The Top 3 Mistakes Chess Players Make in Their Training

A lot of chess players train regularly but still don’t see much progress. They solve tactics, watch chess videos, learn new openings and play hundreds of games online. Sometimes they spend several hours on chess every week for months, but their rating hardly changes. Naturally, at some point they start wondering what they are doing wrong.

Very often, the problem is not how much time they spend on chess, but what they actually do during that time. Simply doing more chess work does not always mean that you will improve faster. I have seen players who study a lot but get very little from it, while others make good progress with much less training time.

My name is Valery Filippov, and I am an International Grandmaster and chess coach. In this article, I will be happy to share with you the three most common mistakes that I have seen among my students. I hope this article will be useful to you and help you improve your training process.

Neglecting Tactical Training

I would put this mistake in absolute first place, without any competition. I have seen the same chess scenario with a huge number of players.

Let’s take a closer look:

First, a beginner who has only just started playing chess learns how the pieces move and other basic rules.

Then, they begin learning about chess combinations, starting with forks, pins and double attacks, and as their level improves, they learn about X-rays, overloading, space blocking, and so on.

After that, they actively begin practicing these combinations by solving different chess puzzles. Their rating grows, everything is going well, and so far the picture looks absolutely perfect.

But at some point, this player reaches their first chess plateau. They realize that in order to continue improving, combinations leading to checkmate or winning a piece are no longer enough. This means it is time to move to the next level of training - learning openings. And this is also a great and absolutely correct idea, except that for the vast majority of chess players it leads to a fatal mistake in their training process.

The opening completely takes over the chess player’s focus and literally becomes the number one priority on their training list. And no wonder! There are many openings, and every opening has a huge number of variations and subvariations. All of them need to be learned, and preferably practiced as well.

And this is exactly where the main mistake begins - calculation training moves into the background, and as a result, the player loses their form. They learn more and more new openings, while their rating continues to fall. The player does not understand what is happening or why they are missing a pin or a double attack when they are already familiar with these types of combinations. But unfortunately, simply knowing them is not enough.

It is absolutely necessary to constantly keep yourself sharp and solve puzzles on different themes. Remember, calculation work should make up no less than 70% of your training time. Always! No opening will help you if you make too many blunders and mistakes.

Dependence on Blitz

And this is the second and no less dangerous mistake. I would even call it a bad habit that I see among more and more players every year.

We all love playing blitz, and 90% of grandmasters are guilty of this as well. In reality, there is nothing wrong with it if there is a clear separation between training and simply having fun. I assure you that no titled chess player would ever build their training around blitz. But there is a very large percentage of online players who train and practice exclusively through blitz. And again, there is nothing wrong with this if you treat it simply as a game without setting any serious goals for yourself. But many players want to improve while continuing to play only blitz.

The problem with all fast time controls is that they develop bad habits, such as always being in a hurry. Or laziness - an unwillingness to do calculation work and instead simply make the most natural moves. Even among my own students who play OTB tournaments with long classical time controls, I often notice the effects of blitz. Because of their habit of playing quickly, they use only 10% of their available time and essentially have almost no chance of winning against an opponent who conducts a deep and lengthy analysis of variations.

At the professional level, blitz is useful only when there is a need to practice a large number of opening variations. The logic here is simple - the shorter the time control, the more games you can play, which means more openings will be played. But even with this type of training, every game is always analyzed with a computer. By the way, how often do you analyze your own games? And this is exactly the right moment to move on to the third problem.

The Problem of Game Analysis

First, let’s talk about online chess. Everything is simple here. Statistically, online games are not analyzed at all. Or the player simply clicks the review button to see their accuracy. Or they quickly look through their mistakes for one minute. And this, dear readers, is a huge missed opportunity!

Your own games are a treasure trove of your weaknesses and mistakes. And that is a wonderful thing. Although believe me, I know from my own experience how painful it can be to analyze lost games. But if you treat every game you play with full responsibility and carefully analyze every one of your mistakes, especially in the opening, then believe me, there is a very good chance that you will never make that mistake again.

The problem with most online players is that their mistakes are never analyzed and simply move from one game to another. Again and again, they lose for the same reasons. So please, be patient and try to spend at least 10 minutes analyzing every game you play (by the way, in my opinion, the ideal online time control is 15+10). Carefully study your mistakes and missed opportunities. Move the pieces, look through side variations, and try to understand why the engine gives one evaluation or another. Your efforts will pay off, believe me!

As for OTB chess, especially tournaments, analysis is everything! There, the analysis of a single game can take several hours. And very often it is done together with a coach. This is a completely different depth of analysis. No chess player has ever earned a title, and no one ever will, if they neglect this part of their training.

Tournament players also often use special powerful engines that allow them to get a more precise evaluation of a position. This is especially common in opening preparation. Personally, I am not very strong with modern technology, but I was happy to discover Chessify and I continue to explore its functionality. If you are an active tournament player, I definitely recommend using their cloud engine and convenient database.

If you are only beginning your chess journey, I strongly recommend trying the Video Search function. Imagine that you come across an unfamiliar opening and simply do not understand how to play it. The engine only shows you variations but does not explain them. And explanations are really necessary... With this function, you can set up the position on the board and find YouTube videos in which it appeared. And in one of those videos, you will most likely find a detailed explanation of the position and be able to understand its main ideas. Overall, I definitely recommend it!

Final Words

There is no magical way to quickly become stronger at chess, but a properly structured training process will definitely bring results. Do not forget to work on tactics regularly, do not replace proper training with endless blitz games, and always find time to analyze your own games. I hope my experience and advice will help you avoid these mistakes and make your chess training more effective.