How to Get Better at Chess: A Simple Training Plan

Most players who want to improve do too much of one thing (usually openings, or fast online games) and too little of what actually wins games. Improving at chess is not mysterious. It comes down to a few habits, done regularly, in the right proportions.

Here is a plan that works from beginner to strong club level.

1. Solve tactics every day

If you do only one thing, do this. Below master level, the vast majority of games are decided by tactics: a fork missed, a piece left hanging, a mate overlooked. Puzzles train exactly the skill that decides those games - seeing the pattern quickly - and they give you hundreds of examples in the time one game would take.

How to do it well:

• Little and often beats a big session once a week. Fifteen to thirty minutes a day is enough to see steady progress.
• Solve at your level. Puzzles you get right most of the time build pattern recognition; puzzles far too hard mostly build frustration.
• Do not guess. Calculate until you are sure, then move. A fast wrong answer teaches the wrong habit.
• Learn from misses. When you get one wrong, play through the solution and understand why your move failed.

ChessKite's puzzle feed is built for this: it matches puzzles to your rating as you scroll, keeps the ones you miss so you can practise them again, and the Daily gives you three harder ones each day to keep a streak. Our guide on how to solve chess puzzles covers the method.

2. Play slower games

Fast games (bullet and blitz) are fun, but you make decisions too quickly to learn from them. To improve, play games with enough time to think about every move: 15 minutes per side or more, ideally with an increment.

In each game, before every move:

1. What did my opponent's last move do? What does it threaten?
2. What are my checks, captures and threats?
3. Is the piece I am about to move safe on its new square - and is everything else still defended?

This "blunder check" is the single biggest difference between improving players and stuck ones.

3. Review your games - especially the losses

A game you do not review teaches you very little. After each serious game:

1. Go through it yourself first, without an engine. Find the moments where you were unsure, and where the game turned.
2. Then check with an engine, such as our analysis board running Stockfish. Look for the biggest swings in evaluation - those are your real mistakes.
3. Write down one lesson. "I didn't see the knight fork", "I moved my queen too early", "I forgot about the back rank". Patterns in these notes show you what to study.

4. Learn the essential endgames

You do not need to know hundreds of endgames - but a few come up so often that not knowing them costs points again and again:

• The basic checkmates with a queen and with a rook.
• Opposition, the rule of the square, Lucena and Philidor.

Endgames also teach how the pieces work together, which helps in every phase of the game.

5. Keep openings simple

Openings are the most over-studied part of chess for most players. Below about 1800, you need:

• The opening principles: centre, development, king safety.
• One opening as White and one answer each to 1. e4 and 1. d4 as Black - see the best openings for beginners.
• An understanding of the ideas behind your openings, not long lines of memorised moves.

6. Study master games

Playing through games by strong players - slowly, guessing the next move before you look - teaches plans, piece placement and endgame technique in a way no list of rules can. Start with classic games from the world champions, or try our guess-the-grandmaster-move puzzles.

A sample week

How fast will I improve?

It depends on where you start and how much you put in - but players who do daily tactics, play slower games and review them usually see their rating rise within a few weeks, and keep rising for months. The key is consistency. A little every day beats a lot once in a while.

Start today's puzzles - your rating will tell you how it is going.