Chess for Beginners

Author: beginchess

  • Simple Chess Training

    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 and bring it back to basics. This program is targeted for players under 1700 USCF.


    Study, Play, Review

    The study portion of the plan will consist of doing tactical puzzles at the Chess Tempo site every day for a minimum of 30 minutes. You will also spend a minimum of 1 hour studying  any areas dictated by reviews of our standard games which we will label focused study.

    Play will consist of a minimum of 2 standard games per week of either OTB play or on ICC / chess.com. The two take aways from this is that your rating will serve as a progress report, and that the games should be 15 minutes or longer (the longer the better). The content of these games will serve as the material for the focused study portion of the plan.

    Every standard game has to be reviewed afterwards. Go over the game without the use of an engine, and annotate what you were thinking. After having reviewed it on your own, have the engine analyze the game and then compare your notes with the engines analysis. Take this opportunity to review the opening phase, and what you could have done to improve that phase of the game by consulting opening books if necessary. Take note of mistakes made and in which phase of the game they were made. You will then focus your next study day on reviewing any content that will help prevent the mistakes made.

    Here’s an example of what a week would look like when following the plan:

    Monday

    Play G/15 or >
    Study tactics 30m

    Tuesday

    Review Monday’s game (annotate and identify weaknesses in play)
    Study tactics 30m

    Wednesday

    Focus Study 1h (Study is based on weaknesses from reviewed game, for example K&P endgame review if game lost in the endgame, or extra tactics study if game was lost due to a tactical oversight)

    Thursday
    Play G/15 or >
    Study tactics 30m

    Friday

    Review Monday’s game (annotate and identify weaknesses in play)
    Study tactics 30m

    Saturday

    Focus Study 1h (Study is based on weaknesses from reviewed game, for example K&P endgame review if game lost in the endgame, or extra tactics study if game was lost due to a tactical oversight)

    Sunday

    Rest day or you can use this day to catch up on your studying, do extra tactics or play blitz games, etc.

  • Chess Resolutions

    Farbror the Guru has challenged the chess improvement community to come up with a list of chess goals for the coming year, so here are mine:

    Long Term Goals

    • Increase USCF rating to 1400 (currently at 1283)
    • Increase Chess Tempo standard tactics rating to 1850 (currently at 1700)
    • Increase ICC standard rating (currently have a provisional rating of 1750) will set appropriate ELO goals within the next 3 months once I get out of provisional status. update 01.03.10 Out of provisional rating after having played 26 standard games. Benchmark rating is 1781 goal is to reach an ICC rating of 1825 by the end of the year.
    • Play in 4 tournaments within the next 12 months
    • Play a minimum of 2 standard games G/15 or > per week
    • Have a minimum of 6 training sessions in the next 12 months with FM Charles Galofre

    Short Term Goals (goals for the next 90 days)

    • Dedicate 1 hour per day to chess training
    • Review all of my standard games
    • Play in an OTB tournament before the end of February ’10
    • Have a chess lesson before the end of February ’10
    • Simplify my chess training, focus more on the practical side of chess
    • Increase Chess Tempo rating to 1750 by the end of February ’10

  • Overcoming Chess Training Plateaus

    Plateaus and You

    Chess MenThe 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 learning. Plateaus are a normal phase of the learning process. The goal is to minimize the amount of time spent in a plateau, and to identify if our plateau is part of the normal learning curve or if it is a result of a deficiency in our learning process.

    Sometimes we plateau for reasons that fall outside the normal learning curve. You might plateau if you are missing fundamental knowledge which would have served as a building block to move on to the next level. Or perhaps the information you are learning is too advanced for your level, and you cannot internalize the concept.

    Another common cause for prolonged plateaus is overtraining. If you find that you do not look forward to practicing, or are finding less and less time to devote to chess, these are common symptoms of overtraining and a break from chess might be in order.

    Less, Different, Harder

    As we mentioned before plateaus are normal, and the slow and steady progress made during this phase is critical to a healthy learning process. The length of time spent in a plateau differs between people and even between learning curve phases. As a result, it is very difficult to diagnose if a plateau has overstayed its welcome. The only way around this, is to be proactive in your training program and to build it in such a way where you are constantly challenging yourself and feeding yourself the right amount of content at the right time in your development and you have the appropriate feedback mechanisms in place to detect weaknesses.  

    • Study your own games so you don’t make the same mistakes over and over again.
    • Have a coachevaluate your weaknesses, and focus your work on your weakest areas .
    • Are you overtraining? If so, it might be a good idea to take a 1-2 week break from chess. You will find that you will return refreshed and invigorated.
    • Change your training program periodically. This allows you to be a better rounded chess player, and by keeping your training sessions new and exciting it doubles as a cure to overtraining.
    • Don’t be discouraged by plateaus, remember you are still improving at a slow pace and that this is part of the normal learning process.
    • Increase the intensity of your training. A good method of increasing your training intensity is to cycle intense training session that last 1-2 weeks to help jar yourself free of a plateau. You need to be careful that you do not over train yourself during these intense study cycles. An example of cycling intense training cycles might go something like this: 2 weeks of intense training followed by 4 weeks of normal training activity.
    • Enjoy the practice, these things take time.

    By working hard and enjoying the practice improvement will come sooner or later (I hope so).

  • Training Status Update

    Tactics, Tactics and More Tactics

    My training for the past 2 months has consisted of doing tactics puzzles on Chess Tempo and working on my thought process. I spend an average of 30 mintues per day doing standard puzzles focusing on quality not quantity (yet).  At the end of the week I create a problem set with the five tactical themes that are giving me the most trouble, and I spend an additional 10-15 minutes per day solving these ‘problem’ puzzles.

