Have you ever found yourself asking “Why Am I So Bad at Chess?” after losing a game? Well, you’re in good company. We all have! Chess is usually considered a game of intelligence and mental ability – but this is far from the whole truth. If you’re bad at chess, you aren’t necessarily any less intelligent than a person who mastered the royal game. But still, there might be some reasons you aren’t reaching your full potential in chess. Let’s explore them together.
We came up with five reasons that might be the culprit of why you’re still bad at chess. Please don’t take them as an insult, but sometimes you just have to face the facts, especially if your goal is to get better at chess.
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You’re Not Taking Chess Seriously
While chess might be a fun game and a relaxing pastime for most, improving at chess requires serious focus and work.
You’re Playing Too Fast
If your time management looks something like this:
Then you are definitely not reaching your full chess potential.
You Don’t Anticipate Your Opponent’s Moves
You’re Lacking a Good Opening Repertoire
There’s no question about it: chess can be a frustrating game, especially when you don’t perform to your own expectations. Of course, the only remedy to being bad at chess is to improve your skills. However, there are some other tips that might help you alleviate the feeling of not performing well at the royal game.
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So here’s three actionable tips you can implement right away, so you don’t feel like you’re THAT bad at chess.
Stop Blundering With a Pre-Move-Checklist
We’ve talked alot about how having a pre-move-checklist can help you stop blundering, and in turn feeling like your getting better at chess (well, you actually are). Essentially, you want to have a certain list of questions you go through before making your move. An example would be:
- Checkmates?
- Captures & Attacks?
- Checks & Tactics?
For Checkmates, make sure there is no possible way for my opponent to checkmate after you make your move. This is the most imminent threat, so check it first.
For Captures & Attacks, see if your opponent can capture or dangerously attack any of your pieces after you make your move.
For Checks & Tactics, make sure there are no dangerous checks you could run into, especially those that might make you lose a piece in the process.
Using this pre-move-checklist should save you from 99% of blunders and instantly make you win more games (or lose less). Of course, you can also adjust it to your own liking.
Set Reasonable Expectations
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You might feel like you are constantly stuck at a certain rating and not improving at all. However, this is most likely only true for the short-term. When we want to achieve something, we want to do it as quickly as possible. But chess improvement is a slow process:
Not being bad at chess (whatever that means) is not a linear process at all. Expect up’s, down’s and some more down’s.
To avoid being frustrated and upset with the (seeming) lack of progress, make sure to set realistic and conservative expectations. It can takes months to years to even see slight progress in your rating, depending on where you start.
Keep a Chess Diary
Another useful tool to keep up with your progress, and make you not feel like you are stuck as a bad chess player, is a chess diary or journal.
When you boil it down, there are two forms of chess diaries:
- During play
- Journaling to keep up with progress
Both of them can be very impactful for growing out of the feeling of being bad at chess.
We have a ton of useful tips & tricks here on Chessily to make you a better chess player. You can browse through all of them here:
- How to Overcome Chess Plateaus: Tips for Breaking Through
- The Most Common Chess Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
- Are Puzzles Useful For Chess Improvement?
- Why Am I So Bad at Chess? And What To Do About It
- How To Stop Blundering in Chess
- How To Improve at Rapid Chess
- How to Get Better at Bullet Chess
- How To Get To 1500 Rating in Chess: A Practical Guide
Source: https://t-tees.com
Category: WHY
