michael de la maza

This man went up 700 rating points in about 2 1/4 years. as an ADULT. For those of you who dont know its extremely difficult its said to raise 100 points as an adult. his tactical ways and lessons he made can be found at chess cafe. He says in one part to get 1000 test problems, doing them in 64 days. you do them in 64 days then divide the number by 2 and do the same problems then in 32 days, until you get down to 1000 problems in 2 days then 1000 in 1 day. he says the last 3 days you will feel sick, nausious, and blood may occasionly drip from your forehead. now im all for getting better at chess but is it worth it to have your brain fall out your forehead? anyways, does anyone believe this would work? im thinking about trying it but want some outside opinions because i honestly think if you are pushing your mental capabilities so far as to bleed out youre forehead, is it that good of an idea?
-trallphaz ( i usually put the winking smiley here but that doesnt seem to fit the occasion)

GEEZ!!! This La Maza thing is getting annoying now. We talked about it so much. Just search the previous threads. As I wrote before i'm doing it and i'm almost done round 5. It got me several grey hairs but no blood and whatever else your scared about yet. It not so bad, just lots of time commitment.

Originally posted by trallphaz
This man went up 700 rating points in about 2 1/4 years. as an ADULT. For those of you who dont know its extremely difficult its said to raise 100 points as an adult. his tactical ways and lessons he made can be found at chess cafe. He says in one part to get 1000 test problems, doing them in 64 days. you do them in 64 days then divide the number by 2 and ...[text shortened]... a?
-trallphaz ( i usually put the winking smiley here but that doesnt seem to fit the occasion)

Can you post the chess cafe link to his articale? I cant find it

I guess that article was so popular because of the title which attracts us patzers like honey attract bees.
I didn't tried it however,too much time consuming and I'm a lazy man........

However here is the infamous two parts article "400 points in 400 days" by Michael de la Maza:

www.chesscafe.com/text/skittles148.pdf
www.chesscafe.com/text/skittles150.pdf

It would be more amazing to rise so quickly if he had been trying to improve without success by means other than his plan. However, he had no tournament history when he began, and may have been new to the game. Adults have a hard time improving because they do not confront their bad habits.

Michael de la Maza's first rated event gave him a provisional quick rating of 1649. See http://www.uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.php?199907094850-12775875. Yet, he tries to pass himself off as a 1300 player who won the under 2000 section of the World Open after two years of rapid improvement. Where is the evidence of deeply-rooted bad habits? He presents none.

The real story of Michael de la Maza is not in his book, and may reveal no more than a clever charlatan.

yes it works, but then any methodical study program over one year would raise your playing strength as well. in my case i went through reinfields 1001 combination book over a 10 month period and found my chess playing to be much improved. i think la maza's claim is that one can reach "A" level ability by working on tactics, which is a reasonable/realistic claim.

Originally posted by Wulebgr
It would be more amazing to rise so quickly if he had been trying to improve without success by means other than his plan.

I seem to remember him saying (maybe in the 400pts -articles?) he actually had studied with several programs before, with little or no progress. still, I'm also bit sceptical about his method. I think it's much more likely his play was otherwise good, but dropping pieces for weak tactics kept him down.

there's a community of 'knights errant' on the blogosphere, with the aim to get better throug DLM-training. here's a chart of their progress after completing DLM. I think this gives a more realistic view of what to expect improvement-wise:

http://temposchlucker.blogspot.com/2005/05/ratingprogress-of-knights-errant.html

Originally posted by trallphaz
This man went up 700 rating points in about 2 1/4 years. as an ADULT. For those of you who dont know its extremely difficult its said to raise 100 points as an adult. his tactical ways and lessons he made can be found at chess cafe. He says in one part to get 1000 test problems, doing them in 64 days. you do them in 64 days then divide the number by 2 and ...[text shortened]... a?
-trallphaz ( i usually put the winking smiley here but that doesnt seem to fit the occasion)

