Originally posted by RahimKYou can see chess positions in your head? Wow that is amazing.
I see chess positions in my head, I solve them in my head. Since I've been on this break this has stopped.
Maybe going back to the chess club and playing with those great pieces and the environment will bring back the fun. I'll try that out sometime.
Originally posted by RahimKRead the last line of my post. This isn't a way to get real improvement and I will give more tips for real improvements later. Manipulating your rating is skullduggery but so easy here. I'm struggling getting above 1925 at the moment and if I can't get to 2000 I certainly can't advise on it although I do not indulge in skullduggery.
You disappoint me.
Just a few more pointers in this area though - check your opponents profile and his peaks and troughs and if you are going to lose resign it when you think he has hit his peak. If you are winning try and delay your win until his rating improves if it is on the up by using your time strategically. Conversely if his rating is plummeting due to lots of time outs it may be wise to take your win as soon as possible unless you expect him to come back and his rating to rise again when, if you are winning, you should not take the time out as you will get more points once his grade gets back up. However, hold on to those losses as a time out might convert them to wins.
Edit: and Tactics, of course no matter what your rating we get them wrong so work on not missing those critical moves in your fancy combinations and always be alert to the possibility of fancy combinations.
Originally posted by Dragon FireI did read it.
Read the last line of my post. This isn't a way to get real improvement and I will give more tips for real improvements later. Manipulating your rating is skullduggery but so easy here. I'm struggling getting above 1925 at the moment and if I can't get to 2000 I certainly can't advise on it although I do not indulge in skullduggery.
Just a few more po ...[text shortened]... ves in your fancy combinations and always be alert to the possibility of fancy combinations.
But because you suggested it. What kind of example are you trying to set? As an example, would you proud of a newbie reading that for your first post?
What opinion would he form about Dragon Fire?
Disappointing.
Originally posted by RahimKOK! You are right! It was a bit tongue in cheek and my last line did say, " By my definition this tip is cheating. Almost as bad as using an engine in my opinion but so what if you have no morals", so I am not really advocating it seriously. More serious tips will come.
I did read it.
But because you suggested it. What kind of example are you trying to set? As an example, would you proud of a newbie reading that for your first post?
What opinion would he form about Dragon Fire?
Disappointing.
Originally posted by Dragon FireHahaha, I'm just having some fun but seriously I would not give a tip like that or even suggest it.
OK! You are right! It was a bit tongue in cheek and my last line did say, "[b] By my definition this tip is cheating. Almost as bad as using an engine in my opinion but so what if you have no morals", so I am not really advocating it seriously. More serious tips will come.[/b]
That's the kind of things that tick people off. Wouldn't you hate it if you were winning and all of sudden your opponent stopped moving and started using his timebank etc...and you get your win after months and barely getting any points for it.
Originally posted by RahimKI hate it with a vengence. You know I do, you have previously read my posts else where about timeouts. I don't like them and will raely take them if theres a game to be played.
Hahaha, I'm just having some fun but seriously I would not give a tip like that or even suggest it.
That's the kind of things that tick people off. Wouldn't you hate it if you were winning and all of sudden your opponent stopped moving and started using his timebank etc...and you get your win after months and barely getting any points for it.
But, heck, we talking about getting your rating up by far means or foul.
... and hey, I just found my rating peaked at 2170 not 2050 as I thought. I got the conversion wrong so look out 2000, here I come!
- Joined
- 21 Apr 06
- Moves
- 4211
I'd work at getting around 2000 OTB and your correspondence rating will toe the same line more or less.
Things like tactics help, but around 1700-1800 most players are strong tactically (just about the easiest thing ever to study), you need to start to develop different areas of your game.......a lot of this can sometimes appear pointless. I spent months on king and pawn endings learning all the in and and outs...how many times have I seen king and pawn ending during the last 3 OTB seasons? Once......does this mean that learning K+P endings was a waste of time? Certainly not, a lot of the principles from K+P endings can be used in other endgames and you also have to know if you can trade down or not.
