Multiple books?

Hello everyone - I recently hired a coach who gave me a homework assignment consisting of 45 min. a day on tactics + 45 min. a day on my endgame book + 45 min. a day on my openings book + 4-5 live ​online games on another site. I do have time for this since I'm semi-retired and work only 3-4 hrs. a day, but this is pretty difficult for me because it's difficult to mentally shift gears between 3 different books, all in the same day. Is this a good system or would it be better to start one book and finish it before moving on to another?

What say you?

@mchill

I expect everyone will be different and soon a study routine that suits you will
be established. 45 minute burst would not do for me. I would do tactical puzzles
for hours on end, usually in the form of playing over short games, this way you
pick up on plausible opening errors in all openings.
The same pattern of tricks, traps and pitfalls pop up in all openings,
I enjoyed doing this, still do, If you enjoy doing something like that then it works.

Endings I spent a day or two mastering the basics and every now then re-tune
them, especially Rook Endings, though OTB a majority of my games never made
endings and I won a large amount of OTB games under 25 moves due to a sharp
eye for opening errors (years of playing over short games.) and a handful of
opening traps.

I know a good endgame knowledge works at our level.
I had a team mate who did nothing but study endings. He would turn losses or
drawn games into wins as if by magic!
I enjoy solving endgame studies. Again the enjoyment factor.

45 minutes max on an opening just sounds silly. What are you going to do in 45
minutes except memorise a handful of lines. You need complete well explained
games from the opening you are studying...not memorising...studying.

And be aware that at the under 2000 level games very rarely follow any book for
more that 6-7 moves after that you are on your own. all you have to fall back on
is ideas from the games you have studied and avoid (or set) two move middle game
tricks as this is where the vast majority of under 2000 games are won or lost.

But give the 45 minute specials a try, it may suit you though you could have got
advice (like now) for free from any other member and they will have other methods
that will give you studying ideas. I can only give you what I know worked for me.

Get Tarrasch's Best Games by Reinfeld and go through every game. You will pick
up loads of good stuff - that was the book that gave me a massive lift.
It is highly rated amongst my generation. One of those books that time will never age.

@mchill
The following doesn't directly address your question, but I thought it might be useful anyway.

From seeing the games you posted from the Oregon Class Championships, I remarked that you often failed to post your rooks effectively or to use pawn breaks to open a file for them. I'd also said that developing this skill would increase your strength by several hundred points, and I still subscribe to this.

In the belief that many players have trouble in this area, I decided to write a series of articles on selecting middlegame pawn breaks.

@greenpawn34 said
@mchill

I expect everyone will be different and soon a study routine that suits you will
be established. 45 minute burst would not do for me. I would do tactical puzzles
for hours on end, usually in the form of playing over short games, this way you
pick up on plausible opening errors in all openings.
The same pattern of tricks, traps and pitfalls pop up in all o ...[text shortened]... assive lift.
It is highly rated amongst my generation. One of those books that time will never age.

Does anyone know any good videos on you tube etc. briefly explaining the different openings and defenses. Rather than figuring them out during each game it would help me to just recognize them and know their basic goals.

@mike69 said
Does anyone know any good videos on you tube etc. briefly explaining the different openings and defenses. Rather than figuring them out during each game it would help me to just recognize them and know their basic goals.

YouTube

@mchill said
You might try the one below, though IMHO there is no way to "briefly" do what you're asking. My only piece of advice is to learn a little about all the openings and defenses and a great deal about a few. Hope this helps. 🙂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrECiDJoXoE

@mchill said
FM David Levin and Greenpawn. Thank You for your input. 🙂

@greenpawn34

Until recently I haven't had enough experience or understanding to make good use of a chess database, but what you wrote about studying short games plus the observation that a majority of sub-2000 games are decided before the endgame gave me some ideas for search queries (e.g., French Defense where Black wins by move 25, and the complementary search where White wins), so now I am happily playing/"researching" with SCID plus the current Caissabase.

@mike69 said
Thank you, I see what your saying. He’s a little hard to follow and bounces around. Maybe I should just look at a few common ones used. Im not really worried about the moves themselves as each creates its own strengths and weaknesses if you look hard enough. I guess maybe just to recognize after a few moves to some degree of what it’s designed to attack for a heads up???