there is a single thing in Chast that's more important for your progress than anything else that's the main reason for people to lose games on the level below 1600 and that is blunders so today I'll give you some simple practical tips to reduce the level of blunders in your games and to take advantage of your opponent plunders for example in this position why played pa E6 and what would you play if you were black uh by the way just to show you some real stuff I'm a grandm I've been coaching for the last 15 years in through the remote chess Academy we now have coached thousands of students so I'll tell you some practical observations and many of them lie into rather pychology not even chess that actually help you to stop laundering so I'm pretty sure that if you get just one of these ideas and implement it that's going to immediately raise your rating for a few hundred rating points in no time anyway so the first rule is instant moves leads to instant losses such as in this case when black sees that move happening attacking different things is natural to wish to just grab this move because that's the first move that comes to mind but after that white goes Queen H5 and all of a sudden it turns out that black is losing the game they can temporarily cover that but after that white can sack the queen or the bishop and finish the game in style with this Checkmate now let's return back to the position before the blunder so what I suggest you to do is to calculate things one move ahead just one there is this fallacy that in order to be a strong chess player you need to calculate and visualize for 20 moves ahead and you need to lock yourself into a cage and train that for the next 50 years of your life it's not like that it's a lot easier just being aware of your next move the next move of your opponent is enough and how do you do that you ask yourself this question can my opponent move forward to my half of the board to my territory and attack me somehow because here's the deal your territory the last four ranks is what you care about this is where your pieces are this is where your king is and that is when you want to make sure that your opponent cannot barge into that territory and cause some damage therefore any moves of your opponent that cannot possibly attack something on your half of the board we just don't care about that and the beauty of that thinking is that many of your oppland species in fact most of them cannot even get to this surgery at all for instance the white king cannot move to the black treer we don't care about it so is the Knight so are the Rooks so are all these Pawns in fact all the Pawns of white you see that the vast majority of the white pieces even theoretically cannot get to your half of the board and that's why we don't think about them at all we only care about pieces that can possibly move to your territory and cause some damage for instance this bishop it can move forward but there is nothing along this diagonal and therefore it cannot cause any damage so we also don't have to worry about this and the only two pieces which we need to think about quickly are the speci which could go forward and the queen therefore you quickly check can this bishop go somewhere here and attack me and you realize that no not your Pawn on H7 is already guarded so Bishop takes H7 is not possible things are okay can this queen go forward and attack you yes it can is Queen H5 so that is the one move check that I'm talking about you don't have to think about all the moves of your opponent only those which bring their piece into your half of the board and attack or capture something usually there's just one or two such moves and you notice them relatively easily after you trained this right way of thinking but I also want to give you a couple extra advice also just more practical stuff one of them if we take it one move back there is a more like practical thing it's not even about specifically chess but just more of a practical advice do not accept Gambit pawns if you're not familiar with the opening Theory I learned this R from karpov who was the World Champ and he followed this Rule brilliantly and he was one of the very consistent players who lost very few games during his prime so if you're not familiar with the opening Theory just deny Gambit pawns simply continue your development prioritize development and you'll be good to go therefore I'd say Do not even take this Pawn even if you're not sure what's going to happen after that or if you made that thing you can just return the Knight back to good squares and as long as you keep your pieces to good squares Your Position will be fine with that being said there is also one more General tip which is quite a prudent thing if we take things back a couple moves before for this whole thing will realize that at this point black played Knight of6 letting the white Pawn to move forward and later this Pawn became in trouble that black had to deal with and it makes sense because as we already know whenever there is a poent piece or a Pawn on your half of the board this one starts causing troubles and therefore it's not a coincidence that these port on E5 exactly the one causing issues so the rule says I call it a zero tolerance policy try to avoid any opponent piece or p on your territory and as long as you do that usually you just prevent any possible dangers prior to the point where they could even become a real danger so taking this back I'd say just not let them push the spawn forward you can just take it and after you do this and let's say you now play Knight of six there are no pieces of white on your territory and it is much harder for white to come up with any attacking ideas and that is a really great rule to follow here's the next example it was black to play and black play Rook E8 what would you play here if you were white you may think about this for a couple seconds and then we'll talk about this together by the way for those who are following the channel you may notice that the position arises from the Dutch defense one of the nice openings for black to play anyway back to this example you may ask yourself this question which is really helpful what is the idea of my opponent so why did he play the move Rook to E8 probably the only reason to justify this move would be trying to push this Pawn forward so that the Rook supports that that advancement that's probably the only reason why black could have played the move there and as soon as you notice that that he can go forward and expand there and start attacking different things maybe going forward that feels unpleasant and that gives you an idea about what your opponent is going to do therefore you can do something against it in the game however white missed this and he just played H3 allowing black to play E5 now after the trade the bishop has to move white retreated to H2 and after E4 that was a double attack black wins a piece and get to winning position now I also want to stop here and bring up another thing which I think is probably even more important than anything else that I would say today because I'm giving you a couple of tips and I certainly did not expect you to remember and to follow them all that would be ridiculous like you don't need a long Le like long checklist and try to follow that like this not practically can't do that