Below is my new chess improvement plan after having decided to dust off my chess board after watching the Queen’s Gambit. Focus on tactics, the middlegame, and the endgame No direct opening study, any opening study comes from analyzing my games. Study time is broken down between theory (studying) and practice (solving). Feedback loop consists…
I have been reading the book Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative by Austin Kleon, and I have found that many of his suggestions apply to chess. Chess is as much a creative endeavor as it is a mathematical one. So a book about making you more creative, has…
The road to chess improvement is a long and winding one, but with these 10 tips will help you survive the journey and increase your chess level. Chess Improvement Tips 1. Eliminate blunders. 2. Become proficient at finding offensive and defensive tactics. 3. Stop playing “hope chess“. Analyze at least 4 ply deep, and make…
According to experts it takes approximately 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert in any field. So the following is my attempt to gauge my chess progress based on the 10,000 hour rule. Assumptions 10,000 hours of practice = expert A chess expert is a player with a 2000 USCF rating. Your starting chess…
I have finished the exercise I proposed in Pt. 1 of Finding the Master Within, and below are my results: 1. I played over 3 random games from each of the masters on the list. 2. I gave myself a 0 for needs work, 1 for average, 2 for good, 3 for very good and…
There is no doubt that reviewing master games is one of the best methods to improve your chess. The question for me has always been which master’s games do I study first? There are schools of thought that answer this by stating that you should review master games starting in chronological order, since this maps…
I wasn’t planning on making this a series of posts on threats, but I feel I’m on to something. My chess has improved since I have restructured my thought process to incorporate threat analysis . Threat Based Evaluation Process 1. What are my opponent’s threats? a. Is there a mate threat? b. Is…
I have been away for a few months, in which time I have been through a long plateau and a bout of chess related self-doubt. The reason for the self-doubt is that I feel that I should be at a different playing level than that which I am (1300 USCF), and I am a bit…
Update: 8/7/2010: I have been following my own advice for the past two weeks, and I have to say that my training is more focused than ever, and I am beginning to see tangible improvements over the board. If you are interested, I am continuing to post my weekly training schedule at my Chess Notebook…
USChess.org has a great article on how Christian Galwe increased 200 rating points in 6 months! 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…
