A New Way of Training Tactics

I came across a forum post by IM David Pruess where he gives excellent advice on truly learning patterns when training tactics. Below is his advice:
The original post is titled Chess Advice Most Chess Player’s Don’t Like to Hear and it’s a must read.

or when i give players in the 1000-1800 range advice on improving their tactics, viz: 10-15 min per day of solving simple tactical puzzles. the goal is to increase your store of basic patterns, not to work on your visualization, deep calculation. remember that is your goal. you are not trying to prove that you can solve every problem. if you don’t solve a problem within 1 minute, stop. it’s probably a new pattern or you would have gotten it by now. (with private students i’ll take the time to demonstrate this to them: show them through examples that they can find a 3-4 move problem in 10 seconds if they know the pattern, and that they can fail to find a mate in 2 for 10 minutes if they don’t know the pattern). look at the answer, and now go over the answer 3 more times in your head to help the pattern take hold. your brain can probably take on 2-3 new patterns between sleeping, so you should stop once you’ve been stumped by 2 or 3 problems (usually will take about 10-15 min). there is no point in doing more than that in one day. and any day you miss, you can’t make up for. a semi-random estimate on my part is that you need about 2000 of these patterns to become a master. so you need to do this for 2 years or more.

i would guess that less than 1 in 100 of the people i have given this advice to have followed it to the letter. if they enjoy it, they’ll waste their time doing it for 1.5 hours in a day, choosing to ignore that it’s not helping them [after 15 min]. or some with ego issues will insist on trying to solve every single position (if only they linked their ego to their self-discipline ).

- IM David Pruess

A Specific Curriculum

While I am disciplined in spending a minimum of 30 minutes per day doing chess studies, I am usually jumping from book to book and topic to topic which ends up losing valuable time. In the past I have tried to work from a training schedule, but the problem has been that the schedule has been too general. What I started doing is creating a specific training curriculum, where I create a schedule 2 weeks into the future, with the exact content I should cover everyday (an example can be seen here).  The schedule is created on a Sunday, and it takes no more than 15 minutes to create.

Here are a few of the recommendations from the article:

* Study your own games with an instructor

* Don’t study openings…study structures and plans instead.

* If you play blitz, play with a 5 second increment and always try to find the best move

* Review your blitz games just like if it were a standard game.

* Do tactical exercises everyday for at least 30-40 minutes.

* Keep physically fit.

Read the full article at the USChess.org site.

Note that if the Black pawn would be on d3 instead of c3, the game would be a theoretical draw.

Copy the FEN position 4k3/1pp2ppp/p1p5/8/4P3/8/PPP2PPP/4K3 w – - 0 0 and play this position against an engine.

NOTE: There was an issue with the original post. There was a missing White pawn on d4. The diagram and the FEN diagram have been updated.

1. Find the turning points – Decide where mistakes were made, where the evaluation of the position changed or an opportunity was missed.
2. Seek the reasons for your own mistakes – The objective realization of your own weaknesses is a necessary first step in the work of correcting them.
3. Seek new possibilities, which you did not notice during the game.
4. Ponder over the opening stage – Approach the problems you faced during the opening to increase your knowledge and outline new plans.

This week was the 2nd and final week of the first cycle of Phase I of the Extreme Chess Training Program which I began on 12/21/09.  Next week I start on Phase II, which focuses on the endgame. I am going to use the end of 1 full cycle of ECT, which is 45 days to play a tournament and do a progress report. I will also post more information on the program upon my completion of my first 45 day cycle.

Monday 12/28 - Chess Trainer at chesstempo.com. Increased standard rating from 1717 to 1725 1hr and 81% accuracy which is much higher than my 57% average.

Tuesday 12/29  - Played rated game on FICS & reviewed game afterwards.

Wednesday 12/30  - 2 Stoyko Tactics puzzles from Imagination in Chess using Tactics Checklist . Spent 39 minutes on 1 puzzle! Total training time was 1hr.