but even if you just take away one idea from this whole video and actually start implementing the one that resonates with you is going to make a big difference and here's what I've noticed about these positions quick often people got upset psychologically about their blunders and as soon as they realize that they blunder they just kind of mentally resign they lose interest to this game they start playing next moves like carelessly already expecting to lose it and that is a totally wrong approach cuz think about this on the level below 1600 there are blunders in every game like with rare exceptions but in pretty much every game that is played there are blunders usually multiple blunders from both sides therefore it is totally normal and only expect that blunders will occur in your games I'd be very surprised if there are no blunders now below, 1600 blunders in every game below 2,000 people do blunder but more occasionally and even you know beyond that point people still blunder even Grand Masters and the world Champs they also blunder they just do it infrequently right so there's nothing really special about that and you certainly need to keep fighting moreover let's not forget that your opponent is going to blunder just as well and within the same game he or she may as well make a number of blunders which could easily turn the stration around so certainly there is no reason to give up at this point and you just need to keep fighting how do you do that more specifically well you've probably heard about the idea that when you're up material you want to simplify so that it's easier for you to win without any complications therefore when you're down materal you want to follow the opposite advice complicate complicate matters attack make it harder for your opponent to be to so let's take back let's say white realize that they blunder this thing they realize oh my Bishop is attacked and after he goes they go E4 with this double attack and they win so what do you want to do at this point you want to go forward you want to Counterattack you want to complicate matters so instead of retreating back to H2 kind of defensively you want to attack you want to bring the bshop forward let's at least P this Knight after he goes E4 you ask yourself the same question okay I'm going to lose something but can I move forward can I Counterattack and it get something and you start thinking maybe I can go Knight D4 and at least grab this Pawn on five what about that is there anything else can I somehow move forward maybe I can take here at least get a pawn for my Bishop is there any other idea can I go forward complicated matters attack so there is also a move C5 we know that if want to attack want to move to our opponent's half the board and now see okay if he takes one of my pieces I'm going to play C6 and do the same thing to him and double attack his minor pieces pretty interesting and if he captures right here on C5 then I've got this new move Bishop C 4 because this square is now vacant the king will have to move and now I have time to move my knight away Knight D4 counter this Pawn our Bishop is active this bishop is also active and we're only down a pawn and we have some compensation so all of a sudden you could turn the sitation around and whether your opponent will be able to like calculate all these variations and to find the right move or not that's a big question most cases they won therefore this idea of not resigning mentally but keep looking for ways to complicate to attack and to not give up can be really a big change in your game this is the other example it is black to play once again you may think about this for a couple how would you play here if you were black and I'd like to mention a few other like really practical things which people usually do not address while talking about blunders but I think again they're more important probably than any standard tips now in this position the most played move by black is Knight to E7 which actually is a big blunder after that black failed to do that one move check asking themselves can my opponent move forward and attack something in my position move forward to your half of the board if blackwat ask themselves that question they'll realize that like potentially there are only these two moves white can jump forward and attack something that I would say black needs to consider because they would attack something and one of them Knight G5 indeed makes it very unpleasant because it opens up like for quite a lot of threats here the Knight is going to come here with other double attacks and black is indeed going down straight away like they can move the pawn but after Knight f s anyway they'd be losing some materal so that is a blunder however I would actually argue that yeah I mean if black would to do that one move check that would secure them from this blunder however black could secure themselves from this blunder just by raising their position understanding because in this position black should have played Knight F6 regardless of whether Knight E7 is a blunder or not just because positional chest teaches us the principle of Maximum activity that you need to put your pieces to most forward available squares they're most active there and therefore you should develop your knight to F6 think about this interesting thing Magnus Carlson is not the greatest tactical player out there now I'm saying this of course with due respect to him but if his positional chance is 10 out of 10 his endgame skills are 11 out of 10 so his tactics might be eight out of 10 which is still good but it's actually inferior to many top GMS so think about this in that component Carson could be inferior if you looked at different situations where Carlson was offered to solve a tactical puzzle and the same puzzle was offered to other GMS quite often other GMS are actually doing better but when it comes to actual chess guess what Carson very rarely blunders and he beats them how come because his positional understanding tells him in such positions that the Knight should go to F6 not to E7 and therefore even if he does not calculate all these variations as well as his opponents he would still play the right move because his positional understanding is superior and that automatically secures you from blunders CU if you move the ey right here gas what a knight is more active it controls more squares therefore automatically we take away the opportunity from white to jump forward with their Knight to H5 and attack black that way also if white goes Knight G5 then you can Castle but un like having the Knight on E7 the Knight controls these two squares making it impossible for white to follow up and to play something like Queen H5 you know and keep attacking with this Knight on F6 black secured themselves again even if they miss this Knight G5 move initially their position would still be good so I'd say that the more you increase your positional understanding the fewer blunders you will make regardless of the fact of whether you know he still strong moves or not and if you want to increase your positional understanding I'd recommend that you check out my free master class I'll drop a link below this video in the description where I teach you all these fundamental principles that you need to know to play positionally well all right now let's have a quick