Chess for Beginners

Category: Training

  • Chess Notebook Week of 11.30.09

    Monday 11.30.09

    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.

  • Chess Notebook Week of 11.23.09

    Started new program mid week, so entries will be from Wednesday through Sunday.

    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.

  • 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.

  • 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

  • Chess Board Visualization Exercise #6

    It is very important that you have mastered exercises 1-5 before starting on this exercise. For exercises 1-5 visit the chess exercises page.

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

    – a bishop on b2
    – a bishop on b7
    – a bishop on a5
    – a bishop on h4
    – a bishop on d4
    – a bishop on c4

  • Common Chess Errors

    The purpose of the following list of chess errors, is to assist us to diagnose our weaknesses when we annotate our games.

    Opening Weaknesses
    Falling victim to an opening trap
    Ignoring the development of your pieces
    Waiting too long to castle
    Opening inaccuracy
    Moving the same piece more than once in the opening

    Calculation Weaknesses
    Missing the strongest continuation
    calculation errors
    stopping analysis of a candidate too early
    Losing the thread of your analysis (getting lost in your analytical tree of variations)
    Retained image error (calculation)
    Not analyzing a candidate because it seems to lose material
    Stopping the analysis of a line 1-2 ply before the winning move
    Not evaluating the position at the end of your analysis

    Thought Process Weaknesses
    Failing to see your opponents threats
    Losing a won game
    Losing concentration / Focus / Thread of the game
    Not asking the right questions

    Time Management Weaknesses
    getting into time trouble
    playing too fast
    playing too slow
    Spending too much time on a non-critical move

    Endgame Weaknesses
    Entering into a lost endgame
    Missing a common endgame pattern
    Not knowing how to play a fundamental endgame position

    Positional Weaknesses
    Ignoring your opponents threats
    Ignoring King safety
    Starting a premature attack
    Pawn hunting in the opening
    Losing control of an important file or diagonal
    Allowing your opponent too much space
    Weakening your pawn structure
    Misplaying a pawn breakthrough
    Entering an exchange which leads to a worse position
    Missing a positional move / idea

    Psychological Weaknesses
    Worrying about ratings / results
    Fearing your opponents rating
    Playing without a plan

    Learning
    Not reviewing your games
    Learning concepts too advanced for your level
    Focusing too much on knowledge and not on skill (studying too much  versus playing too little)

  • How I am Studying My System

    I have been going over My System for the past few weeks as part of the study strategy portion of my study schedule. I think the best way to go over the content of the book is to go over The Elements section  going over each example carefully. Luckily I have a Chessbase file with all of the diagrams setup which saves me a lot of time. I am annotating the diagrams while reading the book notes. Once I go over The Elements section, I plan on going over it a second time before I begin on Part 2: Positional Play. This will ensure that I have a good understanding of the foundations of Nimzowitsch’s System before I get into the more advanced content. I am also going over the illustrative games whenever Nimzowitsch calls for it.

    In addition, it is helpful to have a copy of Chess Praxis, which has additional illustrative games, as well as a more condensed and modern explanation of key concepts.