How to Get Better at Chess in 2023? 7 Trusted Methods + 1 Chess Tool Recommendation
Practice, practice, practice.
This is the most important thing for improving your chess skills. The more you play and gain experience, the better you'll become.
In 2023, chess engines and powerful cloud service-based tools are the new go-to for improving your chess game. However, though modern chess training platforms made it easier to practice chess without playing with real opponents, the effectiveness of real games shouldn’t be underestimated. The best path to becoming better at chess lies in combining chess games with a physical board and pieces with a thorough analysis that chess engines can provide to you.
If the terms are new to you, or you need to navigate your way through the complicated chess tools available, here is a list of 8 trusted methods to get better at chess in 2023 and a great chess tool to start with recommended by world's strongest grandmasters Anish Giri, Levon Aronian and others.
Let's begin!
#1 Solve Chess Tactics
Chess tactics are the combination of moves directed towards a target square/piece. Each move creates a certain threat to which the opponent has to respond and defend.
To improve your chess tactical thinking and intuition, try solving chess tactics regularly - even 30 minutes daily will give a result. To solve the chess tactics, choose some good puzzles (The top 10 Chess puzzles from FIDE candidates are highly recommended by the Chessify team) and find all the possible checks in the position, possible captures, and vulnerable pieces of the opponent in that position.
How to Effectively Solve Puzzles?
Though modern chess engines allow you to find the solution to the puzzles with a few clicks, it's not the best way to get better at chess.
Instead, try solving the puzzles manually by identifying possible targets and motifs and only after that check against the solution of the chess software. This way, you will strengthen your intuition and prepare your mind for playing over-the-board games.
Here is how we suggest you do it:
- Choose a puzzle.
- Think about possible candidate moves.
- Record your solution to compare with the software's solution.
- Set the puzzle's initial position in the Chessify board.
- Pick your preferred chess engine from the right bottom menu and press "Analyze".
- Press on any piece to see the possible moves and check your ideas.
#2 Study Endgames
Endgame in chess is the game phase when there are only a few pieces left on the board and each side tries to convert their advantage into a win or at least save the game with a draw.
Studying endgames is crucial because many chess games last long, resulting in many pieces being exchanged and the position being reduced to a few pieces.
It's a proven fact: even one pawn could be enough to win if you know how to use it. So, studying at least basic endgames can help you figure out how to make the most of your pieces and defend in such positions.
How to Study Endgames Effectively in Chessify.me?
Chessify allows you to add a 6-piece Syzygy endgame tablebase to your preferred search engine’s analysis whenever you have 6 or fewer pieces left on your board. Whenever you tick the box of “syzygy” on the right-side menu of your Chessify dashboard, the chess engine will analyze the game considering the tablebase data, which means you will get better suggestions and solutions for the position. Integrating an endgame database enriches the chess engine with a better understanding of the endgame theory and allows for better game analysis for the players.
Find more about the easiest way of studying endgames!
#3 Explore Chess Openings
The first step of your chess game matters the most. It's a crucial part of the game where players develop pieces trying to gain control of the center according to already established theories.
Learning about openings is quite helpful for improving your game in general: when you know more options, you can choose better ones and surprise opponents with moves they don't expect.
And if you're looking for some good guidance on this, Chessify has asked grandmaster Zaven Andreasian to share his exclusive tips on chess opening novelties. Go read it now!
Explore Some Great Openings With Chessify.me
Chessify References contain a wide selection of games that have been recorded since 1475. Choose “References” from the right menu and see which opening moves are preferred by most players. Use this data to create your own opening repertoire.
#4 Analyze Your Lost Games
Well, we'll love analyzing our victories and re-feel the moment of triumph again and again, but when it comes to improvements, it's way more important to learn from your mistakes and even your defeats.
Analyzing lost games is one of the best ways to improve at chess, as it allows you to see what went wrong and find out how to prevent such unfortunate situations in the future. That way, you will be able to reduce the number of bad moves you make.
How to Analyze Lost Games in Chessify.me?
Chessify.me allows you to access powerful chess engines like Stockfish, LCZero, AsmFish, Sugar AI, Berserk and Koivisto without the need for powerful and expensive hardware or device memory. Everything is hosted on Chessify's cloud, and you can get game analysis like a PRO within minutes.
Here's how to get this result in 3 simple steps:
- Import your game to Chessify.me.
- Choose any search engine from the bottom right menu: Stockfish, LCZero, or others.
- Click “Analyze” to get the best variant of the moves for the position.
A small hint!
Use Reference to find your right moves for the games’ openings, and Search Engines for analyzing the middle games.
#5 Analyze GM's Games
There is a long journey behind each grandmaster's success, full of thousands of hours of practice and studying, hundreds of mistaken moves and losses. So, analyzing the games of grandmasters can be your short path to improvement, as it will allow you to take a closer look at the moves of the best players in the world and find out what strategy works for them.
However, don't just memorize the moves! Dig deeper and find out what led the grandmaster to win. What did he do that you didn't? What did he think when making exactly that move?
How Can Chessify.me help?
We store the biggest database of high-quality grandmaster games, which you can access in the "Reference" section of the right menu. Search your favorite GM by name, and we will instantly display the result and the date of the game, the color of the pieces, and the detailed stats.
Want something better? Go to the "Video Search" section, and you will find dozens of videos with grandmaster's best games, accompanied by a detailed commentary. The “Video Search” section will display games with the same position as you have on your Chessify board at the moment of search.
Ready to study like a PRO? Log in to Chessify and start learning now!
#6 Concentrate on the Whole Game, Not Specific Parts
This may sound pretty intuitive for you at the moment, but many players still make the mistake of focusing only on one or two parts of the game, while they need to focus on all three (opening, middle game, endgame) to become a truly great player.
So, make sure you do not put all your efforts on one of the game parts only, but rather distribute your efforts equally to the whole game.
#7 Play With Real Opponents
Yes, it was us to tell you practicing chess in the 21st century doesn't mean sitting alone at the board for hours, and technology has transformed chess training.
But, this does not eliminate the need to play with real opponents. Your end goal is to defeat humans, and more than improving your chess skills is needed.
You also need to withstand the emotional pressure of playing against a real player; how they sit, their gestures, and how they move their pieces can influence your performance.
So, while continuously improving your skills with powerful search engines, don't forget to test them in real battles. Find a community of players, participate in tournaments, or play with friends.
About Chessify.me
Hello, friend! We are Chessify.me, the ultimate platform for chess players to improve their skills and increase their ELO rating. We have a wide range of features available, including chess game analysis, video search, an opening explorer, and a game database of more than 9 Million games.
What does set us apart from other platforms? We have started with a solid understanding of the chess player's pain points (cheers to our chess-playing friends). They used to continuously invest in expensive hardware to support chess engines and sacrificed the memory and speed of their PC to get the best from the software.
So the thought we have come up with is, why not bring all the chess training power into the cloud, where everyone can have equal access to powerful features without spending too much?
And we did it. You can access Chessify.me right now from your standard PC or mobile and use it as any other app requiring minimal hardware resources. In exchange, you will get all the powerful features needed for professional chess training like a detailed analysis of your game with chess engines like Stockfish, an analysis of your opponent's strategy, and more!
So, come join us and start improving your chess skills today!