Reaching for the goal.

Originally posted by deeploser
Why do people not get better. My self for instance have read many tutorials. Purchased a game that had a nice learning mode. I do puzzles. Plan on getting a book or two. I can see myself making some progress but it doesn't seem to reflect in my games. It feels a lot like sitting on the edge of a pool almost in the water but not quite getting there. Is this ...[text shortened]... here they have 2000 games and a rating of 900. The other way around might be nice though heh.

I've advanced from 1300ish to 1600ish in 5 months and feel the difference, so I'll offer you this advice, it worked for me but I'm sure not everyone will agree.

(1) Don't worry about learning multiple openings. Learn one to some degree and stick to it. Over time you will become quite strong with the opening and you will totally understand why each piece is where it is on the board. This approach also helps with recognizing pattens and what to play next without having to work it out.
Start worring about openings when you get to the 1500+ level.

(2) Study the games you lose.
Thats the best database there is, understand what you did wrong, you will definately improve over 50+ games doing this.

(3) Heres a simple list of things I keep in mind, it really helps.
- Put rooks on open lines
- Try to pin pieces and put pressure on the pin
- Don't let your opponent pin any of your pieces if you can help it, be very wary of pieces infront of your king/queen/rooks
- Get the knights and bishops out early, save the queen for a bit
- Keep your pawn structure solid
- Don't move the same piece twice in an opening
- Keep knights away from the edge of the board
- Strong players will try and cramp you, be aware of this
- Look for loose pieces and holes in pawn structures
- If your opponent only has one bishop, start planting pieces on the opposite color
- Attack defending pieces with pawns if you can
- Pawns should defend pawns using bigger pieces is dangerous
- Two bishops against a knight/bishop in the endgame can be +ve
- Don't be afraid to open lines if you can put a controlling piece on it
- I like to advance pawns quickly once the beginning has developed
- If your making a passive move, you're handing the advantage over
- Unless your playing an 1800+ player, think they are probably not making the best move and assume there is a better move out there
- Scan all your opponents big pieces once before pressing submit
- The game is all about pattern matching, look for patterns
- If you get material up, trade pieces to simplify the game
- Chess is all about pressure, find or try and develop a small weakness, put pressure on it and cramp the opponents pieces
- The 1700+ players I really struggle with now are beating me because they are excellent at identifying or developing a weakness in your setup and they slowely delevop emense pressure on the weakness over a number of moves
- Watch how many times you fill the vodka glass late at night, its easy to get carried away when playing and start making stupid mistakes

One last one, develop your opening, then attack.
Someone one told me (i don't know if its true) that Kasparov would take on almost any master and say to them "remove one of my bishops or knights", then we'll play.
His theory was that it was just one less piece for him to develop before he acted on his game plan.

This is just a list of things I like to do and believe in, don't bother too much with openings and books until you feel like you can have a 50/50 game with a 1400+ player, learn from your own mistakes and keep a list of things that work for you in games.

Originally posted by ketan
Thats a great list of advice though Spud.. Thanks.

No problem, this simple set of rules has definately helped me quite quickly jump 300 points.

Like most things in life, chess comes naturally to some and not to others and like some people have pointed out confidence is a big factor, and experience, play more games and you will slowely get better, but only up to a point.

The stratergy books and opening theories are great but you have to reach a certain standard of play before they become greatly beneficial to you.
Some people may not agree but I believe this is because the basic fundermentals of good play come naturally to them.

Generally a 1200 or 1300 player that buys 5 books, on opening theory, end game stratergy etc...
Will certainly learn some things, but get the basics right first and study the games you lose and understand what you did wrong and keep a list of things that work for you.

Many people get stuck for life around the 1350 level even after reading 20 books and learning 10 opening variations because they do not know what to do once they have played out their memorized opening position. It frustrates them becuase they have spent so much time learning these details.

