How to Stop Blundering and Start Improving Your Chess Game: Advice from a GM

To play lots of blitz games and not study is a sure recipe never to get better..

Repetition and pattern-recognition. You convinced me.

He's harsh 😆. By the way i disagree on the bots issue, they can be used in many ways to practice or for warmup. Also learning theory does open new horizons at how you look at the game.

Play a lot, study a lot and most importantly, don’t get old!

The truth hurts!

I can't play bots.
They're too strong.
They always know whose turn it is.

Thanks alot sir

I agree with most of what Ben says but, with the caveat that he knows 1000 times what I do about chess, in part because he had the talent and the time to become a chess pro (two things most people don’t have) I have some observations: (1) Grandmasters have no idea what it’s like to be an untalented amateur chess enthusiast because they are massively talented and are professionals; and (2) Ben’s advice about playing bots is “suspicious” because he was good before strong computer opponents were generally available, so the utility of bots as practice opponents depends which ones and how used.

But Ben is quite right that a lot of coaching (probably not 99% though) is nonsense. A coach should be willing to tailor lessons to the individual strengths and weaknesses of students or if not (most aren’t believe it or not) that coach should be avoided.

Here are two common issues I see with most coaches I’ve seen though I’ve had some excellent ones: (1) there is way too much easy money from non-chess playing parents to teach uninterested untalented children most of whom will neither play into their teens nor reach 1400; and (2) many coaches teach over the heads of their students.

The second issue is important since e.g. a Grandmaster coach might say it’s better to sacrifice a pawn for activity than to make a significant positional concession just to avoid giving up the pawn, a pretty advanced concept. That may be fine for students approaching 2000 USCF but 1200 USCF rated students can’t apply such advanced concepts. For 1200 USCF rated (novice level) players coaches should emphasize, getting enough space, rapidly activating all pieces, connecting the rooks, protecting the king, and improving the position each move while being alert to opportunities and dangers. More advanced concepts can be introduced later when the student is ready to understand and start applying them.

That brings me to the first coaching issue mentioned above, the coach who just talks extemporaneously and runs the meter for an hour at a time. The problem is there’s way too much easy money from parents knowing and caring nothing about chess so most coaches can’t resist. But that doesn’t help the student.

One “coach” in a Facebook thread got very nasty when I made this point noting that my (lowly) 1856 USCF standard rating (down from 1970 before the USCF kept comprehensive records) meant I shouldn't even opine on what to look for and what to avoid in a coach. His point was that anyone that lowly rated (1856) simply lacked more than "the most elementary chess knowledge."

Actually though the key isn’t how strong the chess coach is, it’s finding someone willing to give you individual attention to identify your relative strengths and weaknesses and work out a plan to improve both. Anyone at least 1800+ rated AND 400+ points stronger than the student and willing to work individually and not just talk extemporaneously for an hour will do. Very simply any coach 400+ rating points stronger than the student can spot easily fixable issues in the student’s chess. Thus even a coach slightly below 1900 USCF rated might do even if he/she falls well short of chess mastery in some areas since he/she can help that student NOW. Later, as the student refines his/her knowledge the student can consider looking for a stronger coach once the present coach is no longer 400+ rating points stronger than the student.

Thus I actually had one excellent IM coach who I took several lessons from before the pandemic changed everything including his business model and he opted for online group lessons instead. First for an agreed upon fixed fee I would e-mail him 10 consecutively played serious games, not for a soup to nuts analysis (I can use Stockfish for that) but to identify the main teachable moments in each game. Those were conceptual moments that Stockfish couldn’t impart to me like choosing non-forcing moves over forcing moves of equal strength to maximize chances the opponent might go wrong. The opponent with a series of “only” responses to forcing moves is much less likely to err than when he/she has many options. Second he would email me the games back with a few key observations on each game. Then lastly we met at a mutually agreed time for two hours at the Marshall Chess Club and we both brought our laptops. Since he had already seen my games he’d say e.g. “alright let’s go to this position from the first game you sent me…." etc. It was an expensive proposition costing me hundreds of dollars per lesson but the great thing was none of my time was wasted. He zeroed right in on the most teachable moments from those 10 games with none of my time wasted. His overall observations about my chess were these: (1) I play simple positons well, something he assured me many students did not; and (2) while one cannot always get simple positions, for complicated positions I had him for coaching insights. We went on from there until the pandemic broke up what was until then a beautiful arrangement for me.

