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
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)
For exercises 1-4 visit the chess exercises page.
It is very important that you have mastered exercises 1-4 before starting on this exercise.
Without looking at the board, tell all the squares controlled by:
– a bishop on g2
– a bishop on g7
– a bishop on e5
– a bishop on b7
– a bishop on d2
– a bishop on c5
Favorite Chess Blogs
1. Chessvibes : News, tournament reports and endgames studies.
2. Chess for all Ages : A little bit about everything about chess.
3. Chess Training : Not a well known blog, but worth checking out. It is not frequently updated, but when it is the content is exactly what I’m looking for in a chess improvement blog.
4. Susan Polgar Chess News and Information : Frequently updates news and puzzles from Susan Polgar.
5. The Kenilworthian : The Kenilworth Chess Club, but don’t let the name fool you, this blog contains lots of news and information not found elsewhere, definitely worth a visit.
Favorite Chess Sites
1. Chess.com: Best chess social networking site
2. Chessbase : Best chess news .
3. Chess Cafe : Best chess related articles.
4. chessgames.com : Best chess game database, also has guess the move feature which is excellent for training.
5. Chess Tempo: Best placed to practice your tactics online.
Honorable Mentions
1. www.chess.fm : Worth the visit, if only for the Dan Heisman training videos. (requires ICC membership to view most videos)
“If you want to get better at chess you need to place much less emphasis on ‘study’ whereby you increase your knowledge of positions, and place more emphasis on ‘training,’ whereby you try to solve problems, play practice games, or perhaps try to beat a strong computer program from an advantageous position.” (p.25).
“Chess skill emerges from chess playing combined with chess training, where ‘training’ means working things out by yourself. The main skill a chess-player needs is skill in making decisions, so that’s what you need to do and do repeatedly. If you want to become a better player, you need better habits, and you cultivate better habits through training. The best training is the kind that pushes you up against the edges of your comfort zone, where you force yourself to take responsibility for difficult decisions. It is so much easier to read books that give strategic guidelines, hints and tips, etc., but what you need is ‘know how’ and that means learning by doing.” (p.29)
“…The main function of chess trainers should be to guide the training of their students, rather than to teach them directly. The best thing you can do for a student is to select interesting positions for them and analyse them carefully so you can see the kinds of things that the student is missing. The trouble with this approach is prosaic, but real. Chess tutors are normally paid by the hour, and this tends to make you think that you should be showing the students certain things, imparting knowledge, giving hints and tips, etc. This is understandable, but much more useful, I think, is to give the student difficult positions to solve, to be there in a supportive role as they solve them, and then carefully consider what the student missed and why.” (p.66)
Below are the knowledge and skills a beginning chess player must acquire to improve their chess rating to improve from a chess beginner to an expert level chess player. The idea is to show the estimated chess rating, the required knowledge and skill, and the time it would take them to attain a specific ELO rating and chess level. Find out in which category you fall to determine the knowledge and chess skills you need to move on to the to the next chess level.
I would love to get feedback from more knowledgeable players and coaches, since I think this might be helpful to chess players that are just starting out all the way to an approximate 1700 rating. The idea is for players to focus on those areas that they need to work on in order to reach the next level.
0-1000 (0-3 months of experience) The realm of the beginning chess player. At this stage the player has just learned the game, they constantly leave pieces en prise, and make many blunders. Player has no tactical, endgame, or positional knowledge. Player does not know about chess strategy and has no evaluation or analysis skills.
1000-1100 (3-6 months of experience) Beginning player now has several games under their belt. They have very basic tactical knowledge and they continue to make blunders and to leave pieces en prise. Plays without a plan.
1100-1200 (1-2 years of experience) Beginning player continues to make many blunders. At this level they have learned basic tactics. Occasionally leaves pieces en prise, but this is not a common occurrence. Sometimes plays with a plan, but the plan is usually incorrect. At this point the player sees many offensive tactics but they miss most defensive tactics.
1200-1300 (2-3 years of experience) Player begins to understand that chess is a two player game, and begins to ask what the opponent’s last move is threatening. Blunders still occur but less frequently. One major reason for their rating increase, is that player stops leaving pieces en prise. Player has intermediate tactical skills but still misses many defensive tactical shots. Starts to build an opening repertoire, which gets them into the middlegame with a better position. Very limited endgame and positional skills. Starts making better plans due to limited endgame and positional knowledge.
