When I play chess I always take one of two roads which both lead to defeat.
Either I play very carefully, leaving my opponent open to all of the attacking. With carefully I mean I only move important pieces to spots which are defended.
Or I play too recklessly which makes me lose important pieces to the stupidest of decisions. Seriously, I lost tons of queens to spots which were very clearly defended.
Either way I always lose. So:
Does anyone know of: tactics, videos, rule of thumbs, anything. Which can help to find a good balance?
Also: When should you start strategising about check-mating the king?
Let’s just say I’m the uncle you play chess with every now and then.
So I do not know what any of those questions mean.
Ah ok, no worries. So just to be sure, do you play online sometimes?
Training is everything in chess. On YouTube there are tons of resources to learn about chess and get better, but it also takes a lot of practice.
Elo/rating is a number every player has, that specifies their strength in the game of chess. The higher the better.
The opening is something that can be memorized and is used to place your pieces in the beginning of the game. If you are a beginner, it’s best to focus on putting your middle pawns into the center of the board and bring your knights and bishops out
Analyzing your games can be done if you play online after the game. It will show you what mistakes you did and what better move was possible. If you wanna play online I recommend lichess since it’s completely free and you nothing is paywalled