Chess is hard because unlike other board games the outcome is more dependent on skill rather than luck.
Every move in chess is a test of logic, foresight, and nerve. The game demands not only strategy but boldness—sometimes the best move is the riskiest one. With countless possibilities in every position but often only one truly optimal choice, players are constantly navigating a maze of decisions.
It’s this blend of depth, discipline, and high-stakes thinking that makes chess so challenging—and endlessly fascinating.
7 Reasons Why Chess is Hard For Beginners:
1. Chess Piece Movements
For beginners, one of the first hurdles is simply understanding how each piece moves.
Ironically, most new players pick up the movements in under five minutes—but watching them play after that? Absolute chaos. 😄 Their games often look like abstract art gone wrong… and more often than not, it ends in a stalemate. Okay, not always, but it sure feels that way.
Anyway, here’s a great video that covers all the basics—how the board works, how each piece moves, and everything else a total beginner needs to start playing chess:
2. Understanding Your Opponent’s Moves
If just remembering your own plans wasn’t tricky enough, chess throws in an even bigger challenge: anticipating your opponent’s moves.
Chess isn’t a solo mission. It’s a battle of minds, where your strategy must constantly adapt to what the other player is doing. You need to stay alert, watch their patterns, and figure out what they’re up to—sometimes before they even know.
One of the best ways to improve is by thinking ahead and trying to get inside your opponent’s head. In tournaments, this goes even deeper—players often study their opponents’ past games to prepare defensive and offensive strategies in advance.
Of course, it gets tougher when you’re up against a complete stranger. No data, no prep. Just instincts and real-time analysis. But don’t panic—just pay attention. Every move tells a story.
And if your opponent plays something weird? There’s a good chance it’s a blunder. Be ready to capitalize on it. Blunders are free gifts—don’t waste them.
3. Memorization
It is important to memorize at least one chess opening with white and one with black pieces.
There is no way you can figure out everything on the board right from move #1 in every game. You need to have some pre knowledge of chess openings and traps to win games.
The good news is that those traps will work very well early on against low-rated players.
It is hard to memorize opening moves and tricks and traps but once you get hold of them, you will absolutely fall in love with chess.
Check out some easy opening traps in the video below:
4. Difficult to Cope with Different Styles Of Play
Basically, there are two chess playing styles, tactical and positional.
A tactical player is one who relies on tactics and tries to gain an advantage through tactical combinations, while a positional player is one who is always looking to occupy important squares and gain a positional and space advantage.
Check out our detailed article on different playing styles.
Top chess players are masters of both!
For a beginner, it is difficult to cope with opponents coming up with different styles of play.
It requires a certain level of adaptation and knowledge of position on the board to outdo your opponent.
In other sports, you mostly need to practice the same things again and again to master the sport, but in chess, in order to grow and improve your rating, you consistently need to improve your game and adapt to players of different personalities.
5. Clock Management
Chess is a game that requires time management and sharp thinking. It’s not easy to manage the clock well if you’re just starting out.
The chess timer is an added layer of difficulty to the game because it’s not always on your side.
If you are playing let’s suppose a 3 minutes game and there is no increment or very low increment like a second or two, then even if you have the advantage of a minor piece or a pawn or two but you are down on time, your opponent will be at an advantage.
Clock management makes chess a hard game because when you are in time trouble, your nerves and emotions start playing games, and it’s very difficult to play the right moves in such a situation.
But if you could master it by playing decent moves in time trouble, you will surely find chess to be less hard to play.
6. Struggle To Learn From Mistakes And Hanging Pieces
It can be difficult to learn from mistakes because beginners do them a lot, and it’s difficult for them to remember the solutions of their wrong moves for more than 24 hours.
Also, it is hard to fix all of them at once.
No 2 games are similar and it can take some time to find yourself in a similar position you blundered last time.
Chances are, you will blunder differently in a similar situation. 😀
Chess is a game that requires time, patience, and practice to develop into a better player.
Some mistakes won’t go away easily and to fix them you have to constantly re-analyze your games.
It’s hard, but with experience, you will start remembering more and more of your analysis and games.
As a beginner, it’s enough that you know your mistakes, and if you want to fix them, don’t fix them in bulk, try to fix 1 or 2 of them from each game.
That way, it will be easier for you to remember your mistakes and not repeat them again in future games.
7. Chess Psychology
People who are new to chess often have a difficult time understanding that in positions where you don’t have initiative, you don’t have to attack.
You have to be able to think ahead and see what your sequence of moves will result in.
If you are not sure what moves to play, then simply develop your pieces to the better squares. Or play a move that doesn’t change the situation of the board but keeps everything safe and intact.
The rules of the game are easy to learn but chess psychology is hard to master. It will take some time to become a better strategist in chess!
Also, besides the struggle of finding great moves, it is equally important to be confident in your moves and not worry about the body language and facial expressions of your opponent.
Many opponents will just try to bluff you with gestures and body language after playing a blundering move.
You have to develop the skill of focusing on the board rather than on your opponent.
5 Reasons Why Chess Is Hard To Play For Intermediate And Advance Players:
1. Chess Requires Concentration From Start To End
It is a game that requires attention and calculation from start to finish. As you advance in skill level, it will get easier to concentrate.
But winning will keep on getting difficult because as you progress in rating, you will get matched up with tougher opponents, both in tournaments and online chess.
The hard part is that your games will get longer and longer. They will require more brain energy and you have to constantly try to come up with different plans because your opponent can defend and counter very well.
2. Chess Requires A Constant Skill Polish To Jump The Ranking Ladder
It is not always easy to keep working on your weaknesses.
Naturally, our will to improve is sporadic. But chess requires a constant self-awareness of what we are doing and how we are playing.
The game is not only hard for beginners, but also for intermediate and advanced players in this perspective.
It requires constant skill polish to jump the ranking ladder!
Players should not feel discouraged by their current rating or get overwhelmed when their ranking goes up. And should always focus on improving their skill set by practicing more often and by analyzing their games after every match.
It’s not easy to do but that’s the only way to keep on improving ratings in chess.
3. You Need to Constantly Re-practice Tactics and Strategies
A huge part of chess is theory. You need to constantly work on tactics plus opening and endgame theory.
They are the very basics of winning games at higher levels because the margins to succeed grow thinner as you go up the ranking ladder.
And if you miss spotting a winning position or play the end game with the wrong technique, it will be hard to get any better in chess. A tough opponent won’t give you a 2nd chance in the game to win.
4. Time Troubles And Complex Positions Are Hard To Cope With
In chess, time trouble is a common occurrence. It is when a player has spent too much time on the chessboard finding the right moves.
The result of it is that the player who is low on time will now have less time to find the right moves.
Things can backfire very badly in such a situation because the opponent can bring out the dirty card of flagging.
Position on the board might be in your favor but with flagging, your opponent can win the game on the clock.
Survival in such a situation is even tougher if the game is still in the middle phase!
Since we are emotional beings, and no matter how skillful you are, it is always better not to fall into time trouble and play the time part well in chess.
5. You Need To Constantly Improve On Your Mistakes
Mistakes are a common occurrence at all levels in chess.
One of the most common reasons why people give up chess at an intermediate level is because they find it very hard to improve on their mistakes.
They think they have achieved their absolute best at a certain rating, and now they are not motivated enough to improve any further.
It’s challenging and hard that you need to be willing to learn from your mistakes, and then make adjustments accordingly.
Even if you are Magnus Carlsen, sitting on top of the chess world you constantly need to work on your chess to remain competitive at your level.