    Thought Process in Chess

    I have also spent a considerable amount of time working on my chess thought process. First, I created a thought process checklist that is compatible with my playing style and way of thinking, subsequently, I have been trying to incorporate it during long games and training positions (this is the hardest part for me).  I feel this has helped my game a bit just by making me more conscious of threats (I’ll expand further in a future post).

    Moving Forward

    Here are my goals for the next month:

    1. Continue with my chess tactics study regimen, perhaps increase the number of puzzles done per day.

    2. Continue practicing my thought process by playing slow games, and during training positions.

    3. Play more.

  • My Thought Process

    Update: 10/17/2009

    I modified the process based on conversations with FM Charles Galofre, I have merged the tactical and strategic scans into one. His point is that even if you find a strong tactical move, you should still look at the strategic aspects of the position since the game might be won with a quiet positional move which you would not have considered if you cut your search short once you had found a tactic.

    The following is the thought process I have decided to employ during long games. The idea is to drill these questions in during practice, so that they become second nature when playing an regular game.

    The idea is to create your own thought process checklist and make it your own.

    It is highly recommended that you also check out Chessplanner by Blue Devil Knight, since it is more thorough than my checklist.

    1. Threat Scan

    I. What is my opponent threatening?

    II. What are the consequences of my opponent’s last move? (how has the position changed?)

    III. Do I have any checks, captures or threats (CCT)? Consider forcing moves as possible candidates

    2.  Move Scan

    A. Tactical Scan

    I. Is there likely to be a tactic in the position?

    a. Tactical Motifs: hanging pieces, weak back rank, discovered attack, pinned or skewerable along same rank, overworked pieces, lack of development, poorly guarded pieces, overworked pieces, forks, weak king position (uncastled King), large accumulation of pieces on one side, in-between moves.

    Even if you find a strong tactical scan, if time allows do a positional scan. If you find a good move look for a better one.

    B. Strategical Scan

    (If there are no tactics, you need to come up with a plan)

    I. Material balance

    II. King safety

    III.  Pawn structure

    a. Who has the better pawn structure (look for doubled pawns, isolated pawns, and hanging pawns)
    b. Are there any open lines or diagonals?
    c. What are the strong and weak squares?
    d. Who is controlling the center?
    e. Who has more space and where on the board do they have it?

    IV.. Activity
    a. which pieces are active and which are not? (how can you make them more active)
    b. Who has better development?
    c. who has the initiative?

    V. Minor pieces
    a. Bishops (bishop pair, bad / good bishop, good diagonals for bishops)
    b. Knights (outposts, strength compared with bishops)

    VI. misc questions
    a. what stage of the game are we in?
    b. If we removed the Queen’s off the board, who has the better endgame?

    4. Select your candidates     (based on scans above)

    5. Analyze candidates (start with the most forcing)

    6. Select move based on analysis

    7. Blundercheck

    8. Write down your move

    9. Blundercheck again

    10. Make your move

  • Chess Evolution

    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 taking face to face lessons with FM Charles Galofre.  I have decided to stop trying to find my path on my own, and to work with a strong player that can guide me in the right direction.  I have two lessons under my belt, and I have been very pleased with the direction my chess improvement process has been taking.

    I will begin posting more frequently in the coming days, but I wanted to document some of the things I have been doing differently in the last couple of weeks.

    1. Started taking chess lessons

    2. Narrowed the focus of my chess study (50% of study time is on tactics)

    3. Focusing on my thought process

    4. FM Galofre recommended that I start playing open game as White

    5. Taking every game as an opportunity to learn (annotating and reviewing afterwards)

    Failure is not getting knocked down, it’s not getting up again

    – Vince Lombardi

  • Tactical Position for Study

    borovsky1g0_22White to move

    Highlight below for answer:

    15.Rxf6 gxf6 16.Bh3+ Rd7 17.Bxd7+ Kxd7 18.Qg4+ Ke8 19.Nd5 Qd8 20.Qe6+ Kf8 21.Bh6#

  • Chess Visualization Exercise #8

    It is very important that you have mastered exercises 1-7 before starting on this exercise. For exercises 1-7 visit the chess exercises page.

    Without looking at the board, tell all the squares controlled by:

    – a knight on c6
    – a knight on f3
    – a knight on b2
    – a knight on c5
    – a knight on h7

  • Karpov & Mazukevich's Chess Thought Process

    (adapted by Herman Grooten)

    The following thought process which is recommended by Karpov and Mazukevich is used to detect the important features of an arbitrary position in order to devise a plan that conforms to the positional assessment derived by using this thought process.

    This thinking process is based on 7 criteria in which the White position is compared with the Black position.

    1. What is the material balance?

    2. Are there any (direct) threats?

    3. How is the safety of both Kings?

    4. Pawn structure questions:

       a. Where are the open lines and diagonals?

       b. Are there many strong squares?

       c. Who is controlling the center

       d. Who has more space and where on the board do they have it?

    5. Which pieces are active and which are not?

    Training applications:

    Go through the questions out loud while doing middlegame positions based on  Stoyko Exercises. The idea is to practice “talking out loud” with the list in front of you so that when you are in real game mode the questions will be asked subconsiously.

    Source: Chess Strategy for Club Players pg. 37.

  • Chess Visualization Exercise #7

    It is very important that you have mastered exercises 1-6 before starting on this exercise. For exercises 1-6 visit the chess exercises page.

    Without looking at the board, tell all the squares controlled by:

    – a knight on c3
    – a knight on e2
    – a knight on f6
    – a knight on d4