I have not written a chess improvement post for the last two years, and for good reason — I haven’t made much improvement! Here are my ratings compared to the previous post two years ago:

• USCF: 1576 was 1452
• Lichess Rapid: 1995 (No Rapid Rating)
• Lichess Classical: 2008 was 1955

This is measly progress for two years, and although I have put in time, and taken lessons – I haven’t done enough studying to break the current plateau. My goal is to reach 2100 in 21, and to do this I need to put in a lot more hours in simply studying chess, and that’s my intention. Put in 5 to 10 hours of studying time every week, and play less, and when I do play – play long play games only.

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!