Originally posted by anthias I've reached 1569 OTB rating last month. Coparing this with the 1100 OTB rating on August 2006, I've improved.
No idea what to do now.
I've read only two books: Attacking Chess by Waitzkin and Unbeatable Chess Lessons by Svidler. Aside from that, I only studied tactics and played games.
I have absolutely no opening repertoire.
Any books or software that can help me jump to the next level?
Opening book...Modern Chess Openings....the chess players bible for the last 50 +years.
Pandolfini's "Weapons Of Chess" has some great tips and guidelines, although 50% of it is tripe, not even worthy of a beginner. The nuggets of good info are priceless, though.
Or just get Chess Master 10 and check out the tutorials, they are an excellent compendium of "what to do' when you don't know what to do. Simple rules that will improve your game 100%.
Originally posted by der schwarze Ritter Study the endgame. Pour over every Capablanca and Rubinstein game you can find. Buy a copy of Fritz. Read Nimzovitch's "My System" and "Chess Praxis." Study Alekhine's books: My Best Games 1 & 2. Read Botvinnik's book. Then plow through Smyslov's games. If you do all this, you will have done more than 99% of all chess players.
Good call, study endgames, Karpov gave that same advice.
Originally posted by Sam The Sham Good call, study endgames, Karpov gave that same advice.
If you're a relatively weak player and spend most of your time on the endgame you'll significantly increase your ability to win positions that you're never going to get to because you'll be worse coming out of the opening and dead lost coming out of the middlegame.
Everybody should know about King opposition and how to win the Lucena Position, but beyond that most endgame study will have a far lower payoff than studying tactics and openings. Having "the opposition" doesn't help you at all if you're down a Knight. But if you understand tactical tricks, you will sometimes salvage a middlegame even if you're a piece down.
I acheived a USCF rating of 2002 without ever knowing what the Philidor Position was. After learning it, I realized that in 20+ years of tournament play I don't think that I ever lost a game because I didn't know the Philidor Position.
Originally posted by gaychessplayer If you're a relatively weak player and spend most of your time on the endgame you'll significantly increase your ability to win positions that you're never going to get to because you'll be worse coming out of the opening and dead lost coming out of the middlegame.
Everybody should know about King opposition and how to win the Lucena Position, but ...[text shortened]... ay I don't think that I ever lost a game because I didn't know the Philidor Position.
Applying your argument recursively it's not worth looking at positions beyond the first move...
I'd say that a major advantage of looking at endgames is that they tend to be tactically simpler and so give a way of getting into understanding positional themes without the complications involved with 20+ pieces on the board. Besides generally one is up against players of a similar standard so the danger of never getting to a winnable endgame isn't too great.
Where I think you're dead right is with stuff like Lucena's position. Learning these things by rote is pointless - in 1000 odd games here I think it's come up once. It's just like in the opening where one is far better off understanding the general ideas and themes and working out the tactics over the board than learning variations by rote - certainly for the under 2,000's. So the endgame book to get is a nice general one which explains how to plan in an endgame, and doesn't just give reams of variations which nobody ever reads anyway, and (with the exception of John Nunn) is the sign of a lazy author copying what Fritz has said rather than explaining what is important in the position; most people have their own engines so there's limited value in publishing variations these days in any case. Also the book should look at positions with 10 or more pieces - the division between the endgame and the middle game has more to do with whether checkmate can be forced on an exposed king than how many pieces are left. Anything with less than 6 pieces in total can be worked out from Endgame table-bases (obviously not in in progress games) so you shouldn't pay for a book for those cases unless there's a specific reason that you want it.
My advice would be to pick an opening for white, e4 or d4, and a couple of defences for black (one against e4 and one against d4).
And then study those openings in-depth. Play the same opening every game. You'll gain a) opening knowledge b) confidence c) rating points.
A good book for a defence against e4 is Pirc Alert! Lots of emphasis on ideas, so you understand what's going on instead of just memorizing variations. I'm not a fan of the Pirc Defence, but I recommend the book. Besides, you have to pick an opening that you like. Don't pick an opening just because super-GMs play it. Play an opening that gets you positions you feel you understand and play well.
For example, World Champion Kramnik plays a lot of Semi-Slavs against d4. Give it a try, but if you don't like it, then play whatever suits you best, even if it's not popular.
As for middlegame and endgame, I would get ahold of annotated games by masters in the openings you play. Annotated AND in the openings you play. That way your study is coherent. You're not learning bits and pieces of stuff from all kinds of openings and positions. Later on you can gain more chess knowledge by studying positions unrelated to your openings, but at your level I think it's best to keep it all tied together: opening, transition from opening to middlegame, transition to endgame, all resulting from the same opening.
I think the best way to learn openings is to learn them while playing games. There is no point in trying to remember variations and sub-variations from an opening book. Play against a computer and allow you to use a database for the first 10 or 15 moves. For example, if you`re playing white, look what move makes white win in a particular opening more often.
Always play the same first move with white. With black, always play the same defense against 1 e4, the same defense against 1 d4, etc. It is easier to remember openings when you face the same openings often.
Originally posted by Dance Master MC My System by Nimzovich pleanty of guidlines in there, minature chess problems by Russ, to improve tactics, and a couple of chess openings books, or get Chessmaster 10th edition for the x-box or PC.
I agree. I still say My System is the best book ever written.
Originally posted by anthias Finished Winning Chess Strategies. Now what?
I have a copy of Modern Chess Strategy by L. Pachman in front of me.
It really covers all aspects of strategy very thoroughly. I also have Sierawan's book but don't think it's quite as good.
Modern Chess Strategy is more like How to Reassess You Chess for sub 1700 players I suppose.
If you struggled with Silman's book give this classic a try.
Word of warning though, despite a nice board with standard co-ordinates on the inside cover, the book is still in descriptive notation!
Really deserves an update but I find it does make you concentrate when going through the positions with a board.
What should I do now?
12 Jul '07 16:47
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