Missed chances
You spot a reasonable move, you play it, and you move on. That is human, and it is also one of the biggest sources of dropped points and half-points between 800 and 1400. Emanuel Lasker, world champion for twenty-seven years, summed up the cure in a single famous line: "When you see a good move, look for a better one." The idea is not to doubt everything, but to build a simple discipline: before you move, compare at least two candidates. Often the first move is good. But "good" is not "best," and in chess the gap between the two sometimes decides the game. In this article we will see how to draw up a short list of candidate moves, how to choose between them, and above all how this habit wins you material, endgames, and whole games you used to let slip away.
Our brain loves efficiency. As soon as it finds an acceptable solution to a problem, it stops: why keep searching if you already have an answer? Psychologists call this "satisficing": settling for the first option that is good enough. In chess, that reflex is exactly what makes you play a good move instead of the best one.
Lasker’s rule fights this reflex with a mechanical instruction. You see a sound move? Good: make a mental note of it, then ask one simple question: "Is there something better?" You are not abandoning your first move, you are looking for a rival to it. If nothing is better, you play your move with a clear conscience. If something is better, you have just earned a half-point or a full point.
The beginner’s mistake is not playing a bad move: it is never having looked at the others. Strength does not come from calculating ten moves in a row, but from comparing two or three good candidates before deciding.
Before you can compare, you need things to compare. This is the idea of "candidate moves," popularised by Alexander Kotov: at every important turn, identify two or three plausible moves before calculating a single one in depth. Look wide first, then dig.
A reliable method is to always examine the "forcing" moves first: checks, captures and threats. These change the position the most, so they are the ones that most often hide a move better than your first quiet reflex.
Suppose you have a "solid" line at hand: develop a piece, recapture a pawn. Your first move is fine. But Lasker’s rule forces you to scan the forcing moves, and that is where a fork sometimes appears that wins in one stroke what your quiet move would take ten moves to achieve.
In the position shown, the queen swings to h5 and attacks two targets at once: the king with a diagonal check, and an undefended bishop on the fifth rank. One move, two threats: the opponent meets the check and you pocket the bishop. That is the "better move" routine makes you miss.
Before playing a quiet move, look for checks: here Qh5+ attacks the king and, in the same action, an undefended bishop. The queen wins material because it strikes two targets at once.
The knight fork is the most profitable tactical weapon for the beginner, because no piece can "counter-attack" it: the knight leaps over everything. A canonical heuristic helps you spot it: a knight forks two pieces when they sit on squares of the same colour, a knight’s hop away. When the enemy king and rook rest on the same colour, look for the square from which the knight hits both.
Here the knight jumps to e7 with check: it attacks the king and a rook at the same time. The opponent must answer the check, and the rook falls. Spotting this motif is precisely a matter of not settling for the first developing move that comes to mind.
King and rook are on same-coloured squares within a hop: Ne7+ forks them both. The check forces the reply, then the knight wins the rook. This is the colour rule of the knight fork.
Once the candidate list is drawn up, the real work of Lasker’s rule begins: choosing between them. Very often the natural move wins "a little," while a forcing move wins "a lot" or at once. Three families of motifs especially reward the player who looks for better: the skewer, the pin and the discovered attack.
The skewer is the reverse of the pin: you attack a high-value piece, which must step aside, and you capture the lesser piece behind it. It is a motif players easily overlook, because you have to "see through" the front piece.
In the position shown, the bishop lands on b5 and attacks the queen on e2. The queen, the more valuable piece, is forced to move; as it steps aside it uncovers a rook on f1 that the bishop scoops up. The natural move might have won a pawn; this one wins the exchange. That is exactly the difference between "good" and "better."
Bb5 attacks the queen on e2; it must flee and uncovers a rook on f1, which the bishop captures. To pull off a skewer is to strike the front piece in order to win the one behind.
To carry out a pin is to attack a piece that cannot move without exposing a more valuable piece behind it. The pinned piece becomes a frozen target: you can attack it a second time and win it, or simply rely on its paralysis.
Here, after the capture on a4, a knight on c6 finds itself pinned against its own king: it can no longer move without leaving the king in check. Before playing any developing move, look for these king-piece alignments on the same line: that is where a winning pin often hides.
