If I Wanted to Become a Grandmaster In 2024, This is What I'd Do [FULL BLUEPRINT]

I've been playing chess for 30 years I became a grandmas and over the last 15 years I coached hundreds of people personally and thousands went through my online trading courses here are the seven main tips I learned to speed up your chess progress and the very first tip is understand openings don't memorize them we're heading to the leeches database of games and let me illustrate what I mean let's say white goes Pawn D4 and you respond with Pawn tod6 now there are a lot of players nowadays who play the London system they wish to play

this move Bishop to f four even though after we played Pawn to D6 the move does not make any sense and yet you can still see that this is one of the top choices of white now what's the problem well since you played Pawn to D6 you now have this barrier of Pawns right that are controlling this whole diagonal and therefore the bishop on F4 is completely dull it does not attack anything now in the main line of the lon system it makes a lot of sense because usually black goes Pawn D5 and that is

why it goes Bishop of four it has this uh pretty nice diagonal it reinforces control over the square E5 maybe in the future white can bring the Knight there and it certainly makes sense but after Pawn D6 it doesn't and white still plays that move moreover even after the second most bleed move knight3 if we continue that line Knight F6 you can still see that the second most bleed move here is Bishop F4 which still doesn't make any sense but let's continue let's say they go Bishop for four and you play again something that they

did not expect Pawn C5 for example now you can see that the top choice of white is Pawn E3 and then there is also Pawn Pawn C3 which is also pretty common now some folks played Pawn takes C5 but these are only 23% of players even though in this position Pawn takes C5 seems like the most natural move to play because if black were to recapture similarly white would be able to trade Queens Force the king to move and that would be bad for black therefore silly can see that white is missing this potential opportunity

and they're just playing moves that they are taught to play let say they play Pawn E3 and you go again let's surprise them somehow we play Queen B6 all right now what's the Top Choice Pawn B3 again a bad move why because black clearly violates all of the opening rules they're playing pawn moves and queen moves they're ready to play the other queen move they're violating development right they're not even trying to develop and therefore those guys who played Knight to C3 definitely made a better choice like why still should be more aggressive they should

play Knight C3 and then something like this aiming for this C7 square but again only 24% of players play that and the rest played B3 or queen to C1 while is still trying to hold on to their London setup let's say they go Pawn B3 and now again let me play some weird move which they did not expect Knight to C6 all right now we're attacking this Pawn we have added the thir attacker we've got the pawn Knight and queen therefore white needs to do something about this Pawn like what should white do well the

pawn is attacked but even without this attack I'd say that it's pretty clear that why should push this Pawn forward and chase away this Knight that clearly demonstrates that Knight C6 six actually was a bad idea for black because this Knight can be driven away right away after Pawn D5 and yet pretty much nobody played Pawn D5 only 7% most players tried to defend it with either Pawn to C3 or Knight to C3 again does not make any sense so Pawn D5 is obviously a much better choice but they're still sticking to their London setup

and now let's say as we trade and then go P E5 now they have to pay the price for mechanically following that London setup without trying to understand what the heck is actually going on here on the board now this bishop on F4 which so far was dull now is actually giving black extra tempos for their own attack now after this trade this bishop is again attacked let's say Bishop E3 what they play Bishop C5 and after this trade if I turn on the eding it'll probably show decent Advantage for black it shows minus. n

but I think in reality it's even greater the position looks to me pretty sad for white just notice that within the the first nine moves of the game white remarkably achieved nothing all of their pieces are on their starting squares and they also created some weaknesses and you are ready to play Knight F6 Bishop G4 rook d8 and attack however you like it I think that in reality white is very close to like being destroyed quickly because in order to save this white will have to come up with very precise defensive moves so that just

goes to show you how playing moves that you memorized can really lead you to disaster and an interesting fact is if white were trying to come up with their own moves they would probably pick something better compared to them trying to just play out moves that they memorized the second tip is your opponent has an equal say in the game and this is probably the most painful idea because we lose a ton of games because we don't follow this advice once again I've opened the database of games to prove the point here at this point

