7 Chess Mistakes Holding You Back (And How to Fix Them)

If you play a lot of Blitz games, watch videos, but still feel stuck, this video is for you. I'll show you 7 mistakes beginners make all the time, and fixing them will immediately make your results more consistent. First rule, avoid one-move attacks. And here's a very tricky part about it. This strategy actually works really well when you are a beginner, and so you are reinforced to follow it. Think about this position for a second, it is black to move. What should black do here? We have a lot of pieces doing nothing, and in an opening, you are supposed to develop them, right? That's the way to go about this. What did black do instead? Played pawn to g3, which is a pawn move. It doesn't develop anything, we're still getting totally passive. And that move relies on white to be cooperative. And fortunately for black, white was cooperative, white captured this pawn, which now justifies the idea. But the only problem is, it only works if your opponent cooperates. And now, yes, white dropped the bishop right here on e3, black attacks the queen, and as you guys write in comments, it escalated quickly. White played Qe2, also blundering this one, and after this fork, black attacked and captured the rook, and he actually kept attacking on the next moves, and finished the game pretty quickly. So white player, being rated 700, collapsed very quickly under these one-move attacks. But, this changes dramatically when you start facing intermediate level opponents, or even advanced level opponents. Now let's compare this to another game, where both players are rated roughly around 1000. Okay, it was black to play here, and what is black supposed to do here? As always, develop pieces and castle, right? There should be 7, castle, find a way to develop this knight, and so on. But black, however, played pawn to g5, trying to be more aggressive, I don't know, maybe threatening g4, this knight, or something like this. Bg2, white is getting ready to castle, and black goes Qe7, check, checking the king. Okay, nice, white covers, and develops a bishop at the same time. Black goes Bb5, trying to stop white from castling once again. White plays b3, trying to push the pawn forward and shut down this bishop. Black develops the other bishop, and this time, black is hitting the rook. But white noticed, moved the rook away, now g4, black keeps pushing, this time, the knight is attacked. At the same time, the knight was just relocating to a better square, now the knight is actually hitting black, and black decided to trade it off, now after an exchange, black's rook is hanging in the corner, black moved the pawn forward, now c4, shuts down this bishop and pushes it all the way back, and white finally castled. As a result of all these one-movers, black just wasted a lot of time, he still underdeveloped, while white already completed the development, and white did not overlook anything, did not blunder anything. And so black just ruined his own position and wasted a lot of time. So that is a very tricky part, where the very same strategy that used to work so well when you were rated 600, starts working against you when you start facing more advanced opponents. The next one is something that is near and dear to my heart. Let me show you one example of that. In this position, it was black to play, black played Na5, hitting the queen, and what does white do here? Nd5, counterattacks, the same stuff, the queen goes away, now the white queen is still hanging there. White goes Nd7, trying to deliver this fork, and yes, it is a blunder, I guess, I get it, white just overlooked that this square is controlled by the bishop, but I think there is this greater pattern here, because I've been coaching for the last 20 years, and I've analyzed probably thousands of games of students, and somehow people often cannot resist the temptation to attack opponent's queen. It is just so appealing that people go above and beyond and neglect anything else to just keep chasing the queen. Like maybe you guys can explain it to me in comments. Black of course captured it, and white kept insisting on the same thing, attacked the queen once again, and the queen gladly captured one more piece, and now white is two pieces down at the end. So basically the lesson is, stop chasing the opponent's queen unless you gain something concrete. Which brings us to the third very common mistake, don't let side ideas distract you from development. Let me show you what I mean. Let's say we're going into the bishop's opening, black attacks the pawn, and white lets them capture it. Black thinks, okay, that's a free low-calorie pawn, and out of midas' neck, they capture it. Okay. White goes Nc3, attacking the knight again. Black sees that their knight is attacked, they need to do something about it, and they think, okay, the easiest solution is to trade it off. And it all makes sense, but at the very same time, just think about this, it is already the third move of the same knight that keeps horsing around, while the rest of the army does nothing. On top of that, white recaptures with a d-pawn, and now also this bishop is getting active. Okay, still the game goes on, now black sees that this pawn is hanging, and they go pawn to d6. Again, makes sense, the pawn was attacked, and they kinda defend it. And yet after white cancels, just look at the position, white has almost finished their development entirely, and for black, it's still hard to pick an employee of the month, because they all are doing nothing. And now black thinks, okay, let me go Bg4, pinning this knight. Cool, I mean, the idea makes sense in general, but again, in opening, you gotta develop pieces and castle, right? That's the priority. So here Bg4 pins the knight, and yet white does what we call, colloquially, a pin-tastic move. Nxe5, sacrificing the queen, and going for this quite spectacular checkmate. Moving on to the mistake number 4, too many pawn moves. In this position, it was white to play, and white played pawn to a3. Getting ready to advance this pawn forward. Black played also f6, attacking the bishop, white goes b4, hitting the queen, the queen comes back, now the bishop retreats from this danger, black trades, goes pawn e6, and now pawn to g4, attacking the bishop once again. And I think there is something psychological here, because playing a pawn move is basically very straightforward. Like, literally, you just move a