One of the best articles I have read on improving one's chess game can be found at Chessville.com. Here's an excerpt:
"The plan which I'm suggesting may not be right for everyone, but it works for the majority of us. The basic outline of my plan is this: Master basic tactics, then basic endings, then study basic positional play and strategy, then learn basic opening principles, and finally bring it all together by playing over a collection of games with light notes or study a book like Chernev's Logical Chess Explained Move By Move. Then you'll be ready to learn a basic opening repertoire. Learn it and play it for at least a year, until you know it as well as anyone. Don't jump around and switch from opening to opening. Next, repeat the process, only with more advanced books, then repeat this process again using even more advanced books, and keep on until you reach the 2000 rating level. All the while, keep a book of tactical problems at hand and spend some time on them EVERY day. By the time you get to the 2000 level, you'll know what specific areas you need to work on from there on out.
"Now let’s look at the plan in detail from the beginning:
"What I'd recommend first is that you get a good book of chess problems and spend some time every single day, no matter what, solving a few of them. Polgar's 5334 Chess Problems or Combination Challenge by Hays & Hall are both great. This will build up your tactical skills, teach you how the pieces work together, and keep your vision of the board sharp. For most players, start with the Polgar book. Advanced players can skip straight to Combination Challenge, but only if ALL the material in the Polgar book is easy for you and has already been mastered."
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Originally posted by KhanI'm struggling to improve as well, but I can provide you with a couple of sites which I hope will help. I'm hoping they'll help me as well.
Hello
I have been working hard for the last few months to get good in chess and to get a real player. Can someone become my adviser or give me good net sites.
Thanks
Chesstactics.org
Chesscafe.com (see novices nook)
Originally posted by bassoSounds ok, but the best way to improve is play a lot of rated OTB tournamants.
One of the best articles I have read on improving one's chess game can be found at Chessville.com. Here's an excerpt:
"The plan which I'm suggesting may not be right for everyone, but it works for the majority of us. The basic outline of my plan is this: Master basic tactics, then basic endings, then study basic positional play and strategy, then learn bas ...[text shortened]... ALL the material in the Polgar book is easy for you and has already been mastered."
Originally posted by KhanGet a good book of chess and work your way through the examples. I'll bet you do not know what a fork/discovered attack is right?
Hello
I have been working hard for the last few months to get good in chess and to get a real player. Can someone become my adviser or give me good net sites.
Thanks
Originally posted by GrandmousterThe point in the article to which I refered in my earlier post, which fascinated and enlightened me, flatly contradicts this notion of playing games to improve. Here's the opening paragraphs of the article making the point:
Sounds ok, but the best way to improve is play a lot of rated OTB tournamants.
The Path to Improvement
by Kelly Atkins with S. Evan Kreider
"What's the best way to improve at chess?" We've all asked ourselves that question a thousand times. If it were any other subject besides chess, we'd probably already know the answer: follow the path to wisdom in that field that has been blazed by others. For some reason though, the vast majority of us approach studying and improving in chess in the most haphazard and inefficient manner possible, trying everything except the tried and true methods that more experienced players advise, and the methods that are applied in almost every other field of knowledge.
With chess, most of us skip around. For example, we start studying a particular part of the game and then jump to something else. Or we read the first three chapters of a book, and then start a different book. We also study material that's far too advanced for us at that time. For example, we spend months studying an advanced opening monograph when we haven't mastered basic opening theory. Or we read My System when we haven't studied basic positional play first. Or we read The Art of the Attack when we haven't studied basic tactics first.
The end result is that our understanding of the game is completely fragmented. We know a thousand things, but we can't put them all together into a cohesive whole. Because of this, we never advance very far. No wonder most of us never rise above the Intermediate classes. We are a screwed up bunch of people! :-)
This is NOT how we learn most other things. In school, we have to read Fun With Dick And Jane before we tackle War And Peace. Before we learn to build an entire house, we have to learn to saw boards, drive nails, and so on. Before we get to play Carnegie Hall, we have to learn chords, scales and “Chopsticks” first. In fact, it's hard to imagine any skill or field of knowledge that we could master without learning the basics first and following some type of structured learning regimen.
If you go to the spring training camp of a Major League baseball team, you can learn a lot about how to master chess. These guys have been playing baseball almost every single day of their lives for 20 or 30 years. They're the best in the world, the GMs of their sport! You don't often see them playing actual baseball games during spring training, though. Instead, there they are, the masters of their sport, breaking the game down into its individual components and going through the same drills that the little leaguers are doing: They stand at the plate and face dozens of curve balls until they master hitting them. They shag fly balls for hours until they can do it perfectly. They field grounders by the hundreds until they can do so error-free. They practice base running, throwing, catching, etc., over and over until they can do it in their sleep. THEN they begin to put all those skills together and actually play entire games. Why should chess be any different?...