Originally posted by king cirefanalize your games... notice not only what mistakes you made but at what parts of the game you were feeling confident/confused/etc..
how does one go about recharging confidence in ones game? been playing afew years and seem to have hit a spot where i can not seem to make the right moves or rush into a situation that always favors the opponent..i am not going to stop playing just dont want to get worse!
keep up the tactics too 🙂
Punctuated equilibrium -- Stephen Gould's contribution to the theory of evolution -- serves as a metaphor for a typical pattern of chess improvement. Most players see a series of slopes and plateaus in their chess performance over time. Lots of hard work will produce dramatic improvement in performance, then even harder work will seem to lead to no gain or even modest setbacks. This frustrating experience is normal. Don't fret. Just keep working. The gains will come in time, but the higher you get the harder it becomes to see the results of your gain in knowledge and skill.
Originally posted by king cirefIt is called The Wall. Keep hitting the wall and you will progress.
how does one go about recharging confidence in ones game? been playing afew years and seem to have hit a spot where i can not seem to make the right moves or rush into a situation that always favors the opponent..i am not going to stop playing just dont want to get worse!
Originally posted by king cirefTo get better...you have to get worse...sad as it may sound.
how does one go about recharging confidence in ones game? been playing afew years and seem to have hit a spot where i can not seem to make the right moves or rush into a situation that always favors the opponent..i am not going to stop playing just dont want to get worse!
I bet you are playing the same old openings...after awhile you just go with them and then your brain is not really thinking about making good moves...mainly because you are so stuck in book you just do what it says without really seeing the reasoning behind the move itself.
I hit that wall many years ago and was ordering some stuff from Chess Digest and actually got to talk to Ken Smith and he convinced me to start playing gambits and offbeat lines.
He told me you will play alot harder down a pawn right off the bat as well as playing openings that some people think are "unsound". If your tactics are good enough ANY opening is playable.
So maybe switching up your rerpetoire and working harder on your tactics...you might see a fall in your rating...but if you really work at it I assure you it will go back up and then get you over that wall.
Dave
I went through some of this when I began OTB play. Without knowing you and your game, I can't give much specific advice; however, I can offer some, and it will be worth everything you paid for it. There are three phases to chess games; opening, middle and endgame play. If any of these phases is not as solid as you think it can be, then you can get some well written books on the subject. For endgame play, I would first recommend Pandolfini's Complete Engame Course. If you are beyond this level, then go for Practical Rook and Pawn Endgames or something more advanced. For middlegame play, I recommend Jeremy Silman's Reassess Your Chess. This is what allowed me to break into the next level, which isn't saying much for me. It is a very good book for late beginners like myself. I was very solid on my basic tactics and had some reasonable opening repitoir, but didn't know what to do when I got out of book. Silman's book fixed that for me. Now I am trying to practice what is in that book. You will also need a coherant opening repitoir. This is a matter of choosing openings that feel right for you and then learning the main lines and why those moves are part of the main line. It doesn't do you much good to know to play 6. BxN if the joker moved his knight the previous move. Why was he supposed to make another move? Can you exploit his novelty?
Finally, you will help yourself by analyzing your own games. If you don't know about middle game play, this won't help much because you won't know what you are looking for. But many of us have found that a chess computer program such as Fritz is a gold mine for training. After you play a game, copy the moves into a word file using a two column format. Begin making notations after every move you have any ideas about. I even include opening information I have already memorized because I sometimes share my annotated games with others. While you are doing this, have Fritz chew on the same position. Fritz will show you lines that you often didn't consider. From this you will start to learn of tactical resources for you that you did not know of before. You will also find out, very often, your opponent had you busted but didn't realize it. Avoid that line in the future. Create a notebook of your own annotated games and reread them from time to time. You don't have to spend $100 on Fritz or some other chess engine. Buy the previous edition, like version 9 when version 10 hits the market. So what if your new program plays only 2530 but you could have had the 2610 strength version. If you are like me, that doesn't amount to a snowball in Hades.
If you use these methods and apply yourself, you will get better. I think you could gain 200 pts a year, maybe more. But you have to do the work. Good Luck.