I have moved from 100 to 250 consistently, and I have seen other people complaining that they can't make this increase, so I want to share what worked for me.

  1. Follow normal common-sense ideas about development. Get your pieces out, try to control the center, castle early, don't move a piece more than once if you can help it, etc.
  2. Make sure that you are always moving your pieces to protected squares.
  3. While your opponent is thinking, use their time to scan the board. Look at every single piece and ask yourself, is this piece protected or unprotected? Look at their pieces and yours. If you find that a piece of yours is unprotected/hanging, make a plan to get it to a protected square as soon as possible. If one of their pieces is unprotected/hanging, see if you can get to it. If you can, grab it, and if you can't, make a note of it. On every single one of your opponents' turns, take an inventory of every single piece if you can--theirs and yours.
  4. If you follow these steps, you will eventually reach a point where you don't know what to do or how to move forward because you seemingly can't take any action at all without moving to an unprotected square. In those moments, here's what you do: just add pressure to the center.

Here's how to add pressure to the center (as a 250 level player). Look at the pawns (or pieces, if pieces) already in the center. Probably the center pawns are already attacked and defended by multiple pieces, just as a result of normal development. Try to add more attacks to your opponents' center pawns, or defenses to your own pawns (or obviously any other pieces in the center). Especially look to see where your opponent has applied pressure successfully to your own pawns/position. If they have three pieces attacking one of your center pawns, and you only have two pieces defending, see if you could move a piece so that you are responding to their pressure and so that you could potentially win a trade. Eventually a trade war is likely going to break out in the center of the board, and you want to come out even or ahead.

5) It is ok to move to an unprotected square in order to capture a piece that your opponent has blundered/left hanging, but at that point you should move back to safety very quickly.

The most important thing is just to be using your time to scanning the board and taking an inventory of every single piece, theirs and yours.

I know that chess teachers teach even beginners to keep a mental checklist of "attacks, captures, checks," but I think that, when you are a raw beginner, you can change that checklist to "attacks, attacks, attacks."

You would not win against a good player playing this way, but in my experience you can get solidly out of the 100s.

submitted by /u/Formal_Broccoli_6610
[link] [comments]