Thursday 12/31  - New years eve, sneaked in 15 minutes of unrated tactics at chesstempo.com.

Friday 1/1  - Did Speed Tactics from Bain’s Tactics for Students.  Exercises 93 through 197 with 95% accurracy.  Also, to makeup for Thursday I played a standard game against Fritz 5.32 1 ply (Playing against engine due to Internet issues).

Saturday 1/2  - Core Tactics from Chess Training Pocket Book. 76% accurracy.

Sunday 1/3  - Open day – Solved Step 3 tests of Step Method scoring 80%, 70% and 72%. Also did 20 minutes of  Tactics Trainer using chesstempo improved rating slightly from 1725 to 1727. Total training time 1 hr.

Monday – Performed 45 minutes of standard tactics at chesstempo.com

Tuesday – Played an ICC standard game and reviewed it afterwards.

Wednesday – Did 1hr of speed tactics, using Bain’s Chess Tactics for Students.

Thursday – Played standard game on FICS.

Friday – Performed core tactics for 1 hour. Focused on key positions from Chess Training Pocketbook

Saturday – Performed Stoyko Tactics from positions in Imagination in Chess.

Sunday – 20 minutes of chess trainer practice at chesstempo.com. Played over Alekhine – Duras 1913 on chessgames.com.

 The program calls for more of the same on the week of 12/28/09.

Here’s an update post on a quick overview of what I’m thinking and doing so far:

The program is going to consist of 3 phases, each phase lasting 60 days. The first phase will focus on tactics and the following phases will be on endgame and strategy. At the end of each phase, I will participate in a tournament to help gauge my progress. I am compiling positions and content to go along with the program, but I have just recently started doing this and it will take a while.

Right now I am on week 1 of the tactics phase, and things are going well. A draft of the schedule looks something like this:

Monday

Tactics Trainer – consists of doing 1 hour at chesstempo.com

Tuesday

Play a standard game and analyze it afterwards

Wednesday

Stoyko Tactics – consists of doing 1 hour of positions from Imagination in Chess. These are tough, so taking up to 15 minutes per position is not unusual. I am also using a tactics checklist based on Heisman’s ‘Seeds of Tactical Destruction’ Novice Nook.

Thursday

Play and analyze

Friday

Speed Tactics – Consists of doing 1 hour of easy tactics. I am using positions from Bain’s Chess Tactics for Students. The idea is to do as many as you can in 1 hour. I am averaging about 120 positions per hour from the Bain problem set.

Saturday

Core Tactics – consists of doing positions from the Alburt’s Chess Training Pocketbook.

Sunday

Open day – idea is to have fun, take a break or work on any one of the exercises above as extra credit.

I plan on elaborating much more on this new program with much more to follow, and remember in the meantime to visit the chess.com ECT group.

Original Post 12.21.09

I’m currently brainstorming a new chess training program for adult beginners rated 1200-1600 USCF. I have created a group on chess.com for this purpose which you can visit here: http://www.chess.com/groups/home/extreme-chess-training.

I’m still in the early stages of setting this up, but I will be posting more about it in the next few days.

Stay Tuned…

Played G/15 game and drew against opponent rated 1826 in a winning position (I was up a minor piece), but opponent had counterplay and I was down to 4 1/2 minutes on the clock.

Tuesday 12.08.09

Reviewed game. Confirmed that position was won. Opponent made a tactical mistake where he lost the exchange. Focused study will revolve against playing this position against Rybka 3.

Wednesday 12.09.09

Played won position against Rybka and lost twice!!! I should have simplified the position, since I was up 3 pawns.

Thursday 12.10.09

Played standard game on ICC against opponent rated 1710 (I am currently rated 1780 with one more provisional game to go). Lost game due to tactical oversights.

