Chess for Beginners
Improvement
The Step Method in Chess
Jul 23rd
I stumbled upon a blog post that mentioned the Step Method in Chess, this piqued my interest and I began to research it further. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of information on the Internet, so I have tried to compile as much as I could find about this chess teaching program.
The step-by-step method has been developed by Rob Brunia and Cor van Wijgerden to teach children a Step-by-Step Chess Method to play chess. A large number of schools and chess clubs in the Netherlands and Belgium use this method for their chess lessons. The Step Method is intended to take students from the basics all the way to an approximate ELO rating of 1900 after the student has mastered step 5, and to an approximate rating of 2100 once they master the self-directed 6th step.
This method consists of six steps.
Step 1
Rules of the game and basic skills are covered in step 1.
15 lessons:
1: Board and pieces
2: Moves of the pieces
3: Attacking and capturing
4: The pawn
5: Defending
6: Check and + getting out of check
7: Mate
8: Mate
9: Castling
10: Profitable exchange
11: Twofold attack
12: Draw
13: Mating with the queen
14: Taking ‘en passant’
15: The notation
More >
Chess Training Schedule
Jul 6th
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
Recommended Chess Book Reading List by Rating (Updated)
Jul 3rd
The following list of books has been compiled from a number of web resources.
1200-1400
1) Chess Tactics for Students
2) Logical Chess Move by Move by Irving Chernev
3) Back to Basics: Tactics (ChessCafe Back to Basics Chess)
4) Winning Chess Tactics, revised (Winning Chess – Everyman Chess)
5) Silman’s Complete Endgame Course
6) A First Book of Morphy
7a) Chess Openings for White, Explained
1400-1600
1) Modern Chess Strategy
2) The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played
3) Chess Training Pocket Book 
4) Chess Exam and Training Guide
5) Best Lessons of a Chess Coach by Weeramantry & Eusebi
1600-1700
1) The Amateur’s Mind
2) Alekhine’s Best Games
3) Practical Chess Exercises
4) Capablanca’s Best Chess Endings
5) Chess Praxis by Nimozwitch
1700-1800
1) Art of Attack in Chess
2) My 60 Memorable Games
3) One Hundred Selected Games by Botnnivik
4) Understanding Chess Move by Move
1800-2000
1) How to Reassess Your Chess
2) Fire On Board
3) Fundamental Chess Endings
by Mueller
4) Improve your Chess Now By Johnathan Tillman
5) Dvoretsky’s Analytical Manual
6) The Road to Chess Improvement by Yermolinsky
7) Zurich International Chess Tournament, 1953
8. Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual
9) My System by Nimzowitch
11) Think Like a Grandmaster by Kotov
Chess Board Visualization Exercises
Jun 27th
While many claim that improved board visualization leading to the ability to play blindfold chess is the result of playing chess over a period of time, some people need to work on this ability through a board visualization exercise regimen.
Board visualization training will improve your ability to calculate long variations. Training should take place 3-4 times per week in 5-10 minute sessions.
Board Visualization Exercise #1
Arrange the pieces on a board and look at the normal developing move for all the pieces. The White knights develop to c3 and f3, while the Black knights develop to c6 and f6. The light squared bishop develops to e2,d3,c4,b5, etc. Once you have studied the knights, bishops (regular and fianchetto positions) the castled King and rook and the four central squares (e4,d4,e5,d5) you remove all of the pieces and point and name out loud all of the normal developing squares for the pieces.
The New Begin(ning) Chess
May 5th
This post marks a new beginning for this blog. After a long hiatus from blogging and chess, I return reinvigorated and refreshed.
The new purpose of this blog is exploring how adults learn (chess). It has become obvious to me after four years of my chess journey, that the adult learning experience is clumsy, slow and inefficient. This flaw in the way adults learn is at the root of why it takes us so long to improve and why we reach frequent and lengthy plateaus.
While the blog will continue to focus on the “what” to learn, it will also address the “how” we learn aspects of learning chess. Perhaps by better understanding the learning process, we can better focus our time and energy and see true improvement as if we were eight years old again.
