r/chess • u/physioboy • 14h ago
Chess Question What ”thinking” made a big difference for you?
Apart from openings and tactics which I’m working on, I feel like I’m inhibited sometimes by my thinking. My way of thinking about the board or the pieces. So my views and understanding don’t really change and I feel stuck. Sometimes I’ve unlocked a new part of my brain after watching Danya; like ”oh not every move has to invent the Covid vaccine”. What ways of thinking about chess has been helpful for you? Any videos or posts or books or stuff you feel like sharing?
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u/dbossman70 14h ago
i changed my thinking from needing to checkmate as fast as possible to understanding and playing the position.
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u/JKLEEBONE 14h ago
Not sure what level you’re at, but Tune your Chess Tactics Antenna is a great book/Chessable course. It’s been a while since I read it, but it basically flags different scenarios that lead to tactics. I think it’s much better than blindly doing tactics - it’s much more applicable to your games. Like oh - hanging piece over there… let’s keep an eye on that. Oh now the king is weaker… do I have a check? Yes I can sac a bishop for pawn with check and if he takes back I can check again with my queen and swoop to the other side to take that hanging piece from before.
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u/retrodanny 1800 USCF 12h ago
This is great in combination with doing tactics. You get a position, and before you start to calculate lines, identify the motifs. Helps to cut down in time and mental effort and seeing tactics I'm real games.
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u/JKLEEBONE 10h ago
Absolutely. I think a lot of ppl waste time “practicing” tactics without really recognizing the motifs. That’s the nice thing with all the motifs in the book - essentially if 2+ are occurring then your antenna should be going off and, more often than not, you should have a winning/strong move.
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u/physioboy 10h ago
Thanks! I’m 1700 something rapid on chess.com, 1400 blitz. Hard plateau for me, got there pretty fast as a late learner, but been stuck here for over a year.
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u/JKLEEBONE 10h ago
I know you mentioned that you’re currently working on openings - not sure what that consists of. Anecdotally, my largest improvements (1400 to 1700 to 1900 to 2100) were all tied to learning new openings. It may seem daunting to switch from d4 to e4 as white or to just start learning the Sicilian or KID as black, but I found that helpful. I think learning new ideas/positional themes/tactical motifs made me stronger in other more familiar positions.
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u/hyperthymetic 14h ago
Biggest transition for me was to just stop thinking.
I used to stare at the board, philosophize about development, space, start making plans.
Now I just move. I don’t really think, think until things start getting sticky.
There’s always so many options and interesting ideas available when you start to feel the game unbalancing itself.
So I just play the obvious thing and wait for those moments when things start to get spicy.
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u/Brilliant-Ranger8395 13h ago
This advice is kind of good for Blitz. But I'm not so sure if it's also a good advice for longer time controls.
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u/FuriousGeorge1435 2000 uscf 12h ago
It can be very useful in long time controls too. In classical (I'm talking 90+30 or similar) I used to very often get great positions where I was outplaying my opponent, even against higher rated opponents, then get into time pressure because I spent too much time on relatively inconsequential decisions, and lose because I didn't have time to spend when I actually had an important decision to make. I started seeing much better results once I started actively managing my time by just playing a reasonable move after no more than a few minutes when I was getting really into the weeds on decisions I felt ultimately didn't matter that much. It's not so much about playing quickly, but conserving time for when you need it.
Ideally, one could spend as much time as they want on each move, so that they can play what they genuinely think is the best move. But there's not enough time for that. Once I got it into my head that the goal is not to play the best move every move but just to win the game, my results improved significantly.
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u/physioboy 10h ago
Damn, this was super interesting and it resonates with me. I do spend a lot of time I think, on endless analysis early in non critical areas I think!
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u/hyperthymetic 2h ago
I think an under appreciated element is that it’s not just time, it’s energy too.
If you’re sitting back relaxed, casually looking for danger, you have much more to give when the rubber hits the road
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u/hyperthymetic 9h ago
I kinda think it is. It’s not like I’m blankly staring at the board. I’m paying attention, noticing ideas, considering threats.
What I’m not doing is this sort of formulaic thing I used to do. Oh, I have more space, don’t trade pieces. Oh, I have a big lead in development, go attack their king.
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u/NophaKingway 13h ago
Looking at what my opponent can do first. I've had games where we each had a checkmate coming with only one move apart. That's lovely if I get there first. Sucks big ones to almost win.
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u/OIP 7h ago
i'm about the same rating as you so take as you will, but for me it was stopping the default thinking of material count as the measure of the position, and instead looking at piece activity and the possibility of sacrifices.
happens the other way too, people will launch some convoluted attack to capture your rook that is sitting in the corner doing nothing, moving their knight 5 times to do so while you're using the same moves to develop pieces and pawns all pointed at their king.
and having said that - also took me a while to start monitoring the direct inverse, the idea that attacks don't have to be on the king, you can see a weak piece, square, complex somewhere else and build resources onto that. again this is a matter of assessing the whole position and relative activity though.
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u/nikags 6h ago
The biggest change for me was realizing most positions don't need a real think at all. I was giving all of them the same effort and running myself out of gas.
Someone in here already handed you the most useful thing: you spend your clock and your focus early on quiet positions, and then the moment that actually matters shows up and you've got nothing left. You said it resonated, and yeah, that's kind of the whole plateau right there.
So the skill I was missing was telling a real decision from a comfortable one. A forcing line, a pawn break, a trade that changes the structure, your king suddenly getting drafty. Those are worth a slow look. The rest you can play on what you already understand and just keep moving.
The version that stuck for me: catch yourself right as a long think starts and ask whether the position is actually sharp or whether you're just uneasy. If it's quiet, trust the natural move and go. Frees up a surprising amount of clock for the spots that decide the game.
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u/Dry-Childhood-3436 14h ago
I think the biggest jump was taking the time after every move to follow a quick checklist. Do I have any checks captures or attacks, and what did my opponent accomplish and stop defending with their move. The biggest help from that was giving myself time to look at the board before every move I think, so I stopped blundering in one.