Level 5 of 6
Queen level: choosing your games
Preparation as steering, the honesty that breaks a plateau, and the positional ideas that decide games between players who know the same theory.
Ready for this when
Prepares openings and reviews their own games.
Working towards
Steer a game towards positions they understand better than the opponent.
At this level you choose your games instead of accepting them. Preparation is not memorising moves. It is deciding, before the game, which structures you will play.
Improvement now comes from honesty. Every player has positions they handle badly and quietly avoid. Work on those, not the ones you enjoy.
So your training plan is a list of your own repeating mistakes. It is usually short. Three or four items, honestly named, will keep you busy for months.
A repertoire you can explain
For every opening you play, can you name the structure it leads to, the side of the board you play on, your usual pawn break, and the endgame you are aiming for?
One answer to each first move, understood properly, beats three half-known. The point is to keep arriving in positions you know better than your opponent.
- For each line: structure, wing, break, target endgame.
- One answer to each first move.
- Prepare the middlegame the opening leads to.
The list of your own mistakes
Go through your last twenty serious games. For each loss and near miss, write down the category of what went wrong, not the move: time trouble, failing to convert, one particular structure, an overrated attack.
The list will be short and it will repeat. Work on the top item alone for several weeks.
The initiative is worth material
Having the initiative means your opponent is answering your threats instead of carrying out a plan. That is often worth a pawn or more.
Know when you have it, and keep making threats. Know when you do not, and spend one move on defence now rather than three later.
Colour complexes and blockades
A colour complex is a set of weak squares of one colour. It usually appears after one side trades the bishop that guarded them, or fixes its pawns on the other colour. Pawns cannot go back, so the weakness lasts.
A blockade is the answer to a passed pawn: put a piece on the square directly in front of it. A blockaded pawn cannot advance and still needs defending. A knight is the classic blockader, because it works as well from that square as from any other.
Pawn majorities
More pawns than your opponent on one wing means a passed pawn can be made there. That decides which trades you accept.
A healthy majority has no doubled pawns and none already blocked. A majority with a doubled pawn often cannot make a passed pawn at all.
- Tactics, to stay sharp
- One deep study topic
- A played game, reviewed
Where this level sits
Fifth of six. The training is now yours to run. Expect results to stall for months at a time. That is normal at this strength, and no reason to rebuild everything.
Positions to play through
1Pawns with nothing in front of them
Count the pawns on each wing. On one side, White's pawns face no black pawn at all.
With no black pawn on the a-file or b-file, both pawns are already passed. White's plan is to push them; Black's pieces must stop them. Know which wing your passed pawns come from before you decide what to trade.
2Where a blockader belongs
Black's d4 pawn is passed. White's knight stands next to it on d5. Ask whether the knight is stopping anything.
A blockader stands in the pawn's path. Black's pawns move down the board, so that square is d3. A knight on d3 stops the pawn and loses nothing by standing still.
3Zugzwang: the obligation to move
Kings and one pawn, with Black to move. Whoever has to move here is worse off.
Nothing is attacked. The only problem is having to move. That is why the tempo matters so much in king and pawn endings, and why triangulation, losing a move on purpose, wins them.
4The queen mate that needs the king
A queen and king against a bare king, one move from mate. Work out which piece does what.
The queen gives mate, and the king makes it possible. The same split holds in far harder attacks. When an attack is one piece short, the missing piece is often the king.
The order to learn them in
If you only follow one path through this level, follow this one.
- 1The InitiativeMaking threats so your opponent must answer you.
- 2Color ComplexesWhen a bishop is gone, the squares of its colour get weaker.
- 3Pawn MajoritiesMore pawns on one wing, and the passed pawn they can make.
- 4BlockadePut a piece directly in front of a passed pawn.
- 5Creating WeaknessesWith nothing to attack, force a pawn move that makes a target.
- 6Corresponding SquaresEach square your king takes has one square the defender must answer.
- 7Zugzwang in EndgamesWhoever runs out of spare moves first has to give way.
- 8Queen EndgamesDecided by checks: shelter your king before you push the pawn.
- 9King HuntChecks that drive a king out of its shelter to mate.
Every topic at this level
Tactics
- Zwischenzug (In-Between Move)Check every forcing move before the natural one, in your lines and in your opponent's. Usually it changes nothing, and when it does, it often decides the game.
- King HuntCalculate a hunt to the mate before you sacrifice. Every check must leave few replies, and you should know which move mates at the end.
- DesperadoDesperado positions often come in pairs: both sides have a piece under attack, and whoever captures first comes out ahead. Calculate the whole sequence.
Position and strategy
- Color ComplexesWhen a bishop has gone, count the pawns on each colour. Your pawns should cover the colour the missing bishop used to guard.
- Pawn MajoritiesCount both majorities before trading into an endgame. A queenside majority is often worth more, because both kings usually stand on the kingside.
- BlockadeBlockade first, attack later. A stopped pawn can be attacked at leisure; a pawn that is only attacked can still advance.
- The InitiativeThe initiative fades. If you cannot see what it wins within a few moves, take the concrete gain now.
- Creating WeaknessesChoose the target before you start pushing. A minority attack with no follow-up only trades pawns and opens lines for the defender.
Endgames
- Corresponding SquaresPair the squares before you move: for every square your king could take, know the square the defender must answer with.
- Queen EndgamesBefore you push the pawn, find a square where your king is safe from checks. Otherwise the checks do not end.
- Zugzwang in EndgamesSpare tempi are a resource like material. Trading off your last waiting move can turn a won endgame into a draw.
Openings and planning
- Isolation of Flank PawnsDamaging the opponent's pawns is worth a concession only if you can reach the damage. Name the file and the piece you will use before making the trade.
- Playing for a Pawn MajorityA majority that can make a passed pawn beats a bigger one that cannot. Count files as well as pawns.
What practice looks like
- An hour a day: tactics to stay sharp, one deep study topic, one played game or analysis.
- Keep a list of the mistakes that repeat. It is shorter than expected, and it is the training plan.
- Play stronger opponents on purpose, and review those games hardest.
Ready for the next level when
- Has a repertoire they can explain rather than recite.
- Wins technical endgames without help.
- Can name their own three most common mistakes.
- Beats higher-rated players regularly, not occasionally.
For the grown-up
- The player runs the training now. The adult runs the schedule, the sleep and the perspective.
- Results stall for months at a time. That is normal, and no reason to change everything.
- Protect the part they enjoy. A player who stops enjoying chess usually stops playing it.
Questions people ask
- How do I get past a rating plateau?
- Find the kind of mistake that keeps costing you points, such as time trouble or failing to convert, and work on that alone for several weeks. Plateaus are rarely a general lack of knowledge.
- How many tournaments a year?
- Enough to keep the games serious, few enough that every game is reviewed. The review produces the improvement, so the schedule has to protect it.
- Should I study openings or endgames?
- Endgames, if you must choose. Opening lines go out of fashion and get refuted; endgame technique lasts. Study your own openings as far as the middlegame they produce, and stop there.
- Do I need a database and an engine?
- An engine helps you check analysis you have already done. A database helps once you prepare for specific opponents, which is the next level. Neither replaces the mistake list.
- My results have gone backwards since I started studying more. Why?
- Usually study has replaced playing, or new lines reach serious games before they are understood. Keep playing as much as before, and test new lines in training games.