Friday 12.11.09

Reviewed standard game. I played poorly, going from a better position to even and ultimately to a losing position. My first mistake was an exchange that gave my opponent lots of activity and counterplay even though I had a material advantage. It is interesting to note, how high Rybka evaluates activity giving it an evaluation of over 1/2 a pawn. I then fell victim to a removal of the guard / pin / deflection combination which netted my opponent my bishop. I kept on playing, and ultimately fell victim to a checkmate, which I totally missed. Focused study will revolve around doing extra tactics.

Saturday 12.12.09

 Focused on doing tactics at chess.com instead of chesstempo. Noticed that the timer is not helping my solving…dropped approximately 100 rating points!  I prefer solving the standard chesstempo tactics which allow me to take my time to find the right answer.

 Sunday

Doing extra tactics solving at chess.com.

Played G/20 20 game against opponent rated 1865. Played the Sicilian Grand Prix and lost in a rook endgame where I was a pawn down.

Tuesday 12.01.09

Reviewed game. Made an interesting observation that I would not have picked up on if I had not reviewed game. I lost 2 pawns during the game, because I failed to take back material. I chose to lose material instead of making an exchange that would benefit my opponent.  I have to remind myself during a game that material precedes any other strategic criteria.

Solved tactics for 15 minutes.

Wednesday 12.02.09

Did Chess Tempo for 45 minutes. Was aiming for accuracy, so I only got to do 10 puzzles 65% success rate. I am currently rated 1702.

Thursday 12.03.09

Solved tactics for 15 minutes.

Played G/20 20 game on ICC against opponent rated 1783, I won the game and I am now rated 1780 (still provisional).

Friday 12.04.09

Reviewed Thursday’s game. Opponent made several tactical oversights, I made several poor moves in the late middlegame, but my opponent did not take advantage of them. This leads to the importance of reviewing your games, even your wins. After the game, I felt pretty good about my play and I would have never guessed that I made two weak moves that would have converted a won game into a draw if my opponent had acted on them.

Saturday 12.05.09

Solved 1 hour of tactics

Sunday 12.06.09

Open day. Did 30 minutes of tactics on Chess Tempo. Reached my highest rating yet of 1714. Played a few blitz games on FICS.

Wednesday 11.26.09

Played G/15 5 game against an opponent rated 1687 on ICC (I am provisionally rated 1781 after this game). I plan on playing all of my standard games on ICC so that I can maintain continuity in tracking my ELO rating. ICC rating is approximately 250 points higher than USCF. At 1781 my rating is a bit inflated due to it’s provisional status…it should be more like 1600-1650 IMO.

Solved tactics on Chess Tempo (30m)

Thursday 11.27.09 [Thanksgiving]

Reviewed Wednesday’s game – I won the game, but I came out poorly out of the opening. I have always had issues with the French Defense Exchange variation, so my focus study will be reviewing the French Exchange variation. (1 hour)

Solved puzzles at Chess Tempo (15m)

Friday 11.28.09

Chess Tempo 30 minutes
Focus Study: French Defense Exchange variation (1.30h)

Saturday 11.29.09

Solved (easy non-rated) puzzles on chesstempo (30m)
Played G/15 5 game on ICC against opponent rated 1865 I am still provisionally rated with an ELO of  1768. NOTE: Next game will be a G/30 time control.

Sunday 11.30.09
Reviewed game. Loss stemmed from not calculating all possible candidates and faulty thought process, where I forgot threats I had assessed several moves before. Opponent came out of the opening slightly better. Opening played was the Caro-Kann Exchange variation. Going to focus on Stoyko Exercises to improve calculation skills as well as an intense tactics training session.

Did one Stoyko exercise from a correspondence game I am currently playing. Analyzed the position for approximately 10 minutes. I also did a ‘Guess the Move’ game on chessgames.com. I chose a Capablanca game where Capa played White against the Caro-Kann defense. The chessgames.com exercise took about 30m.

Tomorrow Monday I’ll restart the training schedule.