The Complete Guide to Chess Strategies
What you'll learn
- Ability to use strategies and styles of past world chess champions.
- Ability to assess circumstances such as time control and opponent and use those details to influence strategies used.
- Ability to see how important it is for strategy to evolve according to changing circumstances on the board.
- Ability to balance exploiting opponent's weaknesses with improving one's own position and countering opponent's threats.
- Ability to apply prophylactic thinking to anticipate and counter opponents' plans and threats.
- Ability to recognize and utilize imbalances in piece activity, coordination, and space control.
- Ability to have effective strategies against much stronger or much weaker opponents.
- Ability to have effective strategies against stronger tactical players or stronger positional players.
- Ability to use strategies that emphasize your strengths and weaknesses and the opponent's strengths and weaknesses.
- Ability to effectively transition between opening, middlegame, and endgame phases while maintaining a cohesive strategy.
- Ability to use strategies based on pawn structure.
- Ability to understand and exploit specific piece imbalances, such as an unopposed bishop or a superior knight.
- Ability to identify and capitalize on tactical downsides in the opponent's position.
- Ability to adapt to various pawn structures, including isolated queen's pawns, backward pawns, and hanging pawns.
- Ability to navigate and exploit various center patterns to control the board.
- Ability to learn from classic games and understand the instructive value of analyzing them.
- Ability to apply principles from different eras of chess strategy, such as the Romantic, Scientific, and Hypermodern eras.
- Ability to utilize and maintain the bishop pair advantage and understand its strategic implications.
- Ability to recognize and create passed pawns or thorn pawns and understand their strategic value.
- Ability to identify and make use of positional pawn sacrifices for long-term strategic gains.
- Ability to exploit weak pawn structures, such as doubled pawns or isolated pawns.
- Ability to implement tempo strategy patterns to maximize piece efficiency.
- Ability to use strategies that focus on controlling key squares and minimizing counterplay.
- Ability to recognize and exploit weaknesses in the opponent's king safety.
- Ability to understand and apply concepts of piece coordination and harmony.
- Ability to master attacking strategy patterns, including breakthroughs, sacrifices, and undermining opponent's defenses.
- Ability to make use of space advantages in various positions.
- Ability to understand and apply endgame patterns for strategic advantage.
- Ability to harmonize pieces and pawns for optimal coordination and interaction.
- Ability to identify key patterns in pawn breaks and exploit them effectively.
- Ability to make use of the concept of "exploitability" and "useful exceptions" in your game.
- Ability to understand the evolution of chess strategies throughout history.
- Ability to adapt to the influence of neural networks on chess strategy.
- Ability to recognize the significance of pawn weaknesses and make opponent's pieces passive.
- Ability to identify patterns in piece imbalances, such as a bishop without a counterpart.
- Ability to learn from influential chess strategy writers and their contributions.
- Ability to analyze and understand the playing styles of uncrowned kings and world chess champions.
- Ability to gain a competitive advantage through a deeper understanding of strategic chess.
- Ability to incorporate the strategies of key players like Akiba Rubinstein and Vladimir Kramnik.
- Ability to appreciate the importance of being well-rounded in knowing various chess strategies.
Requirements
- Knows how the chess pieces move
Description
Dive into the fascinating world of chess strategies with this comprehensive course designed for players seeking to elevate their understanding and mastery of the game. Our extensive curriculum covers a wide range of strategic patterns, concepts, and historical developments in chess, providing you with an in-depth understanding of what it takes to excel on the chessboard.
The course is divided into multiple sections, each focusing on specific aspects of chess strategies. Beginning with an introduction to chess strategy, we explore the differences between chess strategy and tactics, the evolution of chess strategies throughout history, and the contributions of influential chess players and thinkers.
As we delve deeper into the course, you'll learn about various structural patterns, including pawn weaknesses, isolated queen's pawns, and backward pawns. We'll also discuss control patterns, center patterns, tempo strategy patterns, and the importance of piece coordination, activity, and imbalances.
With a strong focus on understanding different strategic elements, the course covers positional pawn sacrifices, attacking patterns, bishop pair strategies, passed pawn patterns, and thorn pawn strategies, among others. To provide a well-rounded learning experience, we also examine space patterns, endgame patterns, and the tactical downsides of certain positions.
