Chess Zendō

Category: Essays

  • The best ways to review your games

    Are you looking for a way to send me your PGN files for a game review? Contact me and send up to 3 PGN files. Please note priority goes to my chess students, and you can sign up at any time or get a free 20-minute introductory lesson.

    Improving at chess involves much more than just playing more games. Improvement comes from learning from the games you’ve already played, especially the games that you’ve lost.

    “You may learn much more from a game you lose than from a game you win.”

    — José Raúl Capablanca

    There are a number of ways I recommend for reviewing your games that lead to quick growth and improvement in your chess games, and there’s a popular one that I don’t recommend and think can hurt your game.

    Chess.com Game Review

    Let’s start with the way that I don’t recommend: Chess.com’s popular Game Review tool.

    Although Chess.com quickly shows some fun stats, highlights good moves, and has a friendly “chess coach” bot that explains things, the simplified bot occasionally offers misleading suggestions and tries to provide insights that are just plain wrong. There are a few issues: the bot uses oversimplified language, and it doesn’t always recognize tactics such as a winning sacrifice as a good move.

    I hope that Chess.com updates Game Review in the future and makes it more helpful, but right now I can’t recommend it — I believe it gives bad advice and can even make your chess worse. Grandmaster Noël Studer gives a few examples of this, and as a bonus GM Studer also describes what he calls his “3×3 method” of studying games, which is similar to the one I give below.

    If you’re still set on using Chess.com Game Review, however, you can try adjusting your settings to make it a little more effective. Under the main Settings, go to Analysis and increase the Engine Max Time (iOS-only for now) and turn on the arrows to better visualize threats and opportunities.

    Just be ready to pay to play: Chess.com gives just one Game Review per day on the free tier and even on the paid Gold tier.

    Lichess Analysis Board

    The online tool that I recommend most is the Lichess Analysis Board. I use Lichess for coaching my students online, and I highly recommend it for both casual and serious play. Lichess is free (no ads, too!) and has an excellent analysis board. Here’s how to use it.

    If you have an account:

    • Go to your profile and select “Games” to open a past game.
    • Select “Analysis” or the microscope icon. Analysis begins, and you can see inaccuracies, mistakes, and blunders.
    • You can also add notes directly on the board to better track your progress.

    If you don’t have an account:

    • Go to the Analysis Board in any web browser.
    • Paste in the PGN text of a game.
    • There is no step 3!

    To get the PGN text of your game from Chess.com, open the game, select the microscope icon, then hit share, and copy.

    For iPhone and iPad users, fellow chess nerd “Permanent_Solution” has shared an Apple Shortcut on Reddit that makes importing games into Lichess easier, and you can download it to make getting games into Lichess a lot faster.

    Did I mention Lichess is free? It also has no ads or trackers. Lichess is a nonprofit charity whose mission is to help people play and enjoy the game that we love and respect the privacy and digital rights of its users.

    Self-analysis

    Analyzing games on your own is helpful, but it can take time — so it’s important to pick the most important moments in your games to review.

    Focus on positions where you felt uncertain or where you made a mistake. Zero in on the critical turning points, and you can find insights without wasting time or getting overwhelmed by reviewing every single move.

    At those key moments in the game, you can ask yourself:

    1. Why did I make that move? There might be a good idea here, but what was it?
    2. What could I have done instead?
    3. What is my opponent trying to do? What ideas are they thinking of?

    The key word here is ideas. When considering your moves, come up with ideas based on where your pieces are, where you want them to be, and how to get them there. This process is called inverted thinking: once you’ve figured out an idea and a goal, mentally work backwards from the goal, and then steadily move your pieces to get there.

    It might be that you entered a rapid sequence of captures that seemed right at first but were just in the wrong order. Maybe there was a missed opportunity in the sequence to add a pin or attack on one of your opponents pieces. There’s even a word for this type of intermediate move: intermezzo (or zwischenzug in German).

    Work with a chess coach

    A good chess coach can help spot patterns you might miss, explain positional ideas, and give advice customized to your playstyle. This human approach is more personal and can accelerate your growth and improvement far more than the online tools I’ve mentioned.

    One of the techniques I use with my students is asking, “If you could magically move one of your pieces to anywhere on the board, where would it go?” This can be done in the middle of the game or later during game review, and it helps jumpstart inverted thinking by visualizing where a piece can be most effective and logically figuring out the right sequence of moves.

    Honorable mention: Bring your games to your local chess club

    If you have a chess club near you, consider attending and sharing your games with fellow club members. At the McMinnville Chess Club, our regulars thoroughly enjoy reviewing games together — and here’s where a human approach is better than online tools and chess engines — you can hear different viewpoints, build camaraderie, and make new friends.

    If you’d like to schedule a free 20-minute introductory lesson and go over a game or two, you can always find me at the McMinnville Chess Club. This dedicated one-on-one time will help us get to know each other, play some chess, and be able to hit the ground running if you’d like to schedule a single lesson or get a punch pass.

