How Do I get Better?

Originally posted by basso
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. I ...[text shortened]... l those skills together and actually play entire games. Why should chess be any different?...

Because it is? Thats the worst piece of advice iv ever seen......in baseball all the player has to do is throw the ball,catch the ball, bat the ball, run and 95% of his job is done.....at any one time they arent expected to do much more. In chess you have to bring everything you know together as one its not just enough practicing tactics or stategy or openings or endings you have to see how they fit into a game and using them in proper games not as abstract forms of mini games. Chess is much more complex than baseball in baseball each player has a very limited amount of jobs they have to do on the pitch thus can concentrate on honing those skills in one off practices sessions and then slide into a game without much difficulty since they will pretty much know what specific job will be requred of them...in chess the amount of stuff one player has to learn is a lot vaster and how to apply it in any given situation seems much more complex...unlike a baseball player who goes out knowing he will have to bat then feild a chess player has very little idea of whats going to happen beyond the fact that its going to be a chess game, this is why most masters advise playing regular chess to help improve. The Path to Improvement by Kelly Atkins with S. Evan Kreider the worlds most expensive beer mat! 😛

Edit - just looked it up....its not a book but a chessville article, trying to find Kelly Atkins rating.......

The only Kelly Atkins I can see in the USCF is around 1100 which sounds just about right for that advice.

Originally posted by Bedlam
As shocking as this is, I find myself agreeing with Grandmouster for once.

And why should we agree with any of your comments?
Who are you?

Well, now, what's a guy to think? I thought Atkins' article made a lot of sense, but then, I am pretty new to the study of chess. Maybe baseball wasn't the best sport to compare chess to. Take tennis. Look at the myriad skills a tennis player must bring to bear in the game. I am sure they, too, spend most of their time practicing.

Maybe the answer lies somewhere between the two positions, like one of those formulas that advise something like spending half your time studying and half playing games.

Theres no doubt to the benifit of tactical study etc, but you must play chess to improve having a tactics problem in front of you and solving it is very different to creating a tactically loaded position in a game and then even spotting that a concrete tactical shot exists. I found my improvement doesnt come from study, it tends to come from study and then games, putting what you've learnt into practice and working it into your game.

Hey guys cut the crap. I dislike the way a nice juicy discussion about chess is started and then peeps come along and hijack the thread. What are private forums there for? This is not a mickey mouse site.

The OP is probably scared of coming to see his thread discussed.

In his "Guide to Good Chess", IM Cecil Purdy (the first World Correspondence Champion) said that you don't learn much by playing games. He said the one "infallible" way of improving is to study well-annotated master games and try to guess the next move.

I think one can become a very strong player by reading Chernev's classic "Logical Chess: Move by Move" and by solving relatively simple tactical excercises.

Hello everyone. I had forgotten about this thread but i checked it recently so I thought of posting here. I have improved alot and my rating has reached 1469 which I feel I can improve more.

Thanks