By studying the games of legendary players such as Akiba Rubinstein and Vladimir Kramnik, you'll gain valuable insights into their strategic thinking and learn how to apply these principles to your own games. Through our carefully curated lectures and examples, you'll develop a deeper appreciation for the intricacies of chess strategies and learn how to effectively employ them in your own games.
Embark on a journey to strategic mastery with our Mastering Chess Strategies course and unlock your true potential as a formidable chess player.
Who this course is for:
- Beginner to intermediate players
Instructor
- 4.6 Instructor Rating
- 2,760 Reviews
- 13,787 Students
- 33 Courses
Tryfon Gavriel, also known as "Kingscrusher" on the Internet. I am a FIDE Candidate Master (CM), and British Regional Chess Master, and run a popular Youtube channel for many years with over 114k+ Subs as of 2021 and a Silver Button Award.
I have done many shows on commercial chess servers. I am also the Webmaster of the correspondence-style chess server Chessworld which emphasizes game quality and research.
Playing experience
Over 35 years of playing activity both online and offline. Peak ICC blitz rating of 2625 (18-Jun-1999). Peak ICC 5 min auto-pairing of 2383 (29-Jun 2012). ECF Grading peak classical: 212 (A) ECF. Peak Rapid rating: 217 (C).
Lichess marathon top 10 finishers in 4 marathons so far. Top 50 finisher in 8 marathons so far. Top 100 finisher in 4 marathons so far. And top 500 in 2 marathons so far. Won quite a few tournaments at lichess - in fact giving me 3rd rank overall behind Lance5500 and papasi in a recent detailed statistical blog analysis titled "Lichess Marathon Statistics".
One of my earliest Over-the-board achievements in Chess was winning the Lloyds Under 18 national UK tournament in 1989. My trophy was awarded to me by Grandmaster and Ph.D. Mathematician Dr John Nunn.
Teaching experience
I have done teaching in Schools and also have done teaching online with several Lichess students on a regular basis, and have a very good coaching rating at lichess.
Other experiences
Played twice in the main British Chess championship. Many of my Youtube viewers claim big rating increases after watching my videos.
Best skills
I particularly love attacking chess, chess tactics, and combinations, and it is probably no accident that my "Complete Guide to Chess Tactics" has been a best-seller shortly after its release here at Udemy.
In general, I will try and give you greater enthusiasm for the game and in particular the dynamic attacking, aggressive tactical aspects of playing chess. My favorite heroes are mainly Attacking style tactical players: Paul Morphy, Alexander Alekhine, Mikhail Tal, Bobby Fischer, and Garry Kasparov. if you want to be a dynamic aggressive attacking style player, I may be able to encourage you and find you relevant resources on that path. The dynamic aggressive attacking players were particularly strong tactically and would often trade off pawn structure neatness and material to try and checkmate the opponent's kings. Checkmate does win the game :) They were masters of finishing combinations naturally as they sought to reduce the king's safety of the opponent in various ways including bringing the King out for often beautiful mating combinations.
Chess Openings
In terms of concrete openings to make use of potentially teaching here at Udemy through courses. I like King-Attacking aggressive openings even with the black pieces like the King's Indian Defence to 1.d4 which my heroes Fischer, Kasparov, and Tal made use of extensively.
As White, I sometimes like Solid openings on such as the London System. I also like provocative openings like the Knight's Tango systems to encourage weaknesses from opponents.
I am also at faster time controls especially, particularly fond of aggressive openings and gambits. For example, the Smith-Morra Gambit vs the Sicilian Defence, and other gambits can be used aggressively even with the black pieces such as the Albin Counter Gambit. Gambits vary of course in soundness and it is important to teach what "ticks many boxes" for use in various time controls. Also, I like surprising opponents with openings such as the Nimzo-Larsen attack, the King's Indian Attack, The London System, and Queen's Knight attack system 1. Nc3, all of which I have courses for here at Udemy.
In the search for the ideal courses to provide you, I like to search within myself for my core strengths and passions within the passion of Chess.
I truly hope you enjoy my courses and they improve your chess and your enjoyment of chess generally - and life generally :)