How To Master Chess

In this video, I'm going to explain how almost anyone can become a chess master by using the 1% rule. Now before I explain exactly what the 1% rule is and how it works, I want to make sure we're all on the same page about how complicated chess actually is. So there's actually an American mathematician named Claude Shannon who analyzed chess and came up with something called the Shannon number. The Shannon number basically says that after so many moves in a chess game, there's a certain number of possible positions that could have happened. And if you've never heard this before, you might find it hard to believe, but after just two moves, so white moves, black moves, white moves, black moves, there are 197,281 potential possible positions. And by the time you get to just five moves for each player, that number goes up to over 69 trillion different possible positions. So the point is that the number of possible positions in a chess game increases astronomically as each move of the game is played. So this is why chess engines, also known as computers, can't solve chess even though they can analyze over 2,000 moves per second. It's just too complicated. So the question that you might ask is if chess is so complex, how do people actually become masters at it or even in some cases grandmasters? Well, I think the answer to that lies in two parts. So the first part is what I'm going to call shortcuts. And the second part is the 1% rule, which we'll get to shortly, I promise. But first, let me explain shortcuts. And just to clear up right away, I'm not talking about cheating. Some people would consider that a shortcut, but I think cheating is just wrong. And you'll probably end up with a banned account if you do that. So let's not cheat. When I say shortcuts, I'm talking about learning chess principles, learning mating patterns, learning concepts that after you learn them, your brain can essentially eliminate a whole bunch of moves on the chessboard right away that you don't even have to think about. For example, control the center of the board. We've all heard that. And because we know that when I'm sitting down to play a game of chess, I don't have to consider the move H3 or H4 or A3 or A4 because I know those moves don't help me control the center. See, just by understanding that one principle, I can eliminate a lot of moves right away. And as I continue to learn more and more principles and concepts and mating patterns, I can eliminate even more moves. So that's the first part of the equation, because even if there is over 69 trillion possible positions, I don't have to think about most of those. Now, that being said, just because we can learn all these principles and concepts doesn't make chess easy. And that is where the 1% rule comes in. So the 1% rule basically says that if you want to master something, you should try to get 1% better every single day and just keep doing that. And eventually, if you stick with it long enough, you'll become a master at whatever you're learning. See, a lot of people think that to be really good at chess, you have to be able to solve puzzles kind of like this one every time you make a chess move. And if you can't solve the puzzle and find the exact right solution, well, then chess just must not be for you. I really don't think that's true. I think learning chess and becoming really good at it is more like building a giant statue out of Legos. Because truthfully, a lot of what you need to learn to become a chess master can be broken down into bite-sized chunks. And the 1% rule says that if you keep learning those chunks or you keep placing those Lego pieces, eventually you have that giant Lego statue or you've mastered whatever it is you're trying to learn. I want to take you over to my computer screen for a second and show you this example. All right, I want you guys to look at this light blue box and pretend that this is you and this is how much knowledge you have about chess. And so you're a beginner, so you don't have a ton of knowledge, but you decide that every day you're going to learn a little bit more and you're going to learn one more new thing. So you learn about controlling the center and you gain a little bit of knowledge. And you learn about developing your pieces and you gain a little bit more knowledge. You learn about the king and queen checkmate and how to do that. You gain a little bit more and you keep learning things. You learn about pins and you learn about forks. You learn about discovered attacks and you start maybe solving some mate-in-ones. Very easy, but you're learning. And you learn about pawn structures. You learn about time management, how to use your clock. You learn about rook endgames and you keep learning and you keep gaining a little bit more. And then maybe you start solving mate-in-twos. They're a little bit more difficult, but you're learning and you're doing them. Then you learn a basic opening repertoire. You have a couple of opening lines, not a lot, but it's something. Then you learn about skewers and double attacks and you keep learning and you keep learning and you keep accumulating knowledge a little bit at a time. You learn about smothered mate. You learn maybe an in-depth opening line that you study a little bit more and you kind of learn some of the theory and maybe you start solving mate-in-threes. You keep learning and you keep learning. You learn about zugzwang. You learn about the minority attack. And you get really good at analyzing your games with the chess engine to help you learn. You keep learning things and eventually you get up here and you say, okay, how much have I actually learned? And when you zoom out and you look at the big picture, you realize you started way over here and you've got all the way here and you can see, I'll zoom in here. You can see how you were a beginner, but over time, a little bit and a little bit and a little bit, you've accumulated all this knowledge. See, most of those concepts or principles or ideas that we just talked about are small enough that they can be broken down into a bite-sized chunk that you can actually learn. And if you keep building, eventually you'll have that giant Lego statue. And one thing that I think is really important is that when you're trying to master chess, don't grab five or 10 Legos at the same time and try to just throw them onto the statue. I see some people that try to take in too much information all at once, but they don't actually properly learn it. And then they go try to play a game and they have all these ideas and things floating around in their head. And it's like, what are you even doing? I think it's better to just focus on 1% and learn it really well. Grab one block, make sure you put it on the statue properly before you move on to the next block, because otherwise you're just going to end up confused and not make progress. And then come back to me and say, you lied about the 1% rule. So that's my take on how to master chess or really anything. Let me know what you guys think. Thanks for watching. And as always, stay sharp, play smart. Take care.