How to Get Better at Chess (Beginner’s Guide)

Here’s what you need to focus on to actually improve:

• Opening principles
• Basic tactical motifs
• Checkmating patterns
• Game analysis
• Board visualization
• Endgame fundamentals

Now, let’s take a closer look at each of these areas.

Opening Principles

A very common mistake is trying to learn opening theory and memorize moves without fully understanding or applying the opening principles. I’m sure you’ve heard this before: control the center, develop your pieces, castle early, don’t move the same piece twice… but I challenge you to check your own games. Are you really following these principles, or is your king still in the center after move 10? Have you moved that knight to g5 to start an imaginary attack, or pushed a3/h3 “just in case”?

Before learning any opening theory, make sure you fully understand and can actually apply these opening principles to your games. Just knowing the opening principles is not enough. You have to practice applying them so that you actually follow them when it matters – in your own games.

Basic Tactical Motifs

How many online puzzles have you solved – hundreds, maybe thousands – yet you still miss tactical opportunities in your own games?

One problem with online puzzles is that we often solve them without truly paying attention to the position. Instead of analyzing the board, we play moves that look right, without calculating properly or checking whether they actually work.

Another issue is solving mixed puzzles without first learning and practicing each tactical pattern in isolation. It’s like trying to recognize words in a foreign language without first learning the alphabet. When everything is mixed together, nothing stands out clearly.

Knowing a tactical motif theoretically is not enough. You need to solve many puzzles focused on the same theme so you can deeply understand it and imprint it in your mind. Learn one pattern at a time, and practice it deliberately.

Strong players seem to spot tactics “automatically” because they have seen these patterns (and lost to them) countless times before. That should be your goal as well: to make tactical patterns your second nature.

Here is the list of basic tactical motifs you should learn and practice:

• Double attack
• Discovered attack
• Double check
• Pin
• Skewer
• Intermediate move
• X-ray
• Removing the defender
• Clearance
• Decoy

Checkmating patterns

I’m sure you’ve missed a checkmating opportunity to finish the game more times than you’d like to admit.

In chess, if you don’t deeply know checkmating patterns, you won’t recognize them in your games – even when they are right in front of you.

Let me put it this way: You can’t find John in a crowded room if you don’t know what he looks like. So let’s get to know John, so you can spot him instantly when it actually matters.

Here is the list of the most common checkmating patterns you should learn and practice:

• Anastasia’s mate
• Arabian mate
• Back rank mate
• Balestra mate
• Blackburne’s mate
• Blind swine mate
• Boden’s mate
• Cozio’s mate
• Damiano’s mate
• Epaulette mate
• Greco’s mate
• Hook mate
• Kill box mate
• Lawnmower mate
• Max Lange’s mate
• Morphy’s mate
• Opera mate
• Pillsbury’s mate
• Reti’s mate
• Swallow’s tail mate
• Vukovic mate

If you’d like structured practice on these ideas, I cover them in detail in my training program, using practical examples taken from real beginners’ games.

Game Analysis

“People who want to improve should take their defeats as lessons, and endeavor to learn what to avoid in the future. You must also have the courage of your convictions. If you think your move is good, make it.” – Jose Raul Capablanca

Analyzing your games is one of the fastest ways to improve because it shows you the exact mistakes that are holding you back. Every blunder, missed tactic, or lost opportunity becomes a lesson you can correct in the next game. Without analysis, you repeat the same errors without even realizing it. It turns your games into personalized training material, making every win and loss a stepping stone toward consistent improvement.

Board visualization

Next, let’s talk about visualization of the board. How many times have you missed that long-range bishop threat coming from the other side of the board? That happens because your visualization skills aren’t developed yet.

When I close my eyes, I can tell you that d4 is a dark square, visualize a knight moving across the board, or even play through an entire game. Can you do the same? If the answer is no, then it’s time to add some visualization exercises to your training.

Beginners often see the board as 64 separate squares, while stronger players see it as one connected structure – patterns, diagonals, files, and relationships between pieces all at once. Developing this ability will help you see threats earlier, calculate more accurately, and avoid many of the blunders that come from simply not “seeing” the whole board.

Incorporate some visualization exercises into your training routine. Even just 15 minutes a day can help a lot, giving you a clearer picture of the board in your mind and leading to fewer blunders. For example, you can close your eyes and try to recognize the colors of the squares, name all the squares along the a1–h8 diagonal, or place a knight on a1 and mentally bring it to all four corners.

Endgames

Most beginner chess players focus on the wrong things. They study opening lines in far too much detail, when they should be focusing more on the endgame instead. And you don’t have to take my word for it:

“To improve at chess, you should in the first instance study the endgame.” – Jose Raul Capablanca

Now let’s talk about what you should actually learn as a beginner when it comes to endgames. You should learn the basic endgame principles, such as activating your king and pushing passed pawns, and practice applying them in your games. It’s also important to study basic theoretical pawn endgame ideas: the rule of the square, opposition, and king and pawn vs. king positions – knowing when they are winning and when they are drawn.

So, to recap: learn and practice the basic endgame principles and theoretical pawn endgames. And very importantly – don’t just learn them. You need to practice them to truly internalize the ideas.

Final Thoughts

I’ve told you what you need to do to get better at chess. I’ve made my move. Now it’s yours.

Getting better at chess is hard. There are no shortcuts – you actually need to do the work necessary to improve. But losing games is hard as well. Choose your hard.

If you’d like guidance along the way, I’ve created a beginner training program that covers these exact ideas through clear explanations and plenty of practical exercises taken from real beginners’ games. If that sounds helpful, send me a message to learn more about it.