Best Chess Books by Rating Chess Rating: 1200-1400 1) Chess Tactics for Students by John Bain 2) Logical Chess Move by Move by Irving Chernev 3) Back to Basics: Tactics (ChessCafe Back to Basics Chess) by Dan Heisman 4) Winning Chess Tactics, revised (Winning Chess – Everyman Chess) by Seirawan 5) Silman’s Complete Endgame Course…
Chess board visualization training is necessary in order to not miss tactics, see more combinations and to become a better overall chess player. Chess board visualization does not come naturally to all chess players. Chess visualization is something that must be trained, and should be part of a regular chess training regimen. Chess board visualization…
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…
Here’s a fun exercise to determine your estimated chess rating taking into account your existing chess skill and knowledge. 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…
Frustration Over the last few months while my knowledge of the game has increased my chess skill has not improved. If anything I have suffered a decrease in performance over the last few months. The frustrating part is that I have invested time into my chess improvement plan, and while I feel that both my…
According to Johnathan Rowson in his book Chess for Zebras we can develop chess skill through a combination of playing combined with chess training, where ‘training’ means working things out by ourselves. The main skill a chess player needs is skill in making decisions so making decisions is what you need to do over and…
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…
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…
Why is it that beginners fail to choose simple plans that are right before their eyes? One answer may be that beginners do not evaluate the position before choosing a candidate move. Beginners briefly scan the board, choose a move they like and quickly analyze and play this move. The problem with this thought process…
Tactics Program This tactics training program should not take more than 30 minutes per session, and it is flexible enough where you can adjust the amount of puzzles and / or the amount of time spent per puzzle as well as the session time so that you can customize it to your needs and study…