White's last move was Queen to G4 and now let's look at the stats the second most played move by black is Knight to F6 which is a big blunder blundering Queen takes G7 hitting the rook and destroying the Black's position also what's interesting is there were folks 3 and a half thousand approximately who found the move Pawn to D5 which is again quite an advanced level tactical idea it opens up this disc discovered attack while attacking the bishop on C4 and these players managed to notice this advanced level tactics but missed a simple one move

capture Queen takes G7 how come it's not that their tactical vision is lacking or their calculation abilities are lacking it's just that they're not paying equal attention to their opponent moreover like what was the reason of this move Queen to G4 clearly there's only one potential purpose is to capture this pawn and black could overlook this just by not thinking about their opponent at all moreover after Knight F6 and why happily captures right here notice that right here the second most pled move and and it's almost about as as popular as the first most blade

move Rook to G8 again that black notice that they can hit the queen and they're hoping that that this gives them an extra Temple for doing something but they're missing this queen to F7 Checkmate again it's not that Queen takes F7 as a super duper advanced level move it is just that black is not focused on their opponent they're just focusing on their own ideas they thinking oh I'm attacking the queen it's so cool it's going to come back and maybe I can attack it again or grab this pawn and attack this pawn and like

Life's good we're just not being equal attention to our opponent what he's going to do and the tip that you can apply to this or any other position is very simple first of all after your opponent plays a move ask yourself what is Key's idea what is key going to do next and secondly you got to develop this habit of looking at your half of the board and asking yourself how can my opponent move forward to this side of the board and do some damage because these are the only moves that you need to care

if you go KN F6 you don't care if the queen moves in any backward Direction because those moves are certainly not dangerous for you the only direction of the queen movement that you need to actually watch over is the forward movement you got to look this way and ask yourself is there any dangerous that my opponent can do while moving forward onto my half of the board the next tip is strive for the activity of your pieces and that is the Golden Rule of Chess that is the most important guideline that you need to follow

really that's what chess is all about and by the way what is an activity of your pieces simply this is quantity of squares under their control but think about this let's say you have a sniper but he's suffering from diarrhea and he's sitting in a men's room now currently what is his level of influence over the battlefield right it is zero you got to provide that larger area of effect for your Warriors for your pieces and in chess it is called activity initially when I started playing chess I was playing that Lon system which is

so popular for its Simplicity and I also laughed it for the same reason but later I got a good coach he was an international Master himself and he provided like really great advice and he told me that this is a donkey opening that is too stubborn and I'll never learn to attack if I just keep playing this scheme and instead he forced me to play gambis to play aggressive openings which indeed forced me to become a much more active player for example look at this position I'm playing White against an Indian master or hit gojin

n and it is white to move now at this point I ski the first opening moves because they're not that critical right now the last Black's move was Pawn to B5 it is clear that black wants to push this P Pawn forward attack this Knight if the Knight goes away and by the way there are no convenient squares for the Knight to go to that would also drop this Pawn on e4 or maybe black wants to jump with his Knight to C4 and also attack a bunch of stuff right there therefore black is clearly moving

forward and attacking and that is kind of forcing me to do something I can't just play a waiting moves I have to Counterattack I understand that the position is more tensed and I need to be active right so those are the openings that you wish to play by the way what does it mean more practically to seek activity of your pieces like one of the first advices is just to go forward and attack because when you attack you inevitably increase activity of your pieces the second thing is to open up files for your pieces and

here I played P5 which serves both of these purposes first off it's is an attacking move and secondly after this trade on E5 now that can't take here straight away cuz that would lose the Knight on A5 so they have to trade here first it took with a c Pawn to open up this file also and after Queen takes E5 and Rook to E1 notice that although there are no straightforward threats that white has here besides some potential x-ray um like now I've got these open files for my pieces I've got open diagonals for my

