I have made an observation while solving puzzles, that I feel will improve my tactical puzzle solving skills, and might have direct application during actual games. When solving a tactical puzzle of intermediate to advanced level I either: 1. Have no clue how to go about solving it and get it wrong. 2. Have multiple ideas that…
1. Practising tactics – I cannot stress enough the importance of tactics at the sub 1800 level. If your time is limited, tactics training would be the one thing that would give you the greatest return on investment. 2. Playing and reviewing my games – This allows you to learn from your mistakes, and to…
Secrets of Zen Chess During my chess break, I ran into a friend of mine who loves chess and who had been in Japan doing a 4 week Seshin at a Japanese Zen Monestary.I asked him if he had time to practice his chess while at the monestary, and he told me that he had…
Making it Difficult After several years of working on my chess improvement and from talking to both amateurs and masters it appears that adult amateurs tend to complicate their chess improvement by reading books and tackling concepts that are far too advanced for their level. So, here is my attempt to simplify my chess training…
Plateaus and You The brain needs time to assimilate and integrate new information as knowledge and to resolve conflicts with previously learned concepts and plateaus equate to slower progress while we assimilate new ideas. Not until we internalize these new ideas as knowledge are we able to move on to the next phase in our…
I played in the U 1500 section of the Miami Open a few weeks ago, and it was not a good outing. I only won one of 5 games against a much lower rated opponent. While devastated, it has only made me work harder on my chess. The week following the Open, I immediately started…
How A Chess Player Improves from a 1000 Beginner Rating to a 2000 Expert Rating Below are the knowledge and skills a beginning chess player must acquire to improve their chess rating to improve from a chess beginner to an expert level chess player. The idea is to show the estimated chess rating, the required knowledge…
The Road to Chess Improvement Ruke Vin Hansen in his amazing article Mind Games: Who is Doing the Playing? comes to the conclusion that the best way to improve chess skill is not through reading chess books or watching DVDs. He argues that reading more books only helps fill your short term memory whereas quality…
The Step Method in Chess is a chess improvement system that takes a player from beginner to a expert level. About the Steps Method in Chess The step-by-step method (or the Steps Method in Chess) has been developed by Rob Brunia and Cor van Wijgerden to teach children a Step-by-Step Chess Method to learn how to…
Day 1 Study endings (1hr) Solve tactics (30min) Day 2 Study strategy (1hr) Solve endings (30min) Day 3 Play long game (1hr) Solve tactics (30min) Day 4 Solve strategy (1hr) Solve tactics (30min) Day 5 Study openings (1hr) Solve endings (30min) Day 6 Play long game (1hr) Solve tactics (30min) Day 7 Off day