181) How to Slay in Chess — From 1200 to over 1850 in 1 year (without in-depth study, coaching, or training): My System, Part 1

Backstory:  In September, 2022, I was rated about 1200 on chess.com (i.e., about the 75th percentile of players), and had clearly plateaued in chess.  I kept playing, and I’d win some and lose some, but I wasn’t getting any better.  I was “pretty good”, but I had hit my limit.

So I tried looking at a few books, watching a few “in-depth” videos, hoping to improve.  The videos I found online are, in my opinion, largely a waste of time; very little bang for your buck.  And the books?  Whew.  I tried.  I really did.  My ADHD-tendencies and chess-books just aren’t very compatible friends.  Give me a wall of chess notation and my mind swims and convinces me I should go do something else. 

Then everything changed. 

My teenage son, who was playing chess in his school club, asked me the life-changing question:  “How do you decide what to do in the middle-game?”

I shrugged.  “I dunno, man.  I just look at what my opponent’s doing and see if I have any weaknesses in my position and try not to screw up, and hope for the best.  Eventually, if they screw up and you get a tactical opening, jump on it.  And otherwise…uhhhh, yeah.  I really don’t know.  Good question!”

Curious, I went online.  There are lots of lists of mid-game principles and such.  These were about as useful for me as a wall of chess notation.  Probably if I poured enough time into memorizing them all, they’d pay off, but honestly, it seemed like too much work and not enough fun.

So I started a document to summarize what I knew about Openings and the Middle-game, the end result of which is this document.  In thinking through what I knew, and in back-analyzing my own games with chess.com’s Review function, I distilled a set of “heuristics”, or “rules of thumb”, to fall back on when you don’t know what else to do.  (Obviously, if you have a plan, then you have a plan; but me?  I rarely had a plan and just….guessed.  Hence plateauing at 1200). 

The way my brain works, heuristics are awesome.  There’s only a handful to remember, so it’s not a lot of memorization; and they’re general enough to be easily applied in most circumstances, so again, there’s no memorization of specific “lines” or anything like that, which I strongly think is a waste of time until you’re WAY BETTER than someone who needs heuristics in the first place….

Once I finished this document, I started using it RELIGIOUSLY in my play and seeing how it worked out. And, well, here’s how it worked out….. (I started using this system in late October, 2022.)

TO BE PERFECTLY CLEAR — I am not claiming this is some master-level “coaching”.  Heck, I’m no chess master and I know zero chess theory beyond the basics, except what I’ve distilled here.  I’ve never read a book on it beyond a few pages, and my knowledge of openings literally comes from Levi’s (Gotham Chess) 10-minute videos. 

I’m sure there are errors in this system.  I’m sure there are a million exceptions.  After all, that’s why there are literal libraries of advanced chess knowledge out there.  But most of us are not deeply studying a whole bunch of books until our eyes bleed.  We’re just playing the game.  And most of us, after a while, don’t improve much over time.  I played one person who had more than 64,000 games under their belt, and they were still rated at 1200 and hadn’t improved in many years.

I am definitely not claiming to be some guru or whatever.  But, this “system” did improve my game significantly, and it did so without me having to spend literally any time studying, beyond the couple of days it took to look at my own games and create this document.

So, if you’re going to spend years playing chess, why not spend like, TWENTY MINUTES reading this and thinking about it?  I’m sharing this for people who are currently stuck, and like me, find that in-depth study pushes their attentional capacity past its limits.  Will this turn you, or me, into a Master?  I highly doubt it.  But it took me, in one year, to the top 99.8% of players on chess.com.  That’s not a boast; it’s just straightforward statistical evidence.

It turns out, a few good “strategic heuristics” can take you pretty far….

* * * * *

The DolderSystem to Chess Slaying: Part 1 — The Opening

Three Key Factors:  Speed + Connection + Control

– The essence of the opening is to maximize development of pieces. This then maximizes your flexibility, options & therefore, POWER in the middle-game. 

***Speed*** = how quickly you get your pieces activated and into the action

***Connection*** = how well “integrated” your pieces are for attack and defense.  Do your pieces “hang together”, helping to protect each other and control squares together?  Or are they more randomly distributed, with individual pieces not having much to do with each other?

***Control*** = how many squares can a piece potentially attack?  More is better.  (e.g., a Knight on the edge can attack fewer squares than a Knight in the center, obviously.)

From these THREE KEY FACTORS, the rest of opening theory unfolds.  I distilled the following Principles based on these three factors:

Opening Principles:

1) Develop your pieces as quickly as possible: generally, Knights & Bishops 1st. Most of the time, you should be moving a different piece every move.  Moving a single piece multiple times in a row, in the opening, means you are falling behind in development, and soon, your opponent will have more power in play than you do.  And this will suck for you.

2) Keep your Queen at home.  Moving your Queen early is usually bad; it just gives your opponent something to threaten and you waste tempii moving your Queen around while your opponent develops their pieces and again, soon has more power in play than you do.  Which, again, will suck.

3) Don’t move Pawns UNLESS you are:

• activating minor pieces (e.g., getting out of a Bishop’s way so it can be activated)

• gaining control over the center (therefore, usually c, d, e, and SOMETIMES f-Pawns make sense to move early). NOTE: be careful with the f-Pawn though; you should know why you’re moving it (e.g., you’re using the Dutch opening system), if you’re going to do that, because it vastly weakens your King defense usually.

• setting up a defensive structure (e.g., a pawn chain)  — although in most cases, the opening is still too early to worry about this; activate your pieces instead!!!!

If a Pawn movement isn’t accomplishing one of these things, you are simply WASTING TEMPO and falling behind in development.  ….And you know what happens then right?  Yep — crying.  :’(

NOTE: There are exceptions to the above, lots of them. For example, if you play the Modern opening system, your FIRST MOVE is moving the g-Pawn!! (g6). But without such an exception that you know of, or a clear plan, the principles above are what I stick with….

4) Castle & connect Rooks!!

I used to be convinced that not castling was better, because it gave me an extra tempo.  Or late-castling, so I could decide which side to castle on.  Then my friend Oliver (who is a 2000+ player online), kept destroying my clever plans, and finally convinced me to throw out my ridiculous notions, and castle early instead.  All the GMs say so.  They are right.

That’s it.  That’s the opening.  Speed + Connection + Control

BONUS SECTION

            I would recommend learning different opening systems (yay, Levi/GothamChess!) and seeing how they appeal.  Obviously, people have different styles.  For me, I decided to play what I call “subversive chess”.  So, instead of learning the common openings and playing into most people’s preparation, I learned the uncommon ones, to play to people’s lack-of-preparation.  If you’re curious, a brief glance at my games will reveal what I play almost all the time, and “subversiveness” has, I think for me anyway, worked well.  Plus, it fits my personality style.  Definitely more subversive than “take charge,” I must admit.

            But you do you.  Find openings that you like, and are fun, and get good at those.  IMO, it’s better to practice your fav systems, than bog yourself down with a huge variety.  Learn deeply first, then diversify as your skill improves.  Whether this is right or not, I have no idea; but, I’m happy with it personally.  And I’ve learned some good systems that make me laugh in terms of how they mess with classical chess principles, and therefore tend to violate people’s expectations.  Other people like more classical approaches.  Some people like positional approaches.  Some people like dynamic approaches.  Just mess around a bit and find what you like, and then get good at THAT.

Next, we’ll look at the real “game changer” for me, which was the middle-game principles. These are a bit more in-depth, but this is where I saw my games dramatically improve…..

Until then, happy playing!