Need help getting to 1400?

Originally posted by powershaker
Simply buy Lev Alburt's Comprehensive Chess Course Series Volumes I & II, and you should easily surpass 1500 with only an hour of study a day in about six months. If you go hardcore and play through all 100 annotated games to the point you understand every move like I did, then you should approach 1700-1799. In that area. The second choice of being ha ...[text shortened]... oking for tactics combinations and themes. Anyway, just a piece of advice for you guys.

Opps I forgot to mention that. Yes, don't spend much time on openings right now till you get to 1800ish. Just play reasonable openings, move your pieces out, castle, etc...

I was trying to provide some free resources.

But ya, if you got the money go for chess books. They are great and they helped me out a lot but good thing I didn't have to buy them 🙂

any help improving my game would be awesome!

Originally posted by kaiza
any help improving my game would be awesome!

Queens are usually the most powerful pieces on the board.

next tip costs 3.99$. major credit cards accepted.

Originally posted by stevetodd
Do you use opening databases?

Any good suggestions where to find one?

Originally posted by Hellian
Any good suggestions where to find one?

I use this one: http://www.eudesign.com/chessops/ch-clear.htm (got the tip here in the forum). I am sure there are others which are far bigger, but the nice thing with this one is that it explains the idea behind the moves. It uses descriptive notation, but algebraic notation is added in parenthesis for some moves.

Originally posted by RahimK
I did already give the resources. People might have question. You guys were discussing some off topic thing which wasn't contructive to this thread that's all.

Look at it this way. Every time they continue their pointless argument, they bump your thread. However it would have been better had you put the post in the first message as people are more likely to read it.

Originally posted by Hellian
Any good suggestions where to find one?

I posted one under my suggestions on page 2. It's on the shredder site. Very easy to use.

Originally posted by zebano
Look at it this way. Every time they continue their pointless argument, they bump your thread. However it would have been better had you put the post in the first message as people are more likely to read it.

I don't like wasting my time. I wanted to see if people were interested in this topic first. Plus if they really want help, then they can search through the pages.

Originally posted by RahimK
Opps I forgot to mention that. Yes, don't spend much time on openings right now till you get to 1800ish.

I keep reading that advice at this forum. But I never read Why Not? It seems counter-intuitive Not to study openings, because naturally, we all want to get off to a good start. So Why Not Study Openings (till you get to 1800ish)?

i love chess but can't seem to gt any better, frustrating, i bought some books ( actually alot of them, chess strategies etc and they all seem to start out in the middle of a game, i bought a bobby fisher soft cover that is really old but i like its format it starts you from the beginning of a game and allows you to develop through , it seems to make more sense to me , but.. i was hopeful for other ideas since obviously i am getting nowhere, iseem to lose towards the middle to the end of every game.. and i am not quitting this very addictive game of all games . please help any and all. regards, Big b.

Originally posted by big bar
i love chess but can't seem to gt any better, frustrating, i bought some books ( actually alot of them, chess strategies etc and they all seem to start out in the middle of a game, i bought a bobby fisher soft cover that is really old but i like its format it starts you from the beginning of a game and allows you to develop through , it seems to make more se ...[text shortened]... m not quitting this very addictive game of all games . please help any and all. regards, Big b.

Hey bb, you wanna play an unrated game or two and analyse them after?

sure , sounds good. thanks knightlore.

Originally posted by big bar
sure , sounds good. thanks knightlore.

No probs, I've got my full quota of games going at the moment but as soon as I've got some room I'll message you.

Originally posted by big bar
i love chess but can't seem to gt any better, frustrating, i bought some books ( actually alot of them, chess strategies etc and they all seem to start out in the middle of a game, i bought a bobby fisher soft cover that is really old but i like its format it starts you from the beginning of a game and allows you to develop through , it seems to make more se ...[text shortened]... m not quitting this very addictive game of all games . please help any and all. regards, Big b.

Look on page 2 where I post my advice and links. That should help you. Books are only good if you read them 1 at a time and read them seriously. There is not point in having tons of books if you read them 3 of them at a time or something like that.

Originally posted by basso
I keep reading that advice at this forum. But I never read Why Not? It seems counter-intuitive Not to study openings, because naturally, we all want to get off to a good start. So Why Not Study Openings (till you get to 1800ish)?

Well in you case you are around 1600ish so you obviously know the general opening principles and you must play reasonable opening moves.

Most our games below 1800ish are not won or lost in the opening. They are because of tactics. So that time is better spent on studying tactics and endgames then on openings.

People spend hours and hours memorizing the opening moves or some system 20 moves deep and then thier opponent doesn't play that opening or they deviate and that person has no idea what to do. So basically they wasted their time learning that opening.

Or they get a slight advantage out of the opening, but they don't know what to do after that because they haven't learn stategy, endgames, tactics etc... and lose during the middle game, endgame.

So yes, play reasonable opening moves and study tactics etc...