What im trying to say is for example even if you are a mad attacking player who doesnt like quiet games you will have to study quiet games and the technique for playing them to some extent or other .......basicly you have to become a more rounded player. It scary how sometimes a person can see a 6 move tactical combo but not which squares to put the knights on.
Peoples chess abilities are never say 1800 across the board, you will be 1700 opening, 1900 endings, 2200 tatically, 1600 in closed quiet positions, 1900 in open positions etc etc
By studying your strong points (as many of us like to do) you wont really improve your rating a great deal because you arent solving what is holding you back. I think all of us know some of our weak points in chess.......ask yourself which openings you loath and why, then work out the reasons for the why and patch those up.
I imagine if you could mesh together all the best parts of say 10-15 1800 players you would end up with someone around 2100-2200.
Originally posted by BedlamOr just do what I do and experiment with your opening (and opening style) every couple of months. I don't do this in round 2+ of RHP tournies or my french defense clan games, but you can find a small smattering of 1. e4 e5, sicillian and even 1. d4 games in my history. Mainly I would do this at your local club where you have other people available to offer suggestions. In particular I try to intentionally play for open games w/ complications when I feel that area is getting especially weak. My closed games also need work, but I play the english and french enough that those positions occur naturally.
I'd work at getting around 2000 OTB and your correspondence rating will toe the same line more or less.
Things like tactics help, but around 1700-1800 most players are strong tactically (just about the easiest thing ever to study), you need to start to develop different areas of your game.......a lot of this can sometimes appear pointless. I spent months ...[text shortened]... er all the best parts of say 10-15 1800 players you would end up with someone around 2100-2200.
Disclaimer: This requires that you put serious effort into these games. Blitzing out moves is not condusive to learning at any level.
Originally posted by BedlamWe are back to
I'd work at getting around 2000 OTB and your correspondence rating will toe the same line more or less.
Things like tactics help, but around 1700-1800 most players are strong tactically (just about the easiest thing ever to study), you need to start to develop different areas of your game.......a lot of this can sometimes appear pointless. I spent months ...[text shortened]... er all the best parts of say 10-15 1800 players you would end up with someone around 2100-2200.
4. Study your games, learn from your weaknesses and adjust your play accordingly.
You need to know why you are losing and this means analysing every lost game. This is a good time to use an engine to help you findn those key swings but its no good just relying on the engine to identify the point you need to work on it and understand why. You will find one of 3 things:-
i. you keep messing up the opening but salvage some games in the middle game. Is it all openings or just some openings? Identify which you are struggling with, buy a good book (if you can afford it) and put some study in. Here, on RHP, is a great place for this as you can simultaneously play dozens of games with the same opening. If you still find some openings are bad for you maybe its time to ditch them. For example you might find you lose most games with the Caro Kann but win most with the French. Once you know this forget about the former and concentrate on the latter. Do this with all the openings you tend to play.
ii. you come out of the opening alright but mess up the middle game. This is usually down to tactics or poor strategic decisions. I lose many games here often just over looking a single move. Within limits you can forget about such simple blunders that you should really see as they are not down to a lack of knowledge or ability. They are down to a lack of concentration, playing too fast (blitz) or being so focused on your plan that you forget completely about his moves. To avoid this ensure you don't rush even the simplist moves, look at everything within a position, every move because the dynamics do change and alwys try and see his plan. More complex blunders are mistakes of strategy and tactics and we come back here to the basic need to focus and practise these until you can accurately calculate deep combinations.
iii. the ending. By now I hope you are not getting to a won ending and losing it but if you are identify the sort of endings you struggle with and put in some serious study. In many ways endings can be simple but sometimes they despite the shortage of pieces they are the most complex in the game. R v B and R & 3P vs R & 2Ps are some of the most complex despite relatively few pieces. If you can't win these don't exchange off into them.
focus on the phase of play that loses most often for you as you will get the best results here
- Joined
- 21 Apr 06
- Moves
- 4211
Heres something that I dont do but it will tend to get you more points(I certainly know iv lost points because I havent followed this advice).....adjust your game for who you are playng against. I often love to create chaos on the board and will go seeking complications even against lower rated players........this isnt a totally wise idea in regards to your rating. Against lower players you should keep the games quiet and just win from technique, against players your own ratings play your own game and against those higher rated make it chaotic and messy, at the end of the day you will take more points home.
