Chess: Art and science

I won bronze in a couple of school chess tournaments when I was a little. After that, my trainer left and my school was not keen on hiring a new one so basically I stopped playing chess. Recently, the extinguished chess flame in my heart was born again when I found a really cool open source platform called lichess to play with. I tried to complement it with external books but I failed reading them so I ended up with a different approach. Let's talk about my experience with chess books first.

The biggest problem with chess books in general is their content level. On one side of the spectrum you have books for beginners that are easy to understand, sometimes too easy. On the other side, you have books that reassures you that they target intermediate level chess players but they are really hard to keep up with. So, there's nothing in the middle you can comfortably use to raise your game level with. What to do?

Lots of chess players rush into finding what they call winning openings and not read books. They want to know their lines by heart (moves variants) to anxiously see their opponents succumb on the board. I don't like that, instead, I've decided to reduce the complexity of the game by focusing on knowing how pieces work. It's not just about getting familiar with how they move on the board but how their tactical capabilities within game situations can give you advantages lead you to victory.

There's a puzzle category on lichess dedicated to this stage of the game that involves pawns and kings (obviously), so far I've had lots of fun playing them, Why? Just having pieces that move one square on your board makes you concentrate on tactics. Also, calculating moves is less exhausting because end games have a very limited number of moves before completion. My conclusion? You shoud start simple and improve step by step, no need to rush.

I'd like to take more time with pawn end game puzzles. Then, I want to have fun with the next category of end game puzzles which includes one minor piece (rook, knight or bishop to move on with queen end game puzzles afterwards. The roadmap continuous with middle game puzzles and openings afterwards. It's not a short process but I'm willing to stick to it.