again in my head with the co-ordinates. You will be surprised to see that quite often not only can you not solve a solved puzzle you can’t even remember which color you were!

So, obviously practising this muscle helps the skill tremendously, and overall helps your tactics and your results. So, I’d recommend following my method and process and seeing if it helps you memorizing the co-ordinates and colors as well!

I was surprised to learn that one of the big criticisms of amateur chess players is that they study openings too much because this is one area where I hardly spent any time.

Only when I started reading books I realized how much preparation grandmasters do, and the benefits of strong opening knowledge. Essentially, you shouldn’t be reinventing the wheel in every single game you play, and you should have a body of knowledge that you can depend on for your openings.

In this post I am going to detail out my way of opening preparation for an amateur adult player that has served me well.

Picking an opening

In my opinion you have to know three openings to play all your games. One opening with white, one with black to play against e4, and one to play against d4. If your opponent plays anything else you should be able to rely on one of these openings to play against that.

I have picked up openings of my coach Mr_Penings because our styles are similar, and I have the benefit of looking up his games to see how he handled certain situations. The three openings I play are as follows:

1. English – 1.c4 with white
2. Sicilian Kan – 1.e5 c5 with black against e4
3. King’s Indian Defense – 1. d4 Nf6 with black against d4

You can pick up the same openings as your coach or based on your favorite player, and experiment and see if you have a feel for it. If you have a feel for it – you will just know it instinctively from your first game with that opening.

Now, that you have picked up an opening I will detail out how I build a repertoire in that opening.

Opening study – build a repertoire

Lichess has a phenomenal way to study openings, and one that I am so impressed with, and use so often that I can’t do without it now.

For this purpose I will use a game that I played, and an opening study that I have to illustrate what I mean.

For this post, I will share a chapter from a study that I have on lichess based on when white plays the Bowdler attack against the Sicilian. The Bowdler attack happens as follows:

1. e4 c6
2. Bc4 – and you have the Bowdler attack.

The lichess opening explorer shows you the following stats for every opening.

On the bottom right you see the most common responses that a player has played, and the win – loss percentage. This helps you see what moves you are likely to see in a game, and what the responses scored like. You can also scroll further down, and see some top games in that line. This is very helpful as you can see how top players developed their game plans in that opening, and learn from that yourself.

This is by far the most useful method to study openings that I have encountered. Earlier, I used to look at grandmaster games, but that was not all that helpful because lower rated players hardly do the same things as a grandmaster might do.

Now, let me share my study and tell you how I build on my opening knowledge using this tool. You can scroll through the embedded study below and see how I comment the various positions, and make notes for myself so I remember them in future games.

Specifically, go through these sequence of moves:

1. e4 c5
2. Bc4 e6
3. Nc3 Nc6
4. Nf3 Nf6
5. e5? Ng4

I point out this sequence because I refrained from playing Nf6 on move 4 in an actual game because I was worried about e5 but in later analysis I saw that e5 is actually a mistake! This is because Ng4 is such a strong response here that white ends up losing the e pawn!

Another very interesting aspect of this is that the opening explorer shows you how many times a move has been played. In this case it shows that e5 has been played 614 times. This is about 10% of all games that have reached this position, and you have your opening preparation right then you should have a winning position at least 10% of the times you play this position on move 5 itself!

Now, in itself this may seem trivial but think of building this type of preparation for every opening sequence you play, and very soon you will notice that you are encountering the same positions over and over again, and are well prepared for them, and are outplaying your opponent from the start.  This post has details on how you can create as study on lichess.

Conclusion

As an adult chess player – you are likely to have limited time to study openings, but they are very important to improve your results. The method that I evolved over time doesn’t require a lot of time to study, and it is simple and free. You play a game, make a few notes in your study, brush up the other moves that may have occurred in that variation and over time build a vast pool of knowledge!

1. How to improve as an adult chess player – Par 1: Introduction
2. How to improve as an adult chess player – Part 2: Swindles
3. How to improve as an adult chess player – Part 3: Openings 
4. How to improve as an adult chess player – Part 4: Middlegames

 

 

This may seem like a strange place to focus at the beginning of this series, but I feel that my win percentage improved noticeably when I truly internalised how important it is to fight for every game, and how common swindles really are.