piece, in this case a pawn, one square forward. It's very low risk, very easy to comprehend, and that's why for us, humans, it's kind of appealing to choose that, you know, lowest resistance path. But in reality, it's not the best, because your pieces are just way stronger, and again, you gotta develop them. So here f4, white keeps pushing, Black goes a5, undermining here this pawn on the queenside, b5, black takes, white recaptures, Bd6, all right, now black attacks the pawn, white pushes it forward. This pawn made an interesting move, it's a sacrifice, and, you know, I don't even criticize this, because these guys are not beginners, they're already 1300, and white player played here quite creative chess, right? He found some very interesting ways to launch this attack, and now Qh2+, he goes to c8, now white castles, pawn takes g4, Bg2, okay, now white develops, now white thinks, okay, how do I continue attacking the king, and white probably thought to play d5 aiming for pawn to c6 to get to the king, but here's the deal, think about it. A pawn normally can attack 2 squares, which is, of course, way less than any piece. Like here, if you could bring the rook into play, it would control 14 squares, 7 times more. So like, imagine, there was an upcoming battle, and you could choose that creature to fight for you, and you could choose that big, hairy, ugly monster, and you instead chose a dwarf. Like why? Right? So here, like, that rook would add up so much to your overall power, and you instead use that little pawn, tiny little pawn, which is the weakest, you know, piece that you have. That goes Qa5, now c6, white kind of almost got to the king, but got checkmated earlier. This also brings us to the fifth most common mistake, instant moves equals instant blunders. In this position, it was white to play, white played Qh3, taking aim at black's king, black played Qc6, and now I'd realized that Qh8 takes h7 would be a checkmate, if not this defender from f6, therefore white played Bg5, black continued Pawn d4, white captures, expecting a checkmate, and ironically, he got it. The solution is pretty straightforward, I just took it a few moves back. After your opponent's move, ask yourself, what does he want? Here, after black played Qc6, if white asked himself that question, he certainly would notice that black has built up that battery, and on the next turn, once again, white had an opportunity to notice this thing, as long as, you know, this attack of the knight. There's also one more thing, which I find to be interesting. When you look at Magnus Carlsen playing, he often looks kind of confused, you know, and it can't be that, right? The greatest player of all times cannot be confused looking at most chess positions. And I think the reason really is, he's kind of holding himself back, trying to control his emotions, and discipline himself to avoid making instant moves, but instead to think it through. And if the goat needs to do that, probably we should too. Mistake number 6. To take is a mistake. If you're a subscriber of this channel, then you probably know this rule really well, but it's so common that anyway, it makes sense to reinforce it. In this position, it was black to play. Black could, for example, play kind of like f5, if you're familiar with our videos about the Dutch defense, you know, that's what black could try doing here. But black instead captured here, alright, white recaptured, and then black took here, trading off the knight. And at first, it may seem like not a big deal. We're trading one minor piece for another minor piece. That's just an equal exchange. And trading off pieces feels like an easy solution. You know, the less pieces you have, the fewer pieces you have, the easier it is for you to make decisions. Also, when you trade off opponent's pieces, you reduce the risk of them attacking you in the future. And therefore, it feels easier, and it feels more secure. But both of these things actually is nullified if you think about that from your opponent's perspective just as well, right? When you trade off pieces, not only you make it easier for you, you also make it easier for your opponent. And here after a couple more moves, now Bc6, hitting the rook, it comes back. And notice that at this point, it's pretty hard for black to even move, right? Like, think about it. He now went with the knight back to d7 because this rook can't really move, this rook can't really move, right? The white bishop is doing a great job. The queen can also has very limited scope of actions. And overall, it's pretty hard for black to do anything. Now why did that happen? Well, let's trace it back. Let's take a couple moves back. Look at this. Black had a few active pieces, right? This knight was his most active piece. Black traded it off. Then he had this bishop, which was also pretty active. Black traded that bishop off as well. And once black traded off all of his active pieces, he was left with all the worst ones, the passive ones. And it also makes sense because you cannot trade off your really bad piece, which is very passive. Like, black can't easily trade off this rook on b8. You can only trade off your active pieces, that's the issue, right? And so the rule is avoid unmotivated exchanges because then you only trade off your active pieces and you usually only help your opponent. And the next mistake is not calculating your moves. Let's see how you should do this. In this position, it was black to move. This pawn on f7 is attacked. Black noticed that and decided to play Be6 to cover it. And while it makes sense in general, black failed to do this calculation. How do you do this? You gotta consider your opponent's checks, captures and threats. In other words, forcing moves because these moves are the most dangerous for you. Here white captured on e6 and at this point, black realized that unfortunately for him, he cannot recapture because the rook would take on f8 and that would just lose the rook and also the other one on a8 because white's rook is supporting. Pretty sad. In the game, instead of capturing here, black settled for Ke7, white captured this pawn on f7 check. Black realized, oh, there's a free bishop, captured it and got checkmated. And of course, Merry Christmas! Just a quick reminder that my Christmas bundle offer is running. Booster Elo 2 2000 and the Superback are both discounted right now. If it feels right for you, the links are below and enjoy the holidays!