But unfortunately while that’s the best use of my time as the student most coaches don’t consider it worth their time because they actually have to do a bit of work for the student between lessons (very little work actually but it’s still work). Unfortunately most coaches aren’t there to maximize the efficiency of the student’s time for the student but to maximize the efficiency of the coach’s time for the coach for the easy money out there for any strong titled player. Sometimes a strong player is willing to work the way I described as ideal for students until established enough in a given market to rely just on the easy money from mostly chess parents.

Do more better.

This is wonderful, straight up advice! Game analysis is the point. I'm still garbage though haha

In summary, to stop blundering, you need to stop playing. There's no hope for you.

Wait… I’ve watched Ben Finegold for years… he has a daughter????

For people looking to play people better than them, easiest is a chess club, otherwise join Lichess tournaments, lichess has 24/7 tournaments you can join where you will get paired against better players pretty often. Expect to lose, but also expect some wins once you start holding yourself to higher standards, holding yourself to higher and higher standards is what make that you improve in chess. Which requires a lot less effort if you know your opponent WILL punish your mistakes and probably has some plan you NEED to stop

I like playing bots for the convenience. I can walk away from the game and come back later. How could they make them more similar to human play?

tyler1 just put 1500 rating in 4 months playing like a beast, playing with a bad opening and without much theoretical knowledge. now he has hit a plateau, so maybe he needs to stop and study a little, but yes, practice is indeed the main part, and without practice theory is useless

I'm on a 42 game losing streak

Sick mixup on the thumbnails, keeping the meta fresh

This is advice I wish I had last year. Everyone says to do tactics so I hopped on lichess and got to 2100 puzzle rating but could barely crack 1000 in games. Should have spent a lot more time playing and analysing and doing simpler puzzles.

Somehow i doubt you believe that!

5 minutes, 50secs of Ben! Ben is lasting longer! Yay Ben! 😂

Reading books is almost irrelevant. --> lesson for life!

So the key to improvement is R&R: Repetition and Recognition

Hi Ben. Do you coach the very basics to Adult and Children who are students of yours. Or do you have to know a bit about chess before they go to you for lessons.

Its very important to lusten to miss tactics and miss strategy.

Not only a chess lesson, a lesson for life.

Go Ben, and please keep the amazing content!

“Just be better”

Yes.

Lmao these simple answers is a large part of what got me to 1100. “Stop blundering, and just wait for them to blunder”, they always blunder 😂. When I lose it’s because I blunder. 🤯
Now when I’m not blundering I’m mainly losing because of mistakes and misses though.
Lmao this is a reupload of the video.

Most important chess video on the internets.

Well this is awkward as someone who just got a job at teaching chess and who isn’t 2500.

Best life advice ever. Thanks Ben.

Stop hanging your pieces. That's it.

This content is gold. Period.

If you want to get better at chess, I would advise studying the Chessbrah's Building Habits series. The main things I learned from that are:

1. Play the same opening all the time. Getting lots of experience and getting good at one opening is better than than not getting good at any openings as a beginner. Many people get bored and stop trying to improve at their openings. But a boring opening leaves you more brain power for exciting middle and end games.
2. Don't start with trying to play tactics, sacrifices, or gambits. In fact if you follow the Building Habits series very explicitly, you will miss chances to play winning moves on purpose. And yet, you'll still win a lot of games and gain Elo. For me, it's a pretty good idea because sometimes I don't calculate tactics correctly so not trying to do complex tactics is good for my clock.
3. Push some random pawns more often. Around the 1100 or 1500 elo even, losing a pawn is not why you lose the game, unless it's the endgame. So if the move doesn't hang a piece or lose immediately, it's usually fine to just gain some space on the opposite side of the board from your king when you're out of obvious developing moves.

Ben: I coach some people…

Also Ben: Coaching once a week is meaningless. scratches his head

I wish someone would sponsor an hour long where Ben talks at length.

This is actually really good advice.

how to stop blunding...
EASY PEASY
JUST DON'T BLUND!! 🤣

Problem for many lower rated players is that higher rated CHESS NERDS start fake accounts so they can beat on lower rated players for kicks. Plus the regular online cheating is ridiculous

Ben has said similar advice in the past and I love it every time because it's applicable for getting good at anything.

I finally gained rating from 1200-1400 in 3min. Only took years and thousands of games.

Analysing my games turned me from a 500 player to a 800 player. I stopped and dropped to 600

I wish someone would sponsor an hour long lesson, where Ben talks at length on general advice

THIS IS SO TRUE!!!!!

Gotta say the truth hurts thanks Ben.

How do i get lessons from you Ben?