Our guide to why your chess game is not improving (and what to do) includes 10 reasons that your practice might not be paying off and how to rectify them. We look at the environment, solo practice, partners, coaching, big picture thinking, problem solving, bad habits, your past games, self-belief and the time you put in to give you a strategy for success in the future.
India is a nation that celebrates intellectual and cerebral pursuits and chess is the ultimate test in both. India’s first ever world chess champion, Viswanathan Anand, contributed greatly to the rising popularity of chess in his motherland. Moreover, as India grew wealthier in recent decades, and internet access became widespread, more and more people find chess to be an appealing hobby.
You don’t have to say check in chess as it is not a rule. There can be good reasons, particularly in competitive play, not to declare check. However, in friendly games with nothing riding on the outcome, it’s considered good manners to say check when you place the opponent’s king in check.
No, chess is not just memorization. Since there are over 10120 different positions available on the board and 1080 different possible moves, no human can memorize and remember them all. It is a challenge even for a computer to generate all possible positions and moves, and compare them all against each other.
Yes, online chess can be addictive though the extent to which internet chess addiction is found in the population is not known. Online chess addiction is likely to be fairly rare and if it is a problem for someone they ought to be able to break the habit with the aid of a mental health professional.
you can play checkers on a chess board, and you can play chess on a checkers board. The two boards are completely identical with 8×8 alternatively colored squares. The chess board becomes a checkers board when you play checkers on it but that’s just a technicality. You can play checkers on a chess board along with a host of other games.
The king can definitely capture the queen in chess, though it is not easy. While the king may not be able to move very far in any direction as the queen can, it can certainly take a piece of any nature in any of those directions as long as he doesn’t put himself in check.
Any move can be repeated in chess, as long as that move is a legal move, and thus the position on the board does not prevent a move from being repeated. Although many would argue that this loses “tempi”, a move in chess can be repeated without any official forfeit. The only exception is when both players repeat their position three times over – in this case the chess game is drawn.
Chess is popular in Russia because ever since the Soviet-era, the game was seen as an intellectual pursuit. It hasn’t always been popular in Russia, but dominating at chess meant dominating in matters of the mind. During the communist era, it was a matter of national importance to show and prove intellectual superiority, especially against their American competitors.
In the majority of cases, chess players resign because one player believes that they are no longer able to win the game. However, many chess players, particularly beginners may resign far too early and while the option to resign is always open to you (whether you are winning or losing) you might want to think twice before you do so.