25 Chess Tips If You're Under 1400 

I heard that chess improves speed reading so I was doing a test...results are not promising

Easy reference: 1 0:00 Don't give up file control, allow your opponent to trade into you 2 0:55 Double your rooks on open files when you can 3 1:50 Get your knights to outposts! 4 3:20 Don't let your opponent's "bad bishops" become good ones 5 5:11 Be careful moving pawns on the kingside 6 6:41 Be careful giving up control of central squares 7 7:37 Develop and consolidate before launching an attack 8 8:18 Take advantage of your opponent's weak diagonals 9 10:58 Be careful castling in front of a pawn storm 10 11:23 Get your knights to outposts! 11 13:08 Knights on the rim are dim 12 14:00 When far ahead, trade pieces to simplify 13 14:37 Think about Qb3 14 15:30 Beware of allowing connected passed pawns 15 17:05 Don't allow your king to be stuck far away from your pawns 16 18:23 Use weaknesses that you see as clues to find more advanced tactics 17 20:04 Be careful putting your pieces into pins 18 21:18 Be careful pushing pawns in front of your castled king 19 22:04 When defending a piece, try to accomplish more than one thing at a time 20 24:34 Think about castling BOTH directions 21 25:24 Watch out for your rooks lined up with your queen/king 22 26:31 Get a good tactics book (links below) 23 29:31 Be careful taking free pawns 24 31:16 Doubled center pawns can help you! 25 32:41 When way ahead, identify how you could possibly lose and defend against that

Waiting for the under 200 video

Thank you, Nelson, for making chess accessible. I haven't played in years, mostly because I never knew any strategy to it. It's cool to be able to learn things and get professional advice in such simple and understandable terms, even if I might not sit down at a chess board for the rest of the year. Your videos are as entertaining as they are educational, and you've managed to turn me from someone who barely plays into a regular viewer.

I dig your channel man, you're not condescending about how you deliver things. Just helpful info! Solid stuff, thank you.

I like how you are providing guidelines on how one should go about determining whether or not to follow a rule of thumb, instead of limiting the player's thought process with absolute statments.

You have a wonderful teaching style. As a learner, I find your voice, attitude and use of language really encouraging. Thanks for the tips.

Thanks for the insight and thought process. Much appreciated. You have a knack for teaching. Also appreciate how you educate without belittling people.

Fantastic video. As one other person said, the tip text was on screen so briefly, three times I had to hit the 10 sec rewind button to catch it again. Suggestion: shrink the game area just a bit so you have a margin at the bottom so that you can place the tip text in it for the duration of the segment. Or make use of the space where the players names, time remaining, and captured pieces are to put the text of the tip there.

These simple tips are gold!! Many many thanks for taking the time to edit this.

These are such great examples and concepts to use and learn, thank you!!

You may be the best at explaining everything in a simple way we all can understand. Appreciate you!!!

To elaborate on tip 16. You won't always find tactics by looking at weaknesses, because there may simply not be any. But usually, weaknesses last for at least several moves and at most throughout the entire game. And in if you keep these weaknesses in mind, you may be able to form a tactic in one of those moves. There has been a few occasions in my rapid games where I saw something that was almost a tactic, and wasn't, but it later really became a tactic because of that same idea I saw that my opponent didn't see.

0:16 When both the mutual attackers are defended, I, too, like to let my opponent start the exchange. Not only, as you say, because my piece then owns the line, but also because starting the exchange costs a tempo which I might use more usefully elsewhere. But I find that Stockfish sometimes says that I should have taken first.

When did you get those sounds thingy for your wall? It does really help. And it makes your background more professional for some reason.

The poison pawn nearly got me very recently in a game. The post game analysis showed the mistake to be something else, but I think I really set myself up to be in an awkward position. I was so under developed it was a very tough game with terrible accuracy.

Extremely helpful! Keep up the good work and good luck on your chess career.

Hey, just wanted to let you know that after watching this video, my rating rose by ~200 ELO within a month, thanks!

