Improve Chess Playing Skills with These Essential Training Tips

Everyone learns differently, but all can also benefit from basic tips that can help improve anyone's skills set in playing the highly tactical and strategic game of chess. Doing tactics training is one of the most important things you should pay attention to if you are serious about chess. In fact, it is a key element in any chess training program. When you want to improve your chess trainings and methodologies, remember to keep them focused. Too many chess players rely on solving chess puzzles and problems for training without any overall view of a specific skill they want to improve. While chess problems and puzzles do help a lot in improving your mind's sharpness, training will work best if you have a specific area of focus.

Chess tactics trainings can generally be divided into three major focus areas, namely, tactical patterns, tactical awareness, and tactical themes. Tactical patterns refer to how the tactic in question is to be executed. Tactical themes answer the question, which elements of the position enabled tactical possibility, while tactical awareness refers to knowing when to search for tactical combinations.

When doing chess tactics problems or puzzles, it is important that you are aware of what you want to achieve. This means mindfully analyzing tactical themes and patterns that made each particular tactic possible in the puzzle. A good rule of thumb is never moving on to the next problem until you have figured out these things. This kind of tactics training will not only help you better recognize tactical themes and patterns, but also hone your tactical awareness, making the approach a holistic method. If you can summarize the tactical solution that you just performed in a short sentence, you will have understood the essence of the tactic.