- Joined
- 12 Aug 06
- Moves
- 5380
OK, here's the story. On August 2006, I decided on to take chess more seriously. I started to go to a chess club weekly, playing games with the people weekly. I downloaded ICC and found out this site. A friend of mine in America sent me a lot of books to me, Silman's books, the Winning Chess series, The Art of Attack, Pirc Alert, Starting Out: The King's Indian and a bunch of Turkish chess books.
He's really fond of chess 🙂
Anyway, now here I am, with about 30 chess books, CM 10th Edition, Fritz 9, CT Art 3.0, and I don't even have a single idea to what to do!!
I've created threads for little problems that I can't find a solution for (ie: the Bg4 pin).
I still play games, but doing that alone do not help my game, and Blitz is useless as I found out that it is based on "smarting out" the opponent with good time management.
I rank usually the 15th-20th in local tournaments, usually starting out losing the first 2 or three games, than winning the other ones, having a 4/7 winning record.
I hope the answers for my questions will help other beginners about which threads and books to read and ways to improve 🙂
Thank you for reading this long post, and if you didin't, shame on you! 🙂
http://chess.emrald.net/ - My new favorite chess site, posted on here and it's a very cool site where the problems aren't just mate in one or mate in two. There are some where you might be mating or might be gaining material. Point being is you never know until you do the puzzle.
And did you do the tutorials in CMX? They are great in my opinion. If you've done them once then do them once more. Go on it and do the king + queen/rook against king endings at least until you're confident you can do them with your eyes closed standing backwards and upside down without stalemating the king. Do even the kids tutorials, they are nice too.
In my own progress I feel like I'm right on the verge of doing a lot better but it seems just beyond my grasp. In my post "Reaching for the goal" I sounded pessimistic but wasn't trying to.
I know one more book isn't going to do much good but you can go here and download some http://www.mediamax.com/peart555 often down due to bandwidth limitations.
Originally posted by anthiasWow, you have every book I own and more
OK, here's the story. On August 2006, I decided on to take chess more seriously. I started to go to a chess club weekly, playing games with the people weekly. I downloaded ICC and found out this site. A friend of mine in America sent me a lot of books to me, Silman's books, the Winning Chess series, The Art of Attack, Pirc Alert, Starting Out: The King's Ind ...[text shortened]... prove 🙂
Thank you for reading this long post, and if you didin't, shame on you! 🙂
The winning chess series and the Silman books are gold... The Art of Attack is another winner...
I also have Pirc Alert... The biggest thing is that all that stuff is useless unless you read it... and you can't really get much from reading all of that without some point of reference from your own games.
I haven't finished reading The Art of Attack because of all of the variations... it takes a year to get through those books for me.
they have pgns online that you can use to accompany the books so you don't have to set up the board 1 million times.
Also, depending on how much you know already... the CM 10th lessons, lectures and drills are very helpful... Just be patient and keep working.
If chess was very easy to master it wouldn't still be around.
Originally posted by anthiasAbout the only "must read" book, IMO, for the aspiring chess player is "Logical Chess: Move by Move" by Iiving Chernev.
OK, here's the story. On August 2006, I decided on to take chess more seriously. I started to go to a chess club weekly, playing games with the people weekly. I downloaded ICC and found out this site. A friend of mine in America sent me a lot of books to me, Silman's books, the Winning Chess series, The Art of Attack, Pirc Alert, Starting Out: The King's Ind ...[text shortened]... prove 🙂
Thank you for reading this long post, and if you didin't, shame on you! 🙂
You need to know basic endgames, so I would suggest "Pandolfini's Endgame Course."
Studying tactics is very important. Any book with lots of problems to solve is useful for that purpose.
Finally, you might want to consider putting together an opening repertoire to use in your "serious" games. (In offhand games, play a lot of different openings.)
Above all, have fun!!!
play a lot of games on your computer, play a lot of games at the club, and don't drag out lost games for an hour, resign and start a new game where you might learn something. play a lot of fairly fast games, it's better to play 10 quick games at the club instead of one two hour game, you'll learn more.
yeah play more blitz games i would say,5-12 rather than 5-0 or shorter games.I think it shld prepare u more for tourneys where tie breakers r essential while playing even opponents.Also try,try,try tactics.Positional concepts r easier to learn.But tactics needs practice..Don't concentrate too much on openings.However hard u try them unless u know how to continue the game properly u can't make a win out of them.Study endgames well.As far as possible when playing stronger opponents keep the position as simple as possible..
I agree with whoever wrote to study endgames. My personal favorite endgame book is Reuben Fine's Basic Chess Endings. It is thorough and instructive.
Endgame study is, in my opinion, the quickest way to improve as it helps you in developing plans to arrive in won endgames in games where you cannot get a win in the middlegame or a decisive material advantage.
Are you familiar with opposition, triangulation, Philidor's position, Lucena? These are all terms that will at one time or another help you win or draw a game. Extremely important to know these back and forth.
BV
- Joined
- 21 Jun 06
- Moves
- 82236
Originally posted by anthiasI've looked at some of your games and noticed a few things.
Any more comments?
Often you do not develope your pices fast enough. This is really important. Often you move a lot of pawns or move pices already developed. You have to make use of all of your army (develope all your pices on active squares) before doing so. King safety i another thing you sometimes seem to take to lightly. Always try to improve your worst pice (the one the least active) and always make sure your king is safe. I also wouldn't say that blitz is bad unless you play in to short time controls. I like playing blitz with 10 min each player. Study endgames is will have to wait untill you gett better (at least 1500-1600 Red hot pawn rating). Play on!
Originally posted by anthiasI know there are a few people on this site that are willing to give one on one training for free - many more for a small fee. 🙂 I think most people agree that it's the best and quickest way to learn, look around and you should be able to find plenty of people willing to help. If not I'd be willing to if you can deal with having a crappy player teach you. 😛
Any more comments?
Of course, you mentioned your friend sent you those books - he's probably a pretty good teacher, I'd recommend asking him for some training. 🙂