task for you in this position it is black to move how would you play here if you're black the most played move by black is Bishop B4 so please think about this and let me know in comments down below if that's a good move for black or not and let me also address the other thing which again is not about Chess really rather about psychology but again I think is even more important I call it the casino effect now when you play a lot of bleed games in a row you want to end the serus on a win but sometimes you realize that you're on a downward trend you start blundering pieces more often than usual you lose in time sometimes so you somehow get forgot about that and then people often wish to keep playing just trying to get that Revenge trying to like get their rating back trying to end the Ser as on a win but that usually leads to a long losing streak and you just can drop a few hundred rating points in one go and I call the casino effect because it kind of reminds me like someone is playing that slot machine in a casino he keeps pulling the lever hoping for a big win next time sure enough just to lose everything therefore it's more prudent to cool down and just to put chest down for a second and then come back tomorrow when you're refreshed you're not tired or you can even reflect of why things went not your way yesterday maybe you blundered too much maybe you just need to implement one of the ideas from this video and you tell to yourself okay today when I play games after my opponent plays his moves I'm going to remind myself that I need to ask what's his idea and that me will allow me to you know make fewer blunders and tomorrow your results can be just much better and you avoid that downward Trend which you had yesterday all righty we've already covered a lot of interesting tips I don't want to overload you but still give you a few other frames of thinking to reduce blunders and once again I don't mean to say that you need to like think about all of them just pick the one that resonates with you the most all right now in this position uh over a million players played here Knight to G5 just missing up the fact that this is not the two Knights game and in this case this sort of right liver attack does not work just because black can play Queen takes G5 and they're just winning a KN and getting a winning position so how do you secure yourself from those kind of things like one of the questions to ask yourself is am I moving a piece to a safe Square very straightforward so if you're going to play Knight to G5 ask yourself that question am I moving a piece to a safe Square fundamentally it's actually the same one move check which we talked about previously you ask yourself after I play my move can my opponent go forward and take or attack something but anyway we're just getting even more tactical because if you do that one move check you will still realize that not many of your opponent's players can move forward and cause damage maybe this bishop takes F2 or queen takes G5 and you can quickly notice that Bishop takes F2 doesn't do that much you just recapture with your king but Queen takes G5 wins the Knight so that's one thing which is simple but anyway being even more specific you can ask yourself am I moving a piece to a safe Square can it be captured and here is a more advanced version of the same thing it is black to move and in such positions many players are going to play Pon E4 just because they notied that this is a double attack to the bishop and the Knight they got excited and that is a very dangerous moment very often I've noticed that when people get excited about delivering a fork to opponent's king and queen they just play this move out only to realize that like it was a fork but that square was defended so it was actually your blunder and in this position after you play E4 that's another idea about count counting attackers versus Defenders you've probably heard about this idea before but just in case I'll mention this so if there are several pieces controlling the same square then we need to compare the quantity of attackers and defenders in this case white has two pieces bishop and a knight which attacks the E4 Square two and black has only one Defender therefore two is greater than one which means that white is going to win as a result of this exchange and E4 is not going to win anything it's going to be a blunder White's got two attackers versus one Defenders and white will end up winning matal and here is the final question that you may ask yourself here black went for this Owens defense pretty good opening by the way Bishop B4 pins the Knight and therefore attacks this Pawn on e4 white guards it Knight F6 attacks this Pawn once again and white goes E5 now a lot of players in such positions would follow the first mistake we've been talking about in this video instant moves they'll notice that the Knight is attacked and they would move it to D5 now we know that we should avoid instant moves and another question which I love asking myself after my opponent has played a move is what has changed just to comprehend what's going on with the game overall so when your opponent has just played a move Pawn E5 even if you think you're going to play Knight D5 you can pause for a second and ask yourself what has changed now obviously this Pawn is now more advanced and it is attacking your knight you're going to need to do something about that okay is there anything else well we notice that by moving the pawn forward that actually opens up this diagonal making it possible for you to grab the PA as well as the rook and that would just win matural and that's the best thing for black to play so E5 turns out to be a blunder and black can play Bop G2 grabbing The Rook on the next move and yes you're going to lose the Knight right here but you are going to win uh a couple of Pawns and The Rook therefore you'll be up matural and you'll win however I would say that even if let's say that blunder was not in place if let's say Bishop takes G2 was not possible for whatever reason still noticing that this diagonal is now open and you can capitalize on it is also an interesting fact just to be aware of for example you may realize that besides this move Knight to D5 you can actually go forward with kn4 and that is also move worth considering it's even a more advanced move which controls greater quantity of squares into your opponent's position and this Knight is actually pinned so it can capture a knight it is rather the opposite you're attacking the Knight but from here you're also controlling all these squares so 94 could be even stronger so therefore asking yourself this question what has changed can help you to understand positions better and to find better moves and some new opportunities that you would have missed otherwise please let me know in comments below which advice resonated with you the most and which one you going to incorporate in your games and I'll be curious to follow up also uh if you want to improve your positional understanding overall head to my free Master Class by clicking the link below in the description or up there and there you'll find those few little ideas that are going to be making a big difference finally if you missed out on my video about the single Fishers rule that can double your chest results check out the video right here