Bishops they all are very active and therefore there is a great likelihood that I will be able to generate certain tangible threats within the next couple moves by the way a computer is not a big fan of this whole idea it says that black was fine even after Queen takes H2 which seems to be dangerous from the human perspective but in chess also we shouldn't always listen to stockfish Because stockfish assumes perfect play from a 3500 rated opponent but in reality you're facing humans who are not capable of playing perfect chess so in chess it

usually is a great idea to sacrifice a pawn or even a piece sometimes just for being active for attacking like here black was not comfortable with uh this opposition and he played Queen to C7 which is a much more human move compared to queen takes H2 but in reality turns out to be already wrong because now after Bishop to F4 the queen is attacked but on the next move after black does whatever for example he played Queen to B7 now white can sack The Rook right here on E6 check and white is winning the game

because if the Rook is captured here counts Bishop to G6 notice how active the white pieces are and after King to E7 it's Queen to D6 Checkmate and the attack kind of came naturally because the pieces were active and why was just looking for ways to go forward and generate certain threats the next tip is rather psychological do not play for a draw against stronger opponents there was one game which was particularly painful for me I was playing Black against the grandm and at the time I wasn't I was an international master and therefore you

can even see based on my opening choice that I'm already trying to play this symmetric petrol defense and then he played Knight to C3 and I kind of knew that I should play Bishop F5 and maintain the tension right however in that I was trying to play solidly against the grandmas so I was trying to trade off pieces and instead of maintaining the pressure and playing the strongest move possible I decided to trade off so he exchanged but now this bishop is active along this diagonal which is nice for white now at this point I

felt that Bishop G4 would probably be a better option to develop the bishop and to pen the Knight however then I realized that you know there's this gener generic tip which states that you should try to Castel early in the game to avoid any dangers seen that my K is on the open file so I decided to Castle instead again playing more solidly however white played H3 and took away this opportunity and now I can develop the bishop here I also can't develop it here because previously I opened up this juicy diagonal for his Bishop

therefore he controls this Square so now I'm kind of stuck I had to play this bishop E6 making my Bishop a tall Pawn in between these two he goes Rook B1 hitting this Pawn on B7 and yet again I felt that B6 should be a correct move but then I felt oh there are some weaknesses right here on the queen side maybe he's going to go Bishop B5 I'm not sure what to do after that and I decided to again play solidly Rook B8 now there is an obvious downside that now my Rook is tied

down to the defense of the pawn and is not doing anything and this is a lousy situation for such a strong piece as Rook after this white played Rook E1 and referring back to that subject of activity you can see that white is active all over the place he controls all the files all the diagonals he's very active if I just draw all these arrows you can see that white is really controlling the game and at this point it's really getting very hard for black to do anything I played H6 and H didn't really even

know what to do here white went Knight H2 trying to potentially open up this diagonal for the queen I play Rook E8 and again at this point it's pretty hard for black actually to come up with good moves but white played quite a strong move Rook takes C6 really great sacrifice I overlooked it but the position again was very unpleasant already after Pawn takes and queen to G4 it turns out that why's got a winning attack he's attacking this Pawn he wants to go inside with Queen G6 Queen H7 along this diagonal also because of

this pin along this vile Bishop takes H6 is coming but mostly simply like Queen G6 Queen H7 and I lost the game within the next several moves that was a very painful Devastation for me and it was especially annoying because I felt that I was playing second best moves just because of the respect to a Grandmaster and of course I learned the lesson and what I realized is hey if my opponent is stronger than me it doesn't make any sense for me to actually play passively and make their life even easier I should do the

opposite of that I should complicate matters I should attack that's my only chance and also stronger opponents are usually better at end games in positional play anyways and therefore trading off pieces is certainly not a good strategy by the way I've noticed especially I I don't know exactly why maybe you guys can tell me but I had a lot of students from the USA and especially when I analyze games from kids tournaments I see many of them are playing for a draw against high rated opponents I'm not exactly sure why I guess they're pressured by

the parents or coaches or because they feel the responsibility for for the result but anyway that's certainly a wrong strategy they should play for a win and that's how they learn to play good chess the next tip is don't just play analyze your game sometimes now I understand that we all love playing bleed games and we play a lot of them and let me give you an example of what I'm talking about let's say you play this game you play D4 your opponent sacked the pawn you captur it he goes Bishop C5 you develop a

knight he plays Pawn D6 you capture he goes Knight E7 and after we captur the Knight thinking that it was a mouse slip or whatever Here Comes Bishop takes F2 and all of a sudden you realize that you lost the game because in the next move you're going to lose the queen down here on D1 now what did you learn from this game like the first impulse is just to say oh I was unaware of this opening trap cool but if you actually go back and go through this game with computer then you will see