12:13 the perfect explanation of outposts for knights and why the pawn defending the square is so important

This was incredibly helpful. Thank you!

Loved these videos. Thanks for making this series

20:04 Be careful putting your pieces into pins The e7 bishop also covers the knight on c5, so if you move your b4 castle to b5, then let them capture first, you could come out on top.

This was really useful! Ive been doing puzzles and it improved my game more than learning openings

Another amazing video. Thank you so much!

This is definitely high quality educational material! Thanks for your time! 🚀

Great video. I def learned a lot. Loved all the tips. Only thing were the titles of the tips went by to fast. I barely had time to read them and let the tip soak in before the lesson on it started. Otherwise awesome video and would love to see more tips. Thanks Nelson

Really great instructional content here.

Thank you so much for this. You’re incredible

This video is crazy helpful thanks a ton.

I’ve only just come across this channel but it feels like it’s got real potential, particularly for beginners and lower rated ELO players 👍

Great video, thanks for the advice 😊

This is a very helpful video. Thanks!

Amazing stuff...this is the only channel which actually gives proper tips to all sort of chess players....

Your title tiles need to be longer!! Haha. Thanks for vid tho. Great advice. Love ur content.

You’re great teacher. Thanks for sharing

Someone may have caught this already, but in Tip #12, does white actually has a better move than queen trading? That is, what if white plays knight to e4. Black cannot capture the knight with his pawn, because white can simply slide his rook to d1, winning black's queen. As a result, black is forced to move his king, either to e5 (where white has a spring loaded trap waiting), or back to the seventh rank, where white can capture the h7 pawn while putting black in check, which creates more dangerous situations now that white's knight is in a more advanced position.

I like how you encourage players as you instruct. Good vibes 🌞

Thanks Nelson for posting this compilation, even it is for players under 1400, i find it really useful for me because some of those in this video idk, btw i’m a 1400s player, but i’m struggling to reach 1500 milestone

The quintessence of useful information. Maximum gratitude!

awesome video ! thanks !

Thanks, Nelson. You are my trainer. I am following you from Lubango, Angola. I am growing a lot under your guidance. Muito obrigado.

15:24 in this position, Queen B3 actually seems to be the best move, because Bishop D2 blocks the defense of the Pawn on D4, which ties down the F3 Knight, whereas Queen B3, as you mentioned, has that strong counter attack.

Wow i love this video straight to the point 👍🏻

I really enjoyed this video and learned a lot. Please consider leaving your chapter titles on screen for a few seconds longer 😎

These are the types of videos that make this channel great.

Thank you Nelson. you're like a chess treasure waiting to be discovered. you give strategies and tactics fast without wasting any time.

Nelson, in light of m,any of your outstanding skills at instructional videos, this being just 1 of so many examples I find your reach with instructional surpasses many others. Add to that your Host demeanor and Chess Vibes is very hard to not be the most favored choice time and again. Just wanted to thank you as I'm not one to comment often however I do share your Ch. with many. Blessings your way from Oregon friend. ... Mike.

Thanks for analyzing my game on stream Nelson. That game was weird because stockfish said I had a lot of blunders and mistakes but couldn't figure out why. Thanks for giving me insight.

27:30 Lichess has different puzzle categories. So different openings, end/middle game, mate in 2,3,4, 5+ or specific kinds of mate. Also forks, skewers, and pins as well.

The 3 move checkmate problems in polgar's 5334 book are advanced and will challenge any 2000-2200 rated player

calm and easy to follow, thanks! i think i talk for everyone who tries to get up from 1200 to 1400

Nice video thanks how do you get your games analyzed do you do random subscribers ?

Thank you Teacher Nelson. Ur awesome 😊

A few more: * Don't turn your bishops into tall pawns * When in doubt, develop your pieces to the most forward available square * Alternatively: improve your least active piece * To take is a mistake: only trade when there's a good reason to * The 4 non-diagonal squares right next to a knight are the safest from said knight * Pieces have to be on the same colored square in order to be forked by a knight

More like tips every 1400 should know 😀❤️

Thank you, Nelson

Dude! I waited for a new upload, so maybe you will see this. When will you go on with your Quiz-Series? I totally love them, but the last one is like 4 months old. It would be great if you could revive this

I'm rated 1700 Rapid and still found this video really useful. Great stuff!

