what to do after the opening moves (beginner player here)

Hello,

I am new here though not new to chess. I started over ten years ago by getting a teach yourself chess book and a pocket electronic chess game. I started to learn the basics though didn't really learn the openings. I tried to read more about middle/end games but found it a little difficult to follow. I now have Chessmaster, grandmaster edition. I am working through the chessmaster course and understanding things so far. But playing is still a problem. I am looking for "themes", things like outposts for my knights, long diagonals. I usually follow, e4, Knf3, Bc4, d3, 0-0. This is some of what the program explains to do. I get a bishop and knight out, create a pawn chain and castle to protect the king. Sometimes I have problems where black will take something and that will throw me off. Its after this basic development that I start having problems. I think about what I could do. I start looking at squares that are not guarded by pawns to use as an outpost. Most of my games are quick, less than ten minutes. My thinking is that the more I play with some basic tactics I may notice things. I do make a lot of blunders. 

So, themes after openings. What is a good thing to study?

Yes...?

You can work on a pawn break. In an e4 opening you can prepare and try to play d4 (or maybe f4.) In a d4 opening White might get c4 in right away but it would be a big accomplishment to try to play e4 under good conditions. In the opening you're talking about one thing you might try to do is get c3 and d4 in. 

Get a life

Sorry I mean't to include that I am only playing as white. Thanks for your response tmkroll!

I will look into pawn breaks. 

One thing I do is always try to open lines for my pieces so that they are more active. That way I will be able to create play for myself and attack the oponent.

Your opening moves need to consist of the Opening Principles:

1. Control the center.

2. Develop towards the center.

3. Castle.

4. Connect your rooks.

After that, youre in the middlegame.  That is when the real work begins.  

A simple middlegame plan is to look for weak pawns, weak squares on your opponents 5th and 6th (3rd and 4th if they are white) ranks.  Weak squares, weak pawns are pawns or squares that cant be defended by another pawn.  You want to target these squares, and the closer to the center the better.

Cheers! will try that.

I was thinking about joining the site. Does the club have a tactics part for beginners? or would the tactics part be good for a beginner or too complex?

I have seen videos on youtube of a player as he progress' from 1000 to around 2200(ish). Could some one who has just started do this as well or is there a big learning gap in between. 

Thanks for your help everyone!

Simon

Tactics trainer will start at something easy, and depending on how you do, they get either harder, or easier.  Dont base your progress on someones youtube video.  Everyone progresses at a different rate.  Af for your rate of progress, that will depend on many factors: age, ambition, goals, study routine, among other things.  

I was exacly like you ~3+ years ago. I knew rules and basic stuff like checkmates, but All that chess courses i took in chessmaster, did not help much. Sure i learned some ideas like you mentioned, but all that was forgoten just after couple of weeks ir month. Why? It's because too much.  A beginner can't absorb all that information, tactics, theory, patterns, openings, strategic ideas, pawn chains and so on and so on. You just forget everything when you start playing or just hang pieces left and right and all that you know does not matter at all. I played 20 min games and everything was slow, boring, i wasted my time trying to think on position i have no idea what is going on and i still hang pieces. I lack experience, board vision.. everything.

What i did is i trow away all books, all training stuff. I started to play a lot of bullet and blitz. I mean tons of it. I just need that experience. practice. I started to observe how masters playing bullet and blitz with commentary and i started to really learn and impply that on my games. Now you have things like chesstv here, where Q are answered by GM's and everything is explained. But it will take you a lot of time of your free time and months. Later on after thousands of games i improve by just playing and watching tons of videos.. Almost no theory, no books, no tactics just general principles - move once one piece, develops everything, castle and then look for free pieces, trades, go forward. Only then when i knew this and that i started to study tactics and theory. And this is where you start to improve. Good luck and have fun. Now after more than 3 years i look almost like an expert and a master to players of your range.

By the way don't play only with white. I know at beginning is scary and confusing to play with black pieces, all you know as white is not valid, because after 2.Nf3 you have to go Nc6 (best move) and is confusing and more hard, but take it steps by steps. Or try pure defense until you get confortable, play solid like pawns on e6 and c6 etc.

The main thing is to play.  Bullet and blitz is OK but play some long time control chess also.

