Created On: 3/28/2024
Becoming savvy at chess requires a lot of understanding, it's more than just learning chess openings and defences, it is largely about learning strategies, like tempo, and many other aspects of the games. Anyone can learn a chess trap or gambit, it's really not that hard, and the more you play and learn, the more experience you acquire.
Experience alone will not make you savvy, you can play many games against friends and never really become chess savvy, you really have to study the game from every aspect, especially tempo, strategies, attacking, and combos to better counter your opponent's moves and position. Some say puzzles won't increase your skills at chess, but this is inaccurate, and that's because puzzles teach you savvy moves, well at least they can if they are more difficult.
Anyone can learn how to checkmate a king, that's easy, or even how to trap a queen, but real chess savvy entails counterattacking while being attacked, pinning pieces, forking multiple pieces, and forcing moves that give you an advantage or lead to checkmate. The more brilliant moves you make, the better, the more advantages you gain, the better you are off positionally, usually, and I say usually because some advantages are very short lived!
If you seek just a piece advantage, it doesn't mean you will the game, you can sacrifice your defensive position by going for some moves, and so you need to be very mindful of your position on the board at all times, also you need to see what moves your opponent is seeking to enact upon you! Seeing everything is critical, but it's difficult in short games, unless you are a grand master, to see all of the right moves, and this is why you should play games at least 10 minutes or longer, if you want to get good at chess that is.
You also need to evaluate why you are making mistakes and blunders, learn not to play passive moves that don't really have any strategy behind them, and more importantly, learn to become strategic. Strategy is 9/10ths of what Chess is, those who have more strategy will usually crush those who don't have much at all. Simple strategies like Tempo gain a huge advantage middle game because it increases your positional stength, gaining material advantage can help you win games, and seeking to completely dominate the board requires your opponent to make mistakes, often multiple mistakes too.
I've watched quite a few videos of Grand Masters doing speed runs, watching their play to learn their strategies, this is critical because they show you what is important, and you begin to notice that they have mastered multiple openings and defences, which is rather critical. Chess Savvy is truly just a healthy amount of learning and practice in play, you see the Grand Masters have chess savvy because they are extremely learned in the game, and it's not something that comes overnight, unfortunately.
Though we have all heard of these very young grand masters, I assure you they had to have a Grand Master teaching them at some point, or they'd never be there, because chess is largely about learning openings and defences, strategies, and techniques. I have seen some really stellar combinations of moves in chess, the chess savvy is on a whole different level, and though we'd all love to learn to play like that, it's partly a natural talent too.
Highly intelligent chess players tend to make more savvy moves than those who are just average players, but don't let knowing combinations fool you, there are a lot of other factors that affect the outcome of your game, like tempo, position, your opponent's skill, and how many mistakes you & your opponent make, only to name a few. You can become more savvy if you pay attention to the pros, seek a mentor, and slowly through practice increase your skills at openings and defences.
Learning the right moves and tactics at the right time is critical, trying too early to be aggressive can be disastrous, and I'd highly recommend achieving on a small scale at first, also using fast win techniques like the Scholar's Mate trick is not going to make you a savvy player. (It is very easily thwarted!) You need to have strategy early, middle, and late game as well, because as the great World Champion Magnus Carlsen once said, "It's all about the middle game."
The early game isn't where the best moves are usually played, it's the middle game where players start showing their savvy, and if you are a great late game player, it will help you win A TON of games! Early game is just about building a defence position and setting up your position to attack your opponent's position, indeed some defensive position are completely locking, and if yur opponent attacks, it will make them sacrifice their position, which leads you to be able to make better attacks against them.
Some strategies are purely aggressive, some people are great at sacrificing pieces to achieve a middle game win, while others seek to gain a slow advantage for a late game win, and I'll warn you now that being aggressive early can lead to disaster quickly if your opponent knows what to play and when. The reason you cannot become savvy against lesser opponents, is because they don't have the skills to challenge you, so seek to play masters of the game, and that will indeed increase your savviness at chess, because you'll be learning how they beat you and where you are weak!
I've already outlined in my last blog post that you also need to learn to utilize AI to teach you better moves, so take the time to learn to utilize the best technology available to help you learn, and don't use it to cheat, that won't make you savvy at all. Learn by doing it your self, learn some moves, and then implement them in games, and the more moves you learn, the more savvy you become!
Nothing replaces experience, education isn't enough, you need to learn the game by playing, and learning to become savvy is a long endeavor, because it's not something you acquire in a year or less. You could say savvy is just pure talent, but it's more than that, it's learned talent, and you need the experience of using those talents collectively to play astounding games with brilliant moves.
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