When you ask a wide open question like this, you're going to get a wide variety of suggestions. Everyone's got their own opinion, so for what it's worth, here's mine. A good way to determine where to put improvement effort is to find out what part of your game is the weakest. That means analyzing your own games to pinpoint why you won or lost. I'd concentrate mostly on the losses. If you can say for certain that 90% of your losses are because you missed a 1 or 2 move tactical shot (very common for us non-titled players), it's a good bet you need to put in some time studying tactics. Use the same idea for any other aspect of the game. Having trouble analyzing your games? Post on this site and ask for help. Good luck.
I seggest getting an opening repertoire and understand the ideas behind those lines. The thing is that one would like to get a position that he knows how to play in. However it is more important to know how to play the end games well. This is as important as tactits and stragity. I also suggest playing slow games and not blitz because when you play slow games it will be easier to anlize the position. Blitz ruins that chain of thought.
Originally posted by wormerblitz teaches to see the tactics quickly. You will get wrong ideas sometimes but then you get your time to analyze. This works fine for me. When you lose because of a tactical mistake a couple of times you'll start to recognize it later very quickly. Slow analysis doesn't teach intuitive search for tactics. At least as far as I'm concerned.
I seggest getting an opening repertoire and understand the ideas behind those lines. The thing is that one would like to get a position that he knows how to play in. However it is more important to know how to play the end games well. This is as important as tactits and stragity. I also suggest playing slow games and not blitz because when you play slow games it will be easier to anlize the position. Blitz ruins that chain of thought.
I have a sheet of paper on my desk and when it is my turn to move at RHP I FORCE myself to answer these questions for every move in every game:
1 What is the threat behind my opponent's move?
2 What are my opponent's plans?
3 Where can my opponent's Queen go on the next move?
4 Is my King safe?
5 What should my plans include?
a Castle?
b Forcing moves (threats, captures, King attack)?
c Can I improve a piece's position?
d Can I improve my pawn structure?
6 In tactical situations, am I looking at variations? In-between moves? Checks? Anything that can throw off my well laid plans? 🙂
7 I found a move, is there a better one?
8 Is the move I am about to make a blunder?
I have only been using this for a couple of weeks, but I think it has helped my game improve.
1 What is the threat behind my opponent's move? Catastrophe
2 What are my opponent's plans? Total demolition
3 Where can my opponent's Queen go on the next move? everywhere
4 Is my King safe? No way
5 What should my plans include?
a Castle? Illegal
b Forcing moves (threats, captures, King attack)? Impossible
c Can I improve a piece's position? Where to start
d Can I improve my pawn structure? It's hopeless
6 In tactical situations, am I looking at variations? In-between moves? Checks? Anything that can throw off my well laid plans? No
7 I found a move, is there a better one? Loads
8 Is the move I am about to make a blunder? Yes.
Originally posted by masniakBoth DR.John Nunn and John Emms say , in the book the world's greatest chess games , that blitz games are known to be games that suck. If you look at some games played by Tal for instance you will see a lot of wild tactits. Today you do not see them as much because theory has improved. By the way the best games normally take up to 6 hours to finish.
blitz teaches to see the tactics quickly. You will get wrong ideas sometimes but then you get your time to analyze. This works fine for me. When you lose because of a tactical mistake a couple of times you'll start to recognize it later very quickly. Slow analysis doesn't teach intuitive search for tactics. At least as far as I'm concerned.