- Joined
- 21 Apr 06
- Moves
- 4211
Also at 2000+ you need to concentrate on the thought process side of the game a lot more than you have previously. You dont only need to examine the weak parts of your theory but also the weak parts of your thought process, when you make a mistake was it really down to lack of theory or was it down to something along the lines of bad visualization? not being impartial? over looking something?etc
I guess the easiest way is to think of it like a car ok you have great fuel (theory) being pumped into the car but its being run through a naff engine (thought process) so the results are hardly maximized.
I dropped my thought process into the 1600 thread, i'll copy and paste it here too.
1. Define areas of control.
This is basicly something that iv learned from IM Bangievs square strategy training(although I do it a little different to his recommendation). The first thing I do on each move to to look at the area I control and the area the other player controls. This helps show yours and their general strong and weak points of the board, just to get an over all feel for the game.
2. Define direction of attacks.
So you know the area that you control (where your pieces are coordinated) now you need to find in which direction you want to attack, pieces can normally only work well when working together on one part of the board, so you need to group them and coordinate them there.
3. Square complex/colour weaknesses (maybe the most important)
A lot of the middle game of chess is all about square colour. You can only attack one colour at a time, if you try to play on black and white, then your pieces automaticly become uncoordinated, however once you define which colour you want to play on and get all your pieces controling squares of that colour you will find a flow to the game and the other player will find it very hard to stop you from moving around on the colour you control. Try to limit your colour weaknesses and if you have one, trade off the other players pieces that can control the weak squares.
4. Enemy pieces to be challenged (traded).
I expect everyone knows what the pieces are worth, pawns = 1 knights =3 bishops = 3+ rooks = 5 and queen =9........... well thats a good lie. The piece values are never static, for example at the start of the game the rooks in the corners are basicly pointless and after 1.Nf3 the knight is better than the rooks (at least for that move) since it is doing something and the rooks arent. You have to make pieces work for you in the most effective way, which normally means centralisation, a cental piece will control more squares. If a bishop can control more squares than a rook, or more important squares then the bishop is worth maybe 5 and the limited rook is worth 3.5 etc, its all about your judgement. You have to look at each piece and give it a value, a rating, how good is this piece etc. Once you have worked out how good each piece is you then know which one of your pieces you need to keep on and which of the enemy pieces you need to trade, if you can trade your bad pieces for their good pieces you will find yourself winning effortlessly.
5. Own pieces to use and how.
Pretty much like the last one, you are aiming for max amount of control with your pieces, finding good squares for them or exchanging them for better enemy pieces.
6. Enemy plan
Work it out!
7. Your plan
Get one!! ie, short term improving piece position, controling a colour, challenging the other players good pieces. Maybe move a pawn to take away a good square from an enemy piece (mainly knight), but also have a long term plan, like kingside attack, on central breakthrough.
8. Look for tactical chances.
Weak king
Undefended piece
Weak pawns
Overloaded piece
etc
If they have only one weakness dont attack it, ie if a piece is undefended DONT attack it leave it undefended because the only way tactics or combinations happen is the rule of two weaknesses. You need to hit two weaknesses at once for a tactic to work, so dont help the other player and pointless attack things forcing them to strengthen their position.
9. Positional moves
If theres no tactical tries then its time to use everything you looked at and judged in the position and start to list candidate moves. Once you have the moves, caculate and find the best one for you.
Imrpoving the position of your pieces.
Trading good enemy pieces
Taking away good squares from their pieces
Trying to control a colour complex
Gain space
Controling center
Controling open files
Prophylaxis moves (ie taking care of your own weaknesses, undefended pieces, exposed king etc etc)
etc
I am happy with the way this thread is going now. Some really good ideas from Bedlam but what about you other 2000+ players. Tell us unfortunates a bit more about how you think as I believe that its the way players think about their games that tend to be the main difference between strong and middling players rather than just opening/endgame theory and tactics.
I have half a dozen more ideas to post here but not all at once so some may get covered in part which is no bad thing.