How would you like to receive personal chess training for free?
I've been working with friends on the idea. At present, I'm rated about 2100. Of course, I want to pass the 2200 mark. That is my immediate goal.
But getting there is hard. It takes a lot of time reading and learning how to recognize many different patterns. Reading from a book can get boring, but working through these problems with a friend make the experience more enjoyable, and I think you learn the material better too.
What we are doing is creating positions from many famous books using FEN. We are using a client-side script that will create games from these positions for a list of subscribers.
I can't possible handle the entire load, so others will help in this exercise. Stronger players will play weaker players in these training positions.
As the project grows we will also need volunteers of players who are willing to participate in these games as the stronger player.
As we go through these exercises we will be able to rate them according the the Elo system.
If you know the basic mates, i.e., KQ-K, KRR-K, KR-K, KBB-K then you will be able to help those who have not learned these basic techniques yet.
If you are more advanced and know how to win with KBN-K or KQ-KR then there are many players who would like to learn this too.
If we find that there needs to be a forum for discussion of these positions, then we will find one. Maybe the owners of this site will provide such a forum.
Chess is life, and what a great life it is!
Kenn E. Thompson,
alias petrovitch
P.S. Personally, I enjoy learning to use abstract knowledge in games where the horizontal limitations of humans and computers can not calculate the variations seen in my head. You too can learn how to do this.
My favorite authors are Jeremy Silman, Paul Keres, and Mark Dvoretsky. We will be practicing a lot of material from their books. I strongly suggest any books ever printed by these authors.
If anyone is interested, then send me a message telling me that you want to be added to our list of subscribers. Then expect exercises to start coming. You can delete any exercises that you don't want to play, or contact me and I will remove your name from the list. Let me know too, if you are interested in helping others.
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but aren't there tools already available to accomplish this:
- Personal Chess Trainer for key endgame, strategic and tactical positions
CTS for tactics
- CT-Art for Tactics
- Chess Position Trainer for drilling opening positions, etc.
So, what's the key difference here?
Originally posted by ChesswickYou forgot
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but aren't there tools already available to accomplish this:
- Personal Chess Trainer for key endgame, strategic and tactical positions
CTS for tactics
- CT-Art for Tactics
- Chess Position Trainer for drilling opening positions, etc.
So, what's the key difference here?
-Jeremy Silman for patronising.
Originally posted by Chesswickthey lack the comments made by a strong player.
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but aren't there tools already available to accomplish this:
- Personal Chess Trainer for key endgame, strategic and tactical positions
CTS for tactics
- CT-Art for Tactics
- Chess Position Trainer for drilling opening positions, etc.
So, what's the key difference here?
The difference is that you will be playing with people. One of the biggest problems with software such as the PCT is that it doesn't allow for alternative variations. For example, there are several winning variations to the Lucena Position with a knight-pawn. The user is not allowed to visit these alternatives with any software that I am aware of.
Besides, you don't have to participate. Some people play just for fun and are satisfied with their current rating. I am not, and want to improve.
I'm going through several positions with petrovich, so I thought I'd add some comments.
This has proven very helpful thus far. It has the benefit of being able to drill specific positions while being able to actually discuss it as you might in an OTB analysis with an opponent or teacher. So far it's been a lot of fun and helpful to elucidate key abstractions to endgame positions.