A swindle in chess is defined as a game where you were losing, but ultimately won by complicating the situation, and usually playing some second best moves. I tend to think of it in a broader manner in terms of just fighting for a position, and keep fighting even when you are worse off. I used to resign too soon, and for anyone who does that you are doing yourself no favors.

Why are swindles important for your results?

I think swindles are important for two reasons – a mathematical one, and a psychological one.

The mathematical reason first.

I think that any game of chess that results in a win or loss can be classified as follows:

1. You were ahead throughout the game, and you won.
2. You were behind throughout the game and you lost.
3. You were ahead at some point but you lost. (You couldn’t win a won game.)
4. You were behind in the beginning, but you won. (Swindled the game).

Our minds think of numbers 1 and 2 as a natural result, and 3 and 4 cause a lot more grief or joy than 1 and 2, so to me they are a little bit more unnatural than the first two.

You will never be able to win all of your won games. This is one of the hardest things to do in chess, and you’ll always end up blundering pieces or walking into checkmates in completely winning positions. When two players of equal caliber play it is inevitable that these things happen.

This was somewhat unclear to me when I started to improve because I used to see a lot of Youtube channels, and watch people like John Bartholomew or the Ginger GM destroying their opponents online. It seemed to me that that this the correct way to win in chess, and also the pure way to win in chess.

My notion was only broken when I started reading books and saw games from world champions and saw that even their games swung and they swindled at times! Even at the highest level – swindles happen, so it is important to understand their importance in order to increase your win ratio.

If you don’t fight for every game, and play fighting chess then you will only win games that you were ahead in right from the start. You’ll lose some winning games, and your ratio is going to be much lower than if you fought for your lost games also.

Mathematically, you can see that now you are going to win all games in the first category, most games in the second category, and some games in the third category. Whereas if you don’t fight at all – you will lose all games in the third category, and your win ratio will be much worse.

Now, the psychological reason. Playing lost positions helps you improve your game. When you swindle – you learn from your opponent’s mistakes. You learn where they went wrong, and you can then use that to improve your own game. Because these sort of games make a deeper impression than other games — you tend to internalise these lessons faster than other games, and are more likely to remember them in the future.

This game below is probably my most embarrassing swindle. In fact, I apologized to my opponent after winning the game because I had no chances, and she just made one error that cost her the game while being ahead the entire game. I have the black pieces, and have made a lot of questionable choices, and you can see that white is a good player, but just couldn’t convert it.

This was a very instructive game for me and my personal takeaway from this game was that white never used her king side pawns in the attack and tried to pry open the position. From a planning perspective this seems the most logical thing to do. Black wasn’t allowing any breaks and the material was not enough, so bring in your pawns. This was what I was most afraid of during the game, and she never did that.

There is a lot to learn from your opponent’s technique when you lose, and see how they converted a won position.

As an example – this is a very impressive win by my opponent who was several hundred rating points below me but played with very impressive calm, and technique and was in control of the game from the very beginning.

As you can see black never had any chances, and she’s done a fantastic job of clamping me down, and grinding me out, and winning the game in a very convincing manner. My biggest takeaway from this game was to make mini plans and slowly improve my position like she did. I was very impressed by how she planted the knight on d6, and then replaced that with the bishop, and just never let up. This is an area of the game where I need to improve a lot myself, so it was specially impressive to be on the receiving end. The computer evaluation shows white to be ahead 2.5 on move 15 itself, but the game lasted another 30 moves or so. It was tough playing this game because there were no chances, but I kept fighting, and while the result was not favorable – the instruction was vastly helpful for my own game.

I put this post in the beginning of the series because I believe this is a very important thing to do in order to improve your win ratio. If you don’t get in the habit of fighting lost positions, you won’t make much progress in your improvement.

1. How to improve as an adult chess player – Par 1: Introduction
2. How to improve as an adult chess player – Part 2: Swindles
3. How to improve as an adult chess player – Part 3: Openings 
4. How to improve as an adult chess player – Part 4: Middlegames