6 Chess Hacks To Increase Rating Quickly (Advanced)

So you want to get better at chess quick, eh?

You’re in luck. This article will give you 6 chess hacks that will increase your rating and help you beat your chess nemesis.

Table of Contents

Chess Hack 1: The Woodpecker Method

“Chess is 99% tactics” – Richard Teichmann

Here’s how the woodpecker method will help you improve:

You will start to memorize tactical patterns. These patterns will help you to intuitively find tactical ideas in your own games.

The concept of the woodpecker method consists of solving a set of chess puzzles over and over again until you can solve them all in one day. This method utilizes spaced repetition, which is a scientifically proven method to memorize patterns.

The success of the woodpecker method is proven: Co-author Hans Tikkanen achieved three GM norms in seven weeks with this method.

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You can get the woodpecker method here.

Chess Hack 2: Puzzle Rush

Puzzle rush is a chess puzzle game mode on chess.com.

There are 3 reasons why it will help you to improve quickly.

It’s really fun. You’ll find yourself wanting to break your high score.
You are forced to solve a lot of easy puzzles. While you might find it boring to solve these puzzles in a non-game context, the speed of puzzle rush adds flavor to it. And solving easy puzzles has tons of benefits: you’re less likely to blunder because you have internalized these basic patterns. Also, complex puzzles often are easy puzzle patterns that are combined with each other. Therefore, surprisingly solving easy puzzles improves your skill for hard ones.
You get better at Blitz. Because you’re playing against the clock, you learn to deal with time pressure.

Chess Hack 3: Complete Opening Repertoire for White and Black

This hack is only relevant for you if you feel like you got a good sense of tactics and strategy, but you get terrible positions right out of the opening every. single. time.

Contrary to popular belief, knowing chess opening theory can make a big difference to your performance. If you get good positions out of the opening and know the main plans of yourself and your opponent, tactics and strategy flow better automatically.

But instead of buying 8 books about 8 different openings full of lines that you won’t memorize anyway, we recommend that you get the books “Chess Openings, Explained”, which gives you a COMPLETE repertoire with just two books.

What we like about this specific repertoire book is the fact that the openings are aggressive and interesting. This makes it perfect for the ambitious club player.

Get the complete repertoire for white.
Get the complete repertoire for black.

Chess Hack 4: Silmans’ Complete Endgame Course

You mess up won rook endgames on a regular basis? Opposition feels alien to you?

Then you need to get Silmans Endgame manual. It’s the quickest way to get good at endgames fast.

The material of the book is ordered by playing strength through ELO, which means that you can just go to your level, learn what you need to know to get to the next one, and get back to the playing board. Of course, you can always go beyond your ELO if you’re a student of the game and wish to learn more.

You can check the current price for the book here.

Chess Hack 5: The Steps Method

The steps method was invented by chess trainers Rob Brunia and Cor van Wijgerden from the Netherlands and has been translated through a dozen languages.

This method guides you steb-by-step through chess improvement. There are 6 steps and students are only supposed to move on to the next stage after they mastered the current one. This ensures that you reach the next level with a solid understanding of the fundamentals.