Games have eased people’s lives from ancient time. Some prefer games based on pure luck, like online slots, while others can’t live without putting their mind to work. The first category will take advantage of this William Hill promotional code 2018 while the latter will be more comfortable playing games like chess. It’s these people for whom we wrote this article. Let’s find out what you can do to improve your chess skills.

Play against real people

This is the simplest and most obvious piece of advice any great chess player will give you. There’s nothing that can beat first-hand experience. In the past, it was quite difficult to find people to play against because you were limited to face to face contact but in this world, this is not a problem anymore. There are hundreds, if not thousands of websites where one can play chess against real people. It’s true, you won’t touch a physical chess board, but the game is the same.

The best thing is that you can find people of all skill levels, thus allowing you to play against those who are similar or a bit better than you. There’s no point in playing against the same person every time because you will start learning his style and it will become easier to beat him even though that doesn’t necessarily mean you got better at chess in general. It’s quite probable that you just figured out how to be better than a specific person.

Beat the computer

Once again, playing against the computer allows you to structure your training on different levels. There are programs that beat the best grandmasters in a few moves, so in this regard, we’ll probably never be better than a piece of software. On the other hand, this is not the same as playing against real people because computers lack creativity and they don’t make mistakes.

Computers have an algorithm that based on the level of the game allows certain bad moves or not. This practice is necessary to develop your logical tactical part of the game but it’s not enough for real-life competitions. It’s like a runner would only train on a treadmill but having to race on asphalt. The settings are different and the runner will discover he obtains different results.

Do lots of chess puzzles

Chess puzzles present a specific arrangement where you have to find the best possible move. Most likely, they present endgame situations where you have to move a single piece to get the best possible outcome, be it a checkmate or the removal of an enemy piece.

These are real situations you can encounter during a game, which is why it’s important to develop an ability to recognize the patterns and solve them in the best possible way. Otherwise, you will pass on an opportunity to win.

Still, in the end, the main point is to teach you how to think for yourself, how to look for a solution to a given problem. The purpose is not to strain your mind memorizing all sorts of moves and patterns.  

To sum up, there are great offline and online ways to become a better player, the best one being practicing a lot against real people. Chess puzzles teach you how to think while computer software test your algorithmic thinking.