should i take a break from playing chess in order to improve

wow, I am surprised with the number and quality of your replies, thank you very much, I appreciate that you took time and effort to write down your thoughts. A lot of great ideas - I think I will go for a compromise and limit the number of blitz games I allow myself to play. Today, I have played two very nice OTB games with my friend (long time controls) and it seems that things are getting a bit clearer.

I will definitely cut down my games drastically and play occasionally - when I feel like my mind is fresh. I also intend to analyse each of my lost games.

Thanks again !

Originally posted by tvochess
You have a few good points there. I don't fully agree, but I think we can live with that.

What do you think about the suggestion made by the GM in the first post of this thread? I.e. quit playing for half a year, solely dedicated to studying etc.

@ivan2908: Can you give a reference to this statement? Or at least the name of that GM?

I think Murchu's post is a nice middle point, and probably more reasonable. If we all agreed completely, this would be a boring forum!

Personally, I would never give up playing for 6 months because I do this for fun, and playing is the fun part! At the same time, I did get some tips from GM Lars Bo Hansen at a class recently that has made me rethink what I do. Some of his ideas:

1) Play blitz for fun, but it will not make you better.

2) Study under simulated tournament conditions as much as possible. He remarked that people study with the TV on in the background, or listening to music, or with the kids playing, etc, but it is not as productive.

3) He is also a big proponent of the Socratic "know thyself", and he recommends focusing on the study of great players whose style is similar to you. It's a "know and hone your strengths" approach. In my case, studying Tal's games would be less productive for me than studying Karpov's or Petrosian's, since the latter two are much closer to my natural style of play.

4) He is also a huge proponent of studying one's own games. That's certainly not unique, but he recommends a particular approach:

A) Write down what you were thinking about the game right after you finish, even if the notes are brief.
B) Later, go through the game more thoroughly, making notes of both general and specific ideas and issues in the game.
C) Finally, use a computer to compare against what you thought. In particular, he thinks we should focus on the points where the computer's assessment value suddenly changes, as they are often significant moments in the game where we can learn the most.

I'm just skimming the surface of what he offered, and I am sorry if this rambles, but I thought others might be interested, since it is the subject matter of the thread.

Some very interesting points.

Re-reading my own post, I would add the value of studying all of ones games, not just the losses. I meant to indicate that in my original post, but can see I may not have.

Curiously enough in relation to the original posters point, I had a recent sojourn from chess, only doing some occasional tactics puzzles during it, and when I returned to play again here, I noticed my game had strengthened.

So, I think a break from playing can have benefits, I suppose. Mostly though I feel the important thing, at least for myself, is to avoid getting burnt out on chess. Its easy to immerse ones self completely in chess, but its easy to get burnt out on it then, and need a break, I think.

The only method for improvement I have seen consistently work is to play OTB every weekend, play online at 15min per game minimum and work with a coach once a week. I can count several GM's, IM's and FM's who essentially followed this method. The problem is you need to be young and be able to take a constant beating at every rung of the ladder.

If you are losing to "amatuers" or really just non-tournament chess players who throw random, rash attacks at you then probably you are relying too much on acquired knowledge without practical strength... i.e. you memorized the QGD in a bunch of variations out to the middle game but have no idea how to deal with the "uneducated" player who plays c6 and then c5 followed by other aggressive pawn moves i.e. h5 etc...

whatever you do, test your comfort zone and try to learn from what you find there.