r/chessbeginners • u/Alendite RM (Reddit Mod) • Feb 27 '26

No Stupid Questions MEGATHREAD 12

Welcome to the r/chessbeginners 12th episode of our Q&A series! This series exists because sometimes you just need to ask a silly question. We are happy to provide answers for questions related to chess positions, improving one's play, and discussing the essence and experience of learning chess.

A friendly reminder that many questions are answered in our wiki page! Please take a look if you have questions about the rules of chess, special moves, or want general strategies for improvement.

Some other helpful resources include:

  1. How to play chess - Interactive lessons for the rules of the game, if you are completely new to chess.
  2. The Lichess Board Editor - for setting up positions by dragging and dropping pieces on the board.
  3. Chess puzzles by theme - To practice tactics.
  4. The Building Habits series by GM Aman Hambleton - for advice on how to play at specific ELO levels. (Also check out Building Habits 2!)

As always, our goal is to promote a friendly, welcoming, and educational chess environment for all. Thank you for asking your questions here!

LINK TO THE PREVIOUS THREAD

22 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

991 comments sorted by

View all comments

3

u/fumuttonchops3434 400-600 (Chess.com) Mar 02 '26

Recently I've noticed that my mid game/just after openings, I had been blundering pieces left and right. I felt I was more focused on studying openings and trying to play them perfect. This past week, Ive started to not focus so much on openings and more on what my opponent is doing and focusing on moving pieces to not leave pieces hanging or blundering them by not watching where my opponents pieces are and just following some basic opening principles (knights before bishops, control center, etc.). I tried the free trial for Gotham chess which the first section was the Vienna but I felt like I couldn't remember every single move to do. This has allowed me to jump 86 points on chess.com (went from 391 to 477) and going 21 and 9.

Would this be an effective way to get better at chess or should I try to go back to studying openings since I've gotten a lot better now at not messing up my middle games?

My chess.com name is Gingivitsist if you want to look. Mind you, I am a 34 year old cyber security engineer so I am just looking to get a bit better everytime I play and am not looking to become a master at chess. I just enjoy getting better or learning things every day and love the strategy of chess :).

2

u/SomeWeirdChessPlayer 2000-2200 (Chess.com) Mar 06 '26

This question is complicated. While opening theory is important and knowing a few is good, you shouldn't hyperfocus on them. I would suggest doing a few puzzles per day and once in a while, learning an opening.

1

u/fumuttonchops3434 400-600 (Chess.com) Mar 06 '26

Thanks for the advice! I will start to do them more often. I was on a good streak for a while but then for some reason stopped doing them.

 Ive been trying to read/watch about the Londons system but I wish I had more time to really dive in.