One of your best videos.. like others have said .. the tip text is on too brief … could you hold it for about 2 secs longer .. your my favorite chess instructor.. Thanks Nelson

concise thus highly useful

What if your queenside rook is traded and the kingside has a potential opponent pawn storm? Do you give up castling all together?

thanks for putting me in the video! :)

Based on the last one like this, you ought to get a million well-deserved views.

I put this on to get tips and I found myself in the middle of some game that this guy is playing and rambling on about. Probably some good insight to be had but damned if I know what it is.

your tips are so helpful

One of the most overlooked tactics is SACRIFICE. Hardly anybody thinks you're going to give up a rook or a queen, but if it leads to checkmate, it's worth it.

Another great video!

As a 22 year old, I'm glad im learning these before I'm 1400!

I've come across many chess RU-vidrs, but you're the best among all of them. Your explanations are easy to understand and digest. Thank you for your great content.

Even above 1400 it's a good recap

The contents is awesome, thanks for sharing. Please prolong the duration of displaying the titles (Tip XX), I'm not able to read them on 2× speed.

Great advice!

Great video!

learnt more from this one video than a lot of my chess books !

What is the blue chess set in the background? Love it!

Awesome 👏🏽

chess with pawns that could move backwards would be really interesting actually, like fencing

From one that is under 1400, this video is very helpful, you can learn much more from it because all the positions are genuine and are likely to happen in a game. I respect the effort put into the other ones, but in my opinion, they seem more artificial.

When I see a hole I also try to fit my knight into. But as you said, some holes are more difficult to fill...

What chess program are you using in the video? I hear you reference “Starfish”, but my hearing is bad so I may be mistaken.

Fantastic video❤

Nice video and tips, but the titles are not on screen long enough to read them , wish you’d read them aloud too. 😃

i really love chess. i dont know why, i just do, and no matter how frustrating i get after a tilt or a bad loss, i end up jumping back in the same day, but with new knowledge, im not that good. my rating is going between 300 - 500 maybe 600 for the past 2 weeks (how long ive been playing) but its always fascinating to me

22:45 - I would be tempted by Bxf7. Get the bishop out of trouble and take a hanging pawn. (Later note) Also noticed by someone else.

22:49 would Qd5 be a good move? it attacks the black queen while defending the bishop and the white queen is being seen by both a pawn and the bishop, also black has no piece watching that square except their queen.

Wow I’m only 21 so I definitely have to learn these

I love positional advice

2:49 bro moving mad😂😂

20:48, if Bishop captures knight, don't you have Be7 bishop captures the Bishop and ig he takes your Bishop with his queen, you get his queen for free?

Thanks!

how can you get stockfish to tell you the best moves????

14:30 Ne4+ enticing him to take the Knight which will lead to you winning his queen with a rook skewer Rd1! If he doesn't take you'll at least win a pawn and have another chance to trade queens)

I needed this. Thank you for this upload. As of now I am 1400s in rapid but i am miserable in blitz. Will feedback if my rating climbs. :)

13:23, after bishop takes knight and pawn takes bishop. king to h1 and rook to g1 and you can attack?

headphone users beware around 9:42 idk what that audio glitch is called but it sounds deadly even on my little laptop speakers

Recently, I started watching your videos...and I must say you are one of the best trainers for beginners ❤️ From India

At 27:35 you can also check with rook then with knight checkmate

3:00 this is playing hope chess, but what about leaving the pawn and simply playing b3. For some reason I like the knight on c3 just in case black thinks he can fork my knight and bishop with d4 and falls into the potential trap of taking the bishop after knight e4, looking for mate on f6.

Thank you! :-)

No fluff and no trousers = great video