Stay tuned…
Calculating your Chess Skill and Knowledge Rating
Oct 3rd
Here’s a fun exercise to determine your estimated skill and knowledge chess rating. While this is just for fun, it can prove helpful in determining how you should focus your chess training. If your knowledge rating is much higher than your skills rating, then you you need to focus your training towards skill building where if your skill rating is much higher than your knowledge rating, then you need to focus more on book learning. You should strive to have your knowledge and skill ratings at no more than 100 points apart.
Here’s how this works.
Formula: (Skill + Knowledge) / 2 = ELO
You need to plug in two of the numbers, and the two best to plug in are ELO and Skill. Ideally, you would use your USCF rating, but if you don’t have one, you can use your ICC of FICS rating, just remember to subtract 150 from your ICC or FICS rating so that it approximates an official USCF rating.
For your skills rating, I would use Igor Khmelnitsky’s Chess Exam and Training Guide to test your skills and get a rating approximation.
Example:
Skill rating: 1138 (based on Khelmenitsky’s book)
USCF ELO: 1340
Knowledge rating = K
(S+K) / 2 = ELO
(1138 + K) / 2 = 1340
1138 / 2 + k/2 – 1340 = 0
569 + K/2 – 1340 = 0
k/2-781 = 0
K=781 * 2
K= 1562
So my knowledge rating equals 1562, while my skill rating is approximately 1138 giving me an ELO of 1340. This means I have to focus on getting my skill rating to par with my knowledge rating in order to play at an estimated 1562 ELO rating.
The goal should be get my skill rating within the same ballpark as my knowledge rating (+/- 100 elo points) before focusing on adding more chess knowledge.
You should repeat this process every three months, but you will need to take the skill’s test again as well as play in a tournament in order to update your USCF rating and get an accurate reading.
I would love to hear feedback on this, especially if you actually try it out.
Why Our Chess Does Not Improve
Aug 17th
Frustration
Over the last few months while my knowledge of the game has increased my skill has not improved. If anything I have sufferred a decrease in performance over the last few months. The frustrating part is that I have invested time into my improvement plan, and while I feel that both my tactical pattern recognition and strategic knowledge of the game has improved this new knowledge has not translated into increased playing strength.
I have a tournament in 1 month and I am concerned about my plateau. I am nowhere near where I wanted to be 3 years into my chess improvement plan.
My Downward Spiral
- ICC standard rating at an all time low of 1330 from a peak of 1663
- FICS rating temporarily increased to 1350, but over the last few weeks it is back down to 1225
- ICC Blitz 5 0 dropped from 1250 to 970, it is now back up to 1170 and on the way up
- USCF rating is the same (1278) I have not played any rated USCF tournaments in several months
- OTB performance in friendly skittles games is the same as 6 months ago, I still ocassionally lose to players who do not take chess as seriously as me
Why I am Not Improving
- Playing too much blitz versus longer games.
- Not analyzing (not learning from) my games
- Theory based learning versus practical learning
- Faulty thought process
Getting to the bottom of it
I selected several of my latest games and anlayzed them looking for the reason I lost the game, and guess what I found:
Over 80% of the games I lose were because I blundered and not due to knowledge gaps.
Modifications to the Plan
- Focus more on my thought process while I am playing in order to eliminate senseless blunders.
- Begin playing at least 1 non-blitz game every night, which I must analyze before playing any other games.
- Focus my study time around tactics and topics that I need help on based on discoveries during game analysis.
I need to strike a balance between blitz versus and standard games, and I must eliminate blitz play several weeks before playing in a tournament. While tactics will be a strong component of my training, I will be more flexible in my training schedule selecting areas of weakness that I uncover during my game analysis.
The key is to focus on building skills over knowledge, and learning to apply the knowledge I already have. As Dan Heisman likes to say, we need to subtract negatives if we want to get better. I have made the mistake of thinking that studying and reading chess books (adding positives) will make me a better player, and while I am increasing my knowledge of chess this does not translate into improving my performance (because we need to subtract negatives).
I hope that these modifications to my training plan, which will focus more on ’skill building’ than ‘knowledge building’ will show improvements in my play. I’ll keep you posted…
Developing Chess Skill
May 31st
According to Johnathan Rowson in his book Chess for Zebras
The best training is the kind that pushes you up against the edges of your comfort zone, where you force yourself to take responsibility for difficult decisions.