  • How chess teaches the skills for a successful life

    This essay is based on a presentation I gave in February, 2024 at McMinnville Kiwanis, a nonprofit that’s dedicated to improving the lives of children everywhere, and it’s re-presented here to help share some of the benefits and values that chess provides.

    I believe in the values of learning, playing, and improving in chess — and in the power that chess has to develop the skills for a successful life.

    Having been both a teacher and a life-long chess player, I was delighted to realize later in my life how many life skills chess has taught me, and these are the skills I teach my students.

    • Teaches players etiquette and how to win and lose
    • Can help develop focus
    • An educational tool
    • Helps players realize the consequences of their actions
    • Develops creativity and creative thinking
    • Builds confidence
    • Develops problem-solving skills
    • Helps players remain calm under pressure
    • Exercises the brain and benefits the body
    • Brings people together

    Chess teaches players etiquette and how to win and lose

    Chess teaches good sportsmanship and the virtues of both winning and losing, from shaking hands at the start of a game to gracefully accepting the outcome.

    The sense of excitement and achievement from winning makes learning fun, while losing can provide valuable lessons in the importance of learning from mistakes, humility, and resilience (my favorite).

    Chess can help develop focus

    Chess is a game that requires intense focus and concentration. Players need to analyze the board, make a plan, anticipate their opponent’s moves, and adapt accordingly in order to come up with a winning strategy.

    Maintaining this kind of focus for extended periods of time translates to the ability to concentrate both over-the-board and in everyday life.

    Chess is an educational tool

    Chess can be a valuable addition to any curriculum, and scholastic chess (chess programs for school-aged children) give students fun and challenging opportunities to become better learners and problem-solvers.

    There’s an enormous wealth of books, magazines, and videos on chess, and there’s always the chance to learn something new. With the right guidance and resources, players can enjoy and learn immensely not even realize that they are learning and improving.

    Chess helps players realize the consequences of their actions

    Chess requires players to think several moves ahead and consider how each decision impacts the overall game. Each and every move can lead to a cascade of outcomes, teaching players the importance of foresight and strategic planning. This awareness not only informs their gameplay but also translates into real life situations where it’s important to make decisions carefully.

    Chess develops creativity and creative thinking

    Chess encourages players to think about their thinking, which helps develop an awareness and regulation of one’s cognitive processes. This process, or metacognition, has untold benefits not only in chess but also in creative thinking in the real world away from the board.

    Successful chess players practice reflective thinking and can assess their own thought processes, and this helps creativity and brilliance emerge. An example of this “thinking about thinking” that can lead to insights and innovation is when a player “sees the board,” identifies patterns, and draws connections between them.

    Chess builds confidence

    As players improve their skills and experience more victories and camaraderie, they gain a sense of accomplishment and self-identity that reinforces their confidence and self-esteem. Facing challenging situations head on and overcoming setbacks promotes resilience (my favorite), and this boosts confidence even further — both in chess and in everyday life.

    Over the years, I’ve seen countless players become more confident and comfortable in themselves as they’ve developed not just their skills and familiarity with the game, but also a healthy sense of self-identity. The mental switch from thinking, “I can play chess” to “I am a chess player” is a powerful one, and it’s a joy for me to see every time.

    Develops problem-solving skills

    Chess teaches many mental models and problem-solving skills, including critical thinking, strategic planning, pattern recognition, adaptability, decision-making, creativity and ingenuity, and (my favorite) resilience and emotional regulation.

    A important life skill learned through chess that’s especially helpful is inverted thinking. Instead of asking, Why can’t I get what I want?” in a game, we can ask “What’s stopping me from getting what I want?” and thinking backwards from the desired solution and finding the right sequence of moves.

    Chess helps players remain calm under pressure

    Chess creates a high-stakes environment where critical decisions must be made during every game, and often under time constraints.

    Players practice managing their emotions and maintaining their focus, and each and each and every game is an opportunity for both deep concentration and clear thought, even when situations become tense. Over time, this type of repeatable experience translates into real life scenarios, enabling individuals to handle stress and pressure with greater confidence and composure.

    Chess exercises the brain and benefits the body

    Positive mental stress (eustress) can contribute to a motivation to improve, such as climbing the chess ladder with a nationally-recognized rating or beating a beloved family member.

    It’s not just the brain, however, Chess can also be a good way to burn calories through the positive physical stress of the game. It’s been reported in several studies that playing chess can burn the same amount of calories as other sports such as tennis and running.

    NPR reported in 2019 that due to accelerated heart rates that over the course of a 10-day tournament, high level players lose 10-12 pounds on average.

    Chess brings people together

    Chess is a platform for friendly competition, social interaction, and collaboration, and it encourage bonding, sharing experiences, and celebrating each other’s successes regardless of differences in age, sex, and even culture and language.

    This social aspect helps players cultivate an identity as part of a community and a sense of belonging, and many players join clubs, participate in tournaments, and find other ways to connect with others who share their passion.

    Before starting Chess Zendō, I founded the McMinnville Chess Club in 2023, and our local chess club has continually created opportunities for players to meet, make new friends, and learn from one another. If you’re in the Portland and McMinnville area, I invite you to come visit us!