When you are ahead, Lasker’s rule takes on an even sharper meaning: do not settle for winning a piece if there is a mate. Many players see a comfortable capture and play it, when one more look would have revealed a decisive combination. Material is a good move; mate is the best one.
The back-rank mate is the perfect example. When the enemy king is shut in by its own pawns on the last rank, a rook or queen that breaks into that rank delivers mate at once. Before going after a laborious material gain, always check whether the opponent’s back rank is vulnerable.
The pawns f7-g7-h7 box in their own king: the rook breaks in to a8 and delivers mate, Ra8#. Before winning material, always check whether the enemy king is suffocating on its back rank.
Lasker’s rule is not only about finding brilliant moves: it also helps you convert cleanly. In the endgame, the "best move" is often the precise technique that turns an advantage into a win, where an approximate move would let the draw slip away. The player who settles for the first reasonable move loses half of his winning endgames right here.
In pawn endgames, the best move follows a crystal-clear rule: the king must lead its pawn, never follow it. A king placed in front of its pawn escorts it to promotion and wins; the same pawn pushed without its king often ends in a draw.
Be careful not to confuse two neighbouring ideas. Having the active king in front of its pawn is not the same as holding the opposition. The opposition describes two kings facing each other, one square between them, with the opponent to move: it is a tool for gaining squares. The escorting king is a matter of overall placement. Both serve to promote, but neither reduces to the other.
The white king stands in front of its pawn and escorts it to queening: an active king, a sure win. In pawn endgames, always march the king ahead of the pawn, never behind.
Here is the most spectacular illustration of Lasker’s rule. Promoting to a queen is the universal reflex: the queen is the strongest piece, so it is a "good move." But sometimes that good move is not the best one — it even throws away the win.
In this famous study, pushing the pawn to a queen would let the opponent force stalemate or win the new queen. Underpromoting to a rook avoids the stalemate and keeps the win. The hasty player queens and draws; the player who "looks for a better move" finds the rook and wins.
Lasker’s rule is only useful if it becomes automatic. There is no need to apply it on every move: that would put you in time trouble. Save it for the decisive moments — when you spot a capture, when you are ahead, when the enemy king looks exposed. Those are the instants when a better move changes everything.
In practice, get into the habit of always looking first at the forcing moves: checks, captures, threats. If after that scan your first move is still the best, play it without regret. You will have lost nothing, and you will have gained everything the day a discovery, a fork or an underpromotion was hiding just behind your reflex.
Over time, this comparison becomes instant. That is exactly the line between the player who "sees moves" and the one who "picks the right one": not more talent, but a discipline of comparison you can adopt today.
To embed Lasker’s rule, import your recent games on the analysis page and walk through the turning points flagged by the coaching: at each one, ask what better move existed. Then check the statistics page to spot your most frequent weaknesses (missed forks, pins, skewers, back-rank mates) and their percentages: that is where looking for a better move will pay off most. Finally, the natural-language explorer lets you question your own positions to compare candidates.
After Qxa4, the knight on c6 is pinned against its king and can no longer move. A pinned piece is a motionless target: you can attack it again to win it.
The discovered attack is probably the most underrated motif for the club player, because the piece that strikes is not the one that moves. A piece steps aside and unmasks the line of a piece posted behind it, which then attacks a target.
In the position shown, the knight plays to e7 with check and uncovers the queen on d1, which immediately attacks a rook on d8. The opponent must deal with the check to the king, and you win the rook. Whenever one of your pieces masks another along a file or diagonal, always ask what you would uncover by moving it.
Ne7+ checks the king and uncovers the queen on d1, which attacks a rook on d8. The discovery hits two targets: the opponent meets the check, you win the rook.
At the end of the run, queening allows stalemate; underpromoting to a rook avoids the stalemate and wins. Even promotion deserves a search for the best move, not the obvious one.
In rook endgames, knowing how to "build the bridge" of Lucena is the difference between winning and drawing an otherwise winning position. With the king in front of its pawn on the seventh rank but harassed by the enemy rook’s checks, you post your own rook to build a shelter.
Here the rook goes to c4: it will shield the king from checks long enough for the king to step out and the pawn to march to a queen. This is the precise move, the "better move," where pushing the pawn too early would lead nowhere.
The rook posts itself on c4 to build a bridge: it will protect the king from enemy checks and the pawn will go to a queen. This is the winning Lucena technique, worth knowing by heart.