I was a legitimate 1100-1200 player around 1998. I started playing the chess hutlers in NYC (washington square park) I beat the first hustler i tried, after 10 tries. I was soo happy, until i learned later that he was the weakest player there🙁
no matter, i wanted to improve, so i kept playing them. Their whole game plan was to beat you with sly tactics, and the help of the clock.
After getting pounded, and losing some money in the process, i eventualy got better, and worked my way up to the stronger hustlers.
It got to the point where some wouldnt play me for money, because i got too good for them.
I transfered my playing time to the internet, and occasional OTB Tourneys. My internet blitz and 15 min rating on ICC got up to 2000, but hovers around 1800+
What i noticed was i got about 100 points per year. This is based on a lot of tactical based play. My game was mostly cheap tactics, from learning the hustlers game. When it came to playing tournament seasoned players, my game was weaker.
What stronger players say, is learn tactics when you a beginner. Of course, but the best way to improve is to also study endgames and positional play. Also study a lot of games (chessbase)
I think you need all of the elements (endgames, positional, tactics, openings, etc) together, in order to improve. The question is at what point will you need to cram each element into your head?
Right now im studying more positional ideas, but keeping an eye on tactical and endgames. Hopefully i can keep improving at my adult age.

Originally posted by RahimK
GEEZ!!! This La Maza thing is getting annoying now. We talked about it so much. Just search the previous threads. As I wrote before i'm doing it and i'm almost done round 5. It got me several grey hairs but no blood and whatever else your scared about yet. It not so bad, just lots of time commitment.

Blood? Sort of reminds of when Jesus was bleeding in the Garden Gethsemane. He knew he had to die for our sins and all and the pressure was great. I guess if you dedicated your time to chess like Jesus dedicated his life to God, you are sure to bleed after all those tactical puzzles. Incidentally, I think people should just study Lev Alburt's books and stop crying. There's 7 volumes and all, from beginner to Master. Master all of them, and you will be a master. I think I'll pass on the bleeding part.

Originally posted by powershaker
Blood? Sort of reminds of when Jesus was bleeding in the Garden Gethsemane. He knew he had to die for our sins and all and the pressure was great. I guess if you dedicated your time to chess like Jesus dedicated his life to God, you are sure to bleed after all those tactical puzzles. Incidentally, I think people should just study Lev Alburt's books a ...[text shortened]... Master. Master all of them, and you will be a master. I think I'll pass on the bleeding part.

he says the last 3 days you will feel sick, nausious, and blood may occasionly drip from your forehead. now im all for getting better at chess but is it worth it to have your brain fall out your forehead?

Grandmouster's comments were interesting. I can see a book there called, "How I Hustled the Hustlers in Chess." I'm serious. A lot of well-read chess players are getting bored with "Tal's Unbelievable Combinations" or "The Brilliant Fischer V. Russian Commie Incompetent Chess Players." I hear "Chess Bitch" is now a big seller for obvious reasons. One question of Grandmouster: How does he account for the rating difference between his blitz playing on internet and rating on RHP. See, I'm just the opposite. I have a terrible blitz rating.

Originally posted by buddy2
Grandmouster's comments were interesting. I can see a book there called, "How I Hustled the Hustlers in Chess." I'm serious. A lot of well-read chess players are getting bored with "Tal's Unbelievable Combinations" or "The Brilliant Fischer V. Russian Commie Incompetent Chess Players." I hear "Chess Bitch" is now a big seller for obvious reason ...[text shortened]... ng on internet and rating on RHP. See, I'm just the opposite. I have a terrible blitz rating.

RHP ratings are deflated because there are no strong players here.

Originally posted by buddy2
Grandmouster's comments were interesting. I can see a book there called, "How I Hustled the Hustlers in Chess." I'm serious. A lot of well-read chess players are getting bored with "Tal's Unbelievable Combinations" or "The Brilliant Fischer V. Russian Commie Incompetent Chess Players." I hear "Chess Bitch" is now a big seller for obvious reason ...[text shortened]... ng on internet and rating on RHP. See, I'm just the opposite. I have a terrible blitz rating.

Like i said, im terrible in a slow game. Thats why this is good for my chess (RHP) as i can try to take time to look for strategies. My ICC rating is a 3 min or 5 min as thats all i play (except for thousands of 1min junkie chess..🙄 )
My USCF rating is close to my RHP rating. Need to get back into slow chess, and try to get a respectible rating.
I was thinking of writing a book about the chess park. as there where plenty of intresting characters there.