Your comment about being thrown when your opponent makes a capture makes me think you are being too mechanical.  There is no substitution for calculation.  You must ask yourself what your opponent's moves are aimed at and you must run through checks, captures and threats at each move.  As you play more, and experience builds, doing this becomes easier.

Now let us say you have developed your minor pieces, castled, found a place for the queen off the back rank so that your rooks are connected.  OK the opening is done, so what next?  Well what mostly does NOT happen is that you make a strategic plan which will win you the game.  Unless your opponent has made an error or two a win just does not emerge this early.  Instead you should look for SMALL plans.

Can one (or more) of your pieces be better placed.  That does not mean only outposts or long diagonals.  It does, often, mean "further forward".  Or, with a rook, it tends to mean on a file which is either already open or is one of the files which might soon be open or half open.

Then you can look to see if you have any moves which pose a threat to your opponent. If you see such a move often enough it will get your mind working on specific lines of play and once you are calculating one or more series of moves the blank feeling fades and the middle game has got properly under way.

If you cannot see anybetter square for one of your pieces and there are no checks, captures or threats to fend off you might look for a pawn move that improves your position.  Be careful with this. When looking at a pawn move look at the squares you are weakening.  If an enemy piece invades one of those squares can you evict it?  And be particularly circumspect about moving any pawn close to your king.

Good luck.

Pre Move Checklist

1. Make sure all your pieces are safe.

2. Look for forcing move: Checks, captures, threats. You want to look at ALL forcing moves (even the bad ones) this will force you look at, and see the entire board.

3. If there are no forcing moves, you then want to remove any of your opponent’s pieces from your side of the board.

4. If your opponent doesn’t have any of his pieces on your side of the board, then you want to improve the position of your least active piece. 

When you lose a chess game here use the computer analysis feature after the loss.  Awesome way to start to learn.  It does help.  

You need to think like a military general. You've both set up your kingdoms, now what? Look for weakness to exploit. Make sure your own men are safe. Take ground where you can. Look for his stronger men with a battlefield that is tailored to them (i.e. a black bishop with his pawns on white squares) and try to take him out by trading a weaker piece of yours.

do 15 or more tactics a day and play stansard and blitz and thatll get u 1500

Each opening carries its own set of plans. When you learn an opening you should learn why you're playing the moves you're playing, since either one of two things will happen along the way: (1) Your opponent plays a weak or bad move, whereupon you will quickly recognize *why* it's bad and can take advantage of it, either tactically or positionally. That's where tactics come in, as people mentioned above. (2) Your opponent plays perfectly, whereupon you will know generally what you are trying to do, so it will be easier to decide which are the best moves from the set of limited candidate moves that conform to your plan. Typically larger plans are things like: launch a pawn storm at his king, seize the open c-file, drive away or trade off his kingside defender, etc. Typically smaller plans are things like: outpost a knight at e5, put a rook on the open c-file, gain space on the queen side by an a-pawn advance to a6, etc.

Currently I'm studying the transition from opening to middle game. In book openings this transition occurs maybe 40-50% of the time for White by either advancing a pawn to the 5th rank (usually e5, f5, or d5) or jumping a knight to the 5th rank (usually Ne5). Since this knowledge is very hard to obtain easily, my current method is to immerse myself in databases and draw my own conclusions, but that's a lengthy approach I don't recommend.

I hope that helps. You'll have to specify a particular opening if you want more specific advance, and even in that case many people (including myself) have a hard time answering because that type of knowledge is what masters seem to know and the rest of us don't, and it's not easily found in books, either. 

it depends

My best suggestion would be to play chess after opening part is over. Don't learn tricks etc to win games. Instead play normal chess, and see what ur opponent is doing and analyse each move u make. And don't look at just 1 move your opponent can make, look each possible move and play the move u find best. Ask after each move, "What will this move do for me? And What can my opponent do to tackle it?Same goes for opponents moves.

Moreover play traditional timer games as beginner because in blitz or bullet games, u actually don't think each move and u tend to make a move just for purpose of making moves. Beginners should avoid fast timer games. Play 20 min or 30 mins, that will improve ur game, I am sure. 

Beginner here too. I am not sure if my advice will help. What I did is play white.. examined the game.. identifying which moves black played and tried to play the most ennoying moves with black the next games. Once I understand why I lose with black with these moves I improve my white play a little bit more. Maybe the good players here can give an advice about this way of teaching oneself chess openings ideas?