Hi everyone,
I was hoping I could tap into your experience. I have been playing chess for about two years, the last year plus much more seriously. I have read the Winning Chess series by Seriwan. I understand most of the main line openings, basic mating patterns, general concepts about pawn structure. For whatever it's worth, I'm rated somewhere between 1300-1400 on Yahoo.
I want to put together a good study plan, but I'm not sure what is the best way to approach it. Assuming I'm going to spend 1-2 hours a day studying, what advice would you give me? I know it's important to study tactics every day. But beyond that, would you suggest tackling one topic at a time? Say, spend a month with a good endgame book, and then move to my favorite openings? Do a little of everything all at the same time? Focus on tactics and endgames? Work through an annotated grandmaster game every day?
Anyway, if any of you have advice, I'd certainly appreciate it. I'd like to use my time as efficiently as possible.
Thanks,
Scott
Originally posted by smrex13Play...ALOT. Nothing beats experience.
Hi everyone,
I was hoping I could tap into your experience. I have been playing chess for about two years, the last year plus much more seriously. I have read the Winning Chess series by Seriwan. I understand most of the main line openings, basic mating patterns, general concepts about pawn structure. For whatever it's worth, I'm rated somewhere bet ...[text shortened]... ainly appreciate it. I'd like to use my time as efficiently as possible.
Thanks,
Scott
themaster37 is right. You need plenty of practical experience with good players. You can't get good just studying. It has to be in combination with real games. that having been said, I think study is an important component. there are very few good chess players who haven't put in a lot of time looking at endings, middlegames, and openings from great books.
Join your local club, if you havent already, that will shell shock the hell out of your chess. Also get a chess program of sorts, if you want to consistanly play against one, then get chessmaster 10 it offers quite good human style play. If you need one to offer analysis then get fritz. Some books that you should probably read. Chess for Tigers....cant quite remember who wrote it right now Webb possible and "The Art of Attack in Chess" by Vladimir Vukovic, it was wrote 1965 think, but you can pick up a revised version done by Nunn with moden notation. Play people better than yourself, poke them a lot for advice, its quite common on rhp that i yap about the moves with people though out the game, as long as they dont mind. Its good to get their ideas and views on situations. As for openings pick a couple as white and a couple as black and then go play them to death, its ok knowning a lot of openings, but you need to specilse to get good in the openings. The openings you pick should be decided by your prefered style of play, if you like locked pawns and trench warfair chess then picking something like the Evans gambit wont get you far. Find a mentor, there was a thread in this forum where some players offered their help to other chess fans.
A great book on the subject, if you want to search it out at your library is called Rapid Chess improverment a study plan for adult players by Michael de la Maza. by Globe Pequot PRESS p.o BOX 480, Goose Lane, Guilford, CT 06437 -0480 email: chess2everymanbooks.com Website www.everymanbooks.com
Some of the chapters are: 1 chess Vision Drills, 2 The seven Circles, 3How To Think, 4 Practical Tactics, 5 Success with Rapid Chess Improvement 7Thoughts On becoming an Expert And Master.
The whole book is an organized system for Improvement, but be warned, be prepared to WORK!!!
ISBN # 1 85744 269 5 (Copyright 2002, Michael de la Maza)
that should help!
working on your thinking process is my recommendation. And Dan Heiseman's Novice Nook articles at Chesscafe.com cover the subject excellently, read all his archived articles. Trying to avoid blunders and spotting tactical threats is what i'm working on as playing tons of blitz has given me a very lazy thought process!