This is not ment to insult anyone just to demonstrate a point.
I often play games againt 1300 players, sometimes they play a text book opening sequence of some rarely used opening I do not understand, for 8 moves they gain a definate small tactical positional advantage, but their game usually falls apart once the opening ends because they don't know how to maintain the positional side of their pieces down the infinite paths the mid game will take.

5 months ago I usually got beat up by 1400 players, now I expect to beat them 9 out of 10 times.

There are definate flatlines out there though for your rating.

I would be really interested to hear from someone who flatlined at 1600 for 6 months then slowely raised their level to 1750 and then flatlined again. What would you put this down to?
Its not the number of games you play, was it opening statergy or things like techniques you employ to break through defenses by pinning pieces, sacrifices etc...

Equally a 1950 player will consistently beat a 1750 player, is anyone out there willing to offer some insight on what they did to break out of the 1600 range to become a 1750, or 1800 range to become a 2000 player?

My next target is 1750, if I make it over the next year i will be happy, and document how I achieved it.

If you look at the graphs of many of the highly ranked players they reach their level very quickly and quite uniformly, so they were really good players before they joined this site.

I'm interested in hearing from people who can explain through experience how they broke through barriers because chess is not a game that has a uniform learning graph, there are barriers that every player breaks at some stage and you think OMG, I now know how to play at this level.

Ok, there may be threads on how to play 1800 chess etc... but is there anyone out there who can explain through their own experience what they did to get from one 1600 to 1700, ot 1700 to 1800 etc.....

I know someone who's relation is the 3rd best player in a european country and he makes a living from playing chess tournaments, but he has told my friend he knows he will never get more than an occasional win against the 2nd and best player in his country.
He lacks something in his game and he cannot work out what it is.

Finally Kasparov like I said in my previous post can beat any master being a knight or bishop down from the opening play.
Come on Gary, tell us all how you do it, I know you play on this site.

Spud.

Originally posted by giantrobot
Do you live in a populated area? If so I would look for a club:

http://www.uschess.org/clubs/

Usually you will find a lot of free advice, not all of it good.

Yes I'm thinking of joining the Santa Monica chess club in LA.

Interestingly enough a master visteded the club 3 weeks ago.
You could pay $20 to play againt him.

He consecutivly against 40 players from the club and it cost $20 to play him.
He beat every one of the players and averaged between 10 to 40 seconds at each board per move.

One of the players is a friend of mine who is a 1600 player on this site and he knew he was beat after 12 paired moves and my friend is a good player.

Very interesting, unfortunately I could not make the event, but I'm looking forward to the next time it happens.

But it sort of amplifies the point I'm making, this guy can play just about anyone any just with a quick look at the board he will beat you.

Cheers,
Spud.

Originally posted by spud2048
I would be really interested to hear from someone who flatlined at 1600 for 6 months then slowely raised their level to 1750 and then flatlined again. What would you put this down to?
Its not the number of games you play, was it opening statergy or things like techniques you employ to break through defenses by pinning pieces, sacrifices etc...

I guess I sort of fall into that category, so I'll try to make some kind of a summary about my current status. (I'm extremely unbalanced right now though, so my experiences might not work for someone very different.) tactics on CTS is 90% of what I've been doing (200-400 problems a day), and then there's the rhp games. I used to read a lot more before, but not anymore during the last 6 months or so. I'm stronger now in tactics (around 1600 on CTS) than I was around 1600 RHP, but I think the main difference is I've become more careful. not in a passive way, but I just do less simple blunders. not careful enough, though.

I use databases in openings, but that hasn't really made any difference in my performance. it's beneficial in other ways though, like teaching you intuition about what kind of moves separate 2700s from 2300s etc (2300s try the wacky stuff, 2700's make that simple correct developing move). sort of like going through master games.

endgames haven't become an issue yet, and even if my endgame level is maybe 1500 or less, even stronger players seem to have problems surviving the middlegame against me to get there. but once there, I lose drawn and even won games against 1500s, not to mention against stronger players. that's gonna change though, as this winter I'm studying mostly endgames.

oh, and I've also raised the average rating of my opponents 200-300 points.