i read 4 books to get to 1600 from 1100 last year. first i read winning chess openings by yasser seirwan and studied that for a while. after my rating rose and i hit another pleatu i read weapons of chess by bruce pandolfini. probably one of the best books for people around your rating i've ever read tons of concepts in that book that are explained. then i read attacking chess by josh waitzkin and reread some of the chapters after a while of reading it to understand some of the concepts. very good tactics book. and then i read pawn structure by andrew soltis. these books were spread out when i read them so i would read a book then raise my rating then read some more once i hit another wall. a 1600 player basically knows endgame and opening fairly well and knows how to go about the middle game pretty well. i was at 1500 before reading pawn structure by andrew soltis and trust me if you read some of those books you'd be shocked in how high you get. now that i'm at a fairly good level i find it hard to want to get a book out and study when i have games right here waiting for me. i am in the middle of strategies by yasser seirwan and that book is very helpful. good luck.
Originally posted by huckleberryhound How many hours a week do the high rated players put into their chess ?
I can't play OTB, just on the PC, so how many hours a week should i look to spend on my learning/practice ??
I want to get 1600+ on this site
Well, I wouldn't call myself a high rated player, but my rating is around 1600, so I have reached your goal. I have never calculated how much time I spend on chess, and my sense of time is not very good, but I don't spend all that much time on it. When I started, I played a lot in Chessmaster and went through Waitzkin's tutorial there. A very vague guess would be an average of 1-2 hours per day during the first few months. Then I started playing here and mostly stopped playing in Chessmaster. Since then, I have done very little besides making my moves here - sometimes a little bit of tactical training, some analysis, and I have read part of Silman's "How to Reassess Your Chess", but I think I was already over 1600 at that point. Lately I have spent very little time on my chess, which shows in my rating.
I don't spend any time (well, very little indeed) studying chess; I simply don't have time. I think if you're reasonably bright and just playing for fun you will still improve, provided you understand basic principles and learn from your mistakes. On the other hand, in my experience you won't improve much. I found I hit a level of 1600-1650ish when I was playing without databases and moving at work, and around 1750ish now I use databases and put thought into it. I don't really mind, since I play here for fun; still, it's annoying sometimes - for example I lost to Bowmann from what I later found was a fairly even position simply because he understood that position far better than me.
Originally posted by kmac27 i read 4 books to get to 1600 from 1100 last year. first i read winning chess openings by yasser seirwan and studied that for a while. after my rating rose and i hit another pleatu i read weapons of chess by bruce pandolfini. probably one of the best books for people around your rating i've ever read tons of concepts in that book that are explained. then i re ...[text shortened]... i am in the middle of strategies by yasser seirwan and that book is very helpful. good luck.
If you can get a hold of all 7 of the Winning Chess Series then do that.
That's basically all you need to get from beginner to around 1600.
If you want to improve a lot and quickly, practise tactics. Do several puzzles each day.
That's what helped me get to 1800 the quickest. Books help but it take awhile to get throught all those great books.
25 Sep '06 22:14
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