Some Thoughts About Levels in Chess
I've been playing chess a bit over two years, learning as an adult, and recently I've been thinking about how at the beginner and immediate level there are different "levels" of skill that develop over time. These are somewhat arbitrary in order, but I hope are useful.
Level 0 - Making Legal Moves
The first level of skill is the ability to make legal moves with the pieces. Knowing that Knights can jump over pieces but Rooks can not, if you are under check you have to do something to handle that you can't move other unrelated pieces, how pawns move vs capture, etc. There isn't any strategy or tactics yet, just "see what happens" after every move.
Level 1 - Taking Free Stuff
The beginning of board vision starts here, noticing when your opponents pieces are available for capture and consistently taking them. The inverse is also true, noticing that your pieces are under immediate danger "en prise" and preventing 1-move threats to a piece.
There are effectively zero-move tactics, just play a single move no matter what your opponent does you are ahead.
Level 2 - Basic Counting
Pieces in trouble can be more than "they have 1 thing attacking it and I have no defenders". A knight and a rook attacking a pawn only defended by a bishop is equally in trouble, as when the trades settle you will be up a piece.
Level 3 - Noticing "Simple" Checkmate Threats
The Queen just made a battery with the bishop and is threatening checkmate in one, I need to do something about that.
This is a generalization of the previous level that not only do you need to watch for hanging pieces but you also need to watch out for checkmate threats.
Level 4 - Simple Strategy
Guidelines like "put a pawn in the center", and "develop knights, bishops, and then castle" give basic form to the first handful of moves of most games.
Level 5 - Simple Tactics
Here we start learning the bread and butter patterns of chess, Forks, Pins, Skewers and so on. When the pieces are in a given configuration, you can apply one of these to get an advantage.
Level 6 - Basic Endgames
Not every game can be won by promoting multiple Queens and forcing a ladder checkmate. Learning how to win with a Queen and King, or Rook and King will help convert a lot of "easy" endgames.
Level 7 - Starting Looking Ahead
Before this level, most games are determined by one player making an immediate mistake in a move that the other side punished. The next step involves being able to see the board how it is, then without moving the pieces imagine what it would be after one or more moves and then determine if that is better/worse for you.
Players begin the journey to generalize the "if I make this move, can he capture/checkmate me" into "if I make this move, what is his best response and how do I evaluate that new position".
Level 8 - Two things at once
Once players stop making trivial mistakes every game, the question is how do you force your opponent into a worse position if they don't put themselves there by themselves.
A generalization of the simple tactics concept starts to be helpful, make moves that do multiple things at once and your opponent can't respond to both of them in a single turn.
For example, moving to Queen into battery with a bishop (threatening checkmate) while also attacking a hanging pawn. The opponent has to respond to the more pressing concern, losing material.
Level 9 - Looking ahead for two things at once
Looking ahead now is no longer "are any of my pieces directly in trouble if I make this move" but a layer deeper where you have to consider if two individual threats you could parry independently could possibly be threatened at the same time.
Level 10 - Beginnings of Positional Chess
Now, and only now, can we start considering how to really improve your position and why the opening principals we learned before are true.
If we have to force our opponent to make mistakes, we want our position to:
- Have our pieces to threaten the most number of squares
- Be able to move quickly around to different positions. This includes space to move and clear sight lines.
- All of our pieces be protected and safe from various tactics like double attacks
- As much as possible, prevent our opponents position from having all of those good things
At this level you can start learning about outposts/support points for knights, rooks infiltrationing the 2nd/7th rank, good vs bad bishops, and so on.
Now, when there isn't an obvious tactic or opening move we have an idea how to proceed. We need to make "safe" moves, those that don't blunder and make our position worse, that improve our position over time. Given a better enough position, tactics and combinations will show up if we can see them.
Analysis
The reason in my mind for these layers of chess skill is that they necessarily build upon each other. You can't start counting attackers/defenders until you have enough board vision to notice that a piece is under attack somewhat consistently. Counting is what powers simple tactics and until you can see zero-move threats then trying to look ahead a move or two won't get you any farther. There is no reason to start learning how to improve your position when every other game you give away material due to simple tactics or unsafe moves.
I know they are many levels after this, and I can start to see them from where I am, things like "considering squares not just pieces", "pawn structures determining long term plans", and "considering imbalances to come up with the strongest ideas". However in my games as an intermediate players they are still beyond me.
If I can play 40 moves without:
- Blundering any material via simple tactics (even if my opponent doesn't see it)
- Consistently consider all of the things my opponents moves do each move
- Not completely fall apart in the midgame when I need to come up with my own plans
Then I'm in for a good game.