- Johnathan Rowson in Chess for Zebras
So here’s what you can do to put his advice into practice:
- Playing and then analyzing your games afterwards
- Solving complex chess problems
- Trying to win won positions against strong analysis engines
- Blitz games (comparing your first impression of positions with the way they actually developed)
Virtual Chess Coach Part II : Study Schedule
May 12th
Study Schedule
| Day | Topic 1 (30m) | Topic 2 (1hr) |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | Solve Tactics | Study Endings |
| Tuesday | Play | Annotate game * |
| Wednesday | Solve Endings | Study Strategy ** |
| Thursday | Solve Tactics | Solve Strategy *** |
| Friday | Solve Tactics | Study Openings |
| Saturday | Solve Tactics | Solve Strategy |
| Sunday | Play | Annotate game * |
Legend:
* If you run out of time during daily session, you can finish annotating your game during the study openings session
** Study strategy by going over annotated master games
*** Use Stoyko Exercises format
Virtual Chess Coach – Part I
May 7th
About the Virtual Chess Coach Program
This program is geared for my improvement (a 35 year old 1278 USCF rated player), but I hope that others in a similar situation will be able to derive benefit from it as well.
I will be modeling this program on the teaching’s of Dan Heisman. Dan Heisman is one of the best chess teacher’s in the United States and if you don’t already know this, then run to danheisman.com and check out his Novice Nook articles at Chess Cafe.
Now not all of us can afford a chess coach, so we will be using books and information available on the web (Heisman’s Novice Nook Articles) to create a virtual chess coaching experience. If you can afford a coach, then there is no substitute for the hands on feedback that they can provide but I’m aiming to make this the second best thing.
Things to know before we go on:
- This program is aimed at the adult beginner / intermediate player (ELO 1200 – 1700)
- Our chess philosophy will be based around Dan Heisman (with a sprinkle of Purdy and Silman for good measure)
Absolute Beginners
For complete beginner’s to chess Heisman recommends they start with The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Chess
The Assessment Phase
We need to assess our strengths and weaknesses, yet we are in no position to do so (how can we assess what we do not know / understand). This is one of the weaknesses of not having the feedback mechanism a coach provides. But do not fret, there is a great book that helps you assess your strengths and weaknesses in chess, and that book is Igor Khmelnitsky’s Chess Exam and Training Guide
Assessing Your Games
Another area where a coach can provide much needed feedback is in going over your games. Because we’ll be going at it on our own the following process is very important in order to get a close benefit to that of having a real coach.
- Go over all of your losses.
- Quickly re-play the game again making light annotations
- Go over the game in detail, and this time make extensive annotations and analysis
- Go over the game with a chess engine and compare your annotations with those of the engine
Key things to look for when annotating your game
You should jot these down as part of your annotations and include them in your chess notebook
- See where you could have improved in the opening
- Look for missed tactical opportunities (both defensive and offensive)
- Look for missed positional opportunities
- Look for missed opportunities in the endgame, if necessary refer to Mueller’s Fundamental Chess Endings
- Look for moves that caused a shift in the game based on the engine’s evaluation. (any move with an evaluation change greater than .35) and find out the root cause behind the evaluation shift, then go back to your annotations and make sure you address this and don’t forget to add this to your chess notebook.
The games you annotate and go over, should be standard time control games if possible. You should make an effort to play at least 1-2 standard games (>= G/30) per week. You can do this by either joining the Team 45 45 league, or playing ICC’s Standard Tourney or even playing at your local chess club. These games will give you more food for thought than quickly played blitz games, but if you do not have at least 1 standard game to go over, then do go over your well played blitz games (which is better than not going over your games at all).
Thought Process Before Lessons
There are certain bad habits that you should eliminate before you consider taking lessons, otherwise you would be throwing your money away. Most of these stem from careless play or hope chess .
- Do not leave pieces en prise
- Do not move quickly and without thought
- Perform a blundercheck before playing your move
Reference
The following books and websites will be used for this program:
Tactics
Chess Tactics for Beginners (Convekta)
Endgames
Silman’s Complete Endgame Course
Strategy
The Art of Logical Chess Thinking
Thought Process
Play