that right here in this position computer tells you that you shouldn't take her on D6 anyways regardless of whether there is a trap down the line or not that Bishop F4 is a much stronger move because you actually increase the pressure and now if black captures right here good luck for them you're going to capture here force their King to move and then you're going to get this Pawn back while keep attacking and you have an absolutely great position therefore Bishop F4 certainly puts greater pressure on them and then if you take on D6 it'll

be reinforced by this Bishop shooting down this diagonal therefore if you actually go through this game with a computer you'll realize that ahuh so when I'm offered this opportunity to trade a pawn for a pawn next time I should not automatically capture but if possible I should maintain the tension and increase the tension because to take is a mistake that's how you learn from every iteration and get better from the games that you play because otherwise there are people who play thousands of games but their level is still the same because they just use the

same skill set and they play similarly all the on by the way if you want me to help you in your chess Journey then of course I'll be happy to do so and you can check out my course called level up your chess by clicking on the link below the video in the description and this course contains different chapters dedicated to all important sections aspects of Chess Improvement opening middle game end game how to avoid blunders how to improve a chess like how to train efficiently and whatnot and because I've been coaching a lot and

I know that you guys don't even finish my courses I designed this course in a way where even studying just one of those chapters will bring you to the next level so that's my big promise with this course the next tip is when you're on tilt stop in this position I was playing Black it was my move to play and I play Rook to f8 which turned out to be a blunder after Pawn G4 I'm just losing a piece without any compensation and basically it's time to resign and after the game I thought to myself

wait a second why didn't I play KN of4 here because all my previous moves were to prepare that jump I was playing H6 G5 KN F6 to H5 I played a bunch of moves to put my KN to A4 but for some reason I didn't ultimately and instead played a move which was a one move blunder and sometimes you just notice that things aren't going your way that you're playing below your usual potential that you're blundering more often you're forgetting about the time and then you lose on time Etc and then when you realize that

you're rating drops instead of trying to get your revenge and to get it back it's better to actually quit and come back refreshed later and the next tip is focus on playing good moves as trial as it sounds it is actually helpful because people often tell me that eigor my goal is to get to the level of 1 1200 or 1500 or 2,000 or whatever it may be but everything will happen as a byproduct of your playing good moves let me also show you one example I'll skip through a couple opening moves I'm playing Black

against Russian Grandmaster arur gabrielan and somewhere here initially I thought oh he's preparing that standard kingside attack he wants to play Queen D2 Target this pawn and castle queenside and some push his kingside pawns forward maybe H5 or maybe the other one forward like looks a little bit scary and I understood that I need to Counterattack quickly but I couldn't easily see how to do that because normally black would wish to play D5 but now it's not easy cuz white is attack in here and an exchange on D4 also doesn't look very appealing because that

helps white to put this bishop to an active diagonal maybe to kick E5 on the next move so initially I was a little bit like hesitant and not really sure what to do but then I just reminded myself that hey so far I've been playing good moves I was just developing my pieces and castling I was standard just following all standard CH advice and therefore my position cannot be bad so that is also a liberating thought also if your opponent is higher rated it doesn't matter as long as you play good moves if you play

good moves you can't lose now so I played Pawn A6 first to kick out this bishop he went went back to C4 also reinforce control over the square but the beauty of this thinking is that again you realize that if your position is good then his attack canot be dangerous moreover if we could ask stockfish and it can tell us its opinion based on the evaluation it would probably say that Hasty attacks in an opening such as this h14 are usually not good and should back fire and arm with this understanding we now can be

less scared and can seek for something more aggressive to counter that and to refute that idea all right so I played KN A5 trying to kick off this special from here and after white went back here black can finally strike in the center with D5 what certainly does not want to trade off and open up this e file for the black Rook to attack Aran so he played E5 trying to gain a Tempo but the Knight comes forward and now this Pawn is attacked on E5 plus some Knight G threats are coming anyway white decided

to defend this Pawn by going Pawn F4 But Here Comes C5 and white actually just resigned now the KN it's been attacked on D4 but if the Knight moves there is D4 with this double attacked and white is losing a piece plus here on the king side there are also some troubles and therefore uh the white position fell apart pretty quickly and easily but again the idea was that I realized that I should just play good moves and my position cannot be bad I hope this was helpful let me know if you have any questions

in comments down below and I'll talk to you soon