Studying Your losses
09 Aug '10 13:29Tons of good advice and instructive comments. I want to add a couple things;
1) if you are playing CC style - during the game keep notes on each move so when the game is over you can go back and see what you were thinking. The more specific you are the more you will get out of it.
2) if otb- go over your game as soon as possible after it was played and get your during game thoughts written down. This is very important as at some later point you might take your game to a master or be going over it again yourself and you won't remember why you made a move.
3) note the critical positions in your game. Typically this will occur once in the opening, at least once in the middle game and possibly in the endgame. A critical position in the opening is typically the first move you make on your own outside of theory.
4) When you get exposed to a new idea in your game - copy the position flash card style into a new database. This database (I call mine "burning the midnight lamp" is going to fill up with all sorts of little tidbits and I think the act of writing them out will help.
5) Every 6-12 months group up your games by opening and take a look at how you are scoring. Example- using chessbase I dumped all my ICC games from Sept of last year to now and sorted them by eco (I also merge them into an opening book (seperate white and black) and look step by step through it for my results etc.) I discovered that I was scoring well below expected against the Colle?? This directed me to put more work into my Black rep in those lines.
6) Collect critical positions where you chose the wrong move, make them into tactics problems.
7) Compare your pawn structure to games in a database, see if your pieces are getting the same typical placement as master games. This might be a hint that you are not hitting on the typical ideas of your opening.
thats all for now.
1) if you are playing CC style - during the game keep notes on each move so when the game is over you can go back and see what you were thinking. The more specific you are the more you will get out of it.
2) if otb- go over your game as soon as possible after it was played and get your during game thoughts written down. This is very important as at some later point you might take your game to a master or be going over it again yourself and you won't remember why you made a move.
3) note the critical positions in your game. Typically this will occur once in the opening, at least once in the middle game and possibly in the endgame. A critical position in the opening is typically the first move you make on your own outside of theory.
4) When you get exposed to a new idea in your game - copy the position flash card style into a new database. This database (I call mine "burning the midnight lamp" is going to fill up with all sorts of little tidbits and I think the act of writing them out will help.
5) Every 6-12 months group up your games by opening and take a look at how you are scoring. Example- using chessbase I dumped all my ICC games from Sept of last year to now and sorted them by eco (I also merge them into an opening book (seperate white and black) and look step by step through it for my results etc.) I discovered that I was scoring well below expected against the Colle?? This directed me to put more work into my Black rep in those lines.
6) Collect critical positions where you chose the wrong move, make them into tactics problems.
7) Compare your pawn structure to games in a database, see if your pieces are getting the same typical placement as master games. This might be a hint that you are not hitting on the typical ideas of your opening.
thats all for now.
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