Improve Your Rating- Week of 5/25/09
Submitted by
on Sun, 05/31/2009 at 3:04pm.
Hello, and glad you're reading this week's edition of Improve Your Rating, a weekly article series designed to help lower-rated players improve. (Although skilled players are free to read as well!)
This week's topic is about patience in chess. Patience is chess is usually defined by knowing when to attack and defend, or when to play calm and positionally, instead of crazily attacking hoping your opponent blunders.
Here is an example from one of my games where I tried to attack when defense was mandatory.
Patience can be a huge asset when you have a winning advantage, but you still need to play accurately to win. Here is an example of mine from a very recent win. Because of soild middlegame play, I was up a rook, but my king had very little breathing room and my pieces were somewhat scattered. Instead of trying a crazy tactic in hopes of a blunder, I quietly increased my edge, then went in for the kill.
I hope you enjoyed this week's discussion of patience in chess, and learned something from it. If you are not already a memebr of the group Free Chess Help, I encourage you to join to get access to other free resources to improve your game.
http://www.chess.com/groups/home/free-chess-help
Have a great week!
-Wicksta85