1300-1400 (3-4 years of experience) Advanced beginner. Players at this level have reached an intermediate thought process. player Looks for Checks, Captures and threats after opponents moves. Does not leave pieces en prise. Very good with offensive tactics and improving on the defensive tactics side, but still misses some. Still building opening repertoire. Starts learning basic endgame and middlegame strategy, but knowledge is still very basic. This level is an important milestone for the beginning chess player because they are on the verge of being an intermediate player. 1400-1500 (5-6 years of experience) Intermediate level player. Good thought process, does not leave pieces en prise. Advanced tactically, both on offense and defense (might occasionally miss a defensive tactic). Has an opening repertoire and plays pet openings. Has intermediate endgame, positional and analysis skills. One of the reasons for low rating is players poor positional evaluation abilities. Will probably need a chess coach to improve further. 1500-1700 (6-7 years of experience) Advanced intermediate player. Advanced tactical skills and thought process. Player has Intermediate endgame and positional skills at this stage. Intermediate positional evaluation and analysis skills. Should have a chess trainer, and play against strong opposition in order to improve as well as a strong focus on the endgame, positional and evaluation skills. 1700-1900 (7-8 years of experience) Near expert level player. Advanced tactical skills and thought process. Very strong endgame and positional skills. Intermediate evaluation skills. Very good analyst. Player needs to continue focusing on evaluation and analysis skills. Opening theory knowledge becomes an important component for further improvement. Player has a good database of structures that that can help them when they reach unfamiliar positions in OTB play. Player should reach expert level in approximately 2 more years, which falls in line with expert theory which claims that it takes 10 years to become an expert in any field. Update 2/6/15 This post has been the most popular on this site for a very long time. Thank you for taking the time to add your opinions and feedback. I plan on doing a follow up post in the future, with all of the things I have learned from all of you. It is still not too late to comment, all of your feedback on how you have improved in chess levels is very valuable. [feather_share]
Previous Exercises:
– Exercise 1
– Exercise 2
– Exercise 3
For exercise 4, using the board look at all of the squares controlled by:
– the f1-bishop developed to e2 (place only this bishop on the board)
– the f1-bishop developed to d3, c4, b5
– the f8-bishop developed on e7, d6, c5, b4
– all remaining bishops as above
Then, without the use of the board repeat the exercise again visualizing the squares controlled by the bishops above.
Perform this exercise for 2 sessions or until you feel comfortable.
To help track the reasons why a mistake was made during the game.
Health
1. Not enough sleep
2. Headache, cold, etc.
3. Food problem: hungry, ate too much, too much sugar, etc.
Concentration
1. External distraction (noise, light, etc.)
2. Internal distraction (worried about prior mistake, other issues, etc.)
Lack of familiarity with tactical pattern
1. Visualization – did not correctly retain piece position in analyzed (possible) sequences
2. Board vision – did not see entire (current) board properly and missed a move capability
Thought Process Error
1. Hope Chess – did not attempt to look for opponent’s dangerous replies
2. Analytical error – miscalculation/missed sequence
3. Quiescence error – stopped analyzing too soon
4. Did not look for all the things a move did
5. Did not look for a better move
6. Opponent’s move was forced so did not look for its threats, too
Time Management Error
1. Played too fast
2. Got into unnecessary time trouble
3. Panicked trying to avoid time trouble
Psychology
1. Underestimated opponent
2. Excessive fear of opponent
3. Overconfident in winning (drawn) position
Source: Dan Heisman
http://www.chesscafe.com/heisman/heisman.htm
The Road to Chess Improvement
Ruke Vin Hansen in his amazing article Mind Games: Who is Doing the Playing? comes to the conclusion that the best way to improve chess skill is not through reading chess books or watching DVDs. He argues that reading more books only helps fill your short term memory whereas quality moves are a result of the subconscious processes which are not affected by the “conscious” short term memory.
Hansen asserts that the best way to improve playing strength, improve judgement and to combat blunder tendencies is to follow a similar approach as that found in Kotov’s Think Like a Grandmaster.
Here is the process described by Hansen:
No matter what position you choose to analyse, opening, middle game or end game, complex or simple; find annotated games and play through them till you to come to the point with the greatest number of variations.
Cover up the annotations with a sheet of paper and, without moving the pieces, analyze the position from 30 minutes to an hour. If the variations are extremely complex, you might write down your analyzes while analyzing.
When time is out, stop analyzing and uncover the annotations in the book or magazine, and compare your notes with the annotator’s. (This is crucial since this trains and disciplines the brain’s ability to perceive positions correctly)
Strictly speaking, this, and not his highly criticized graphic presentation of tree-analyzes, is the Kotov-method. This was the method catapulting Kotov to super GM strength and even if Kotov was unable to, we can partly explain why it works, and in short, it can be put as TWT or “Targeted Wiring Training”. As long as thinking is subconscious, we have no idea what the mind looks like when pondering or producing chess moves or analysing positions. This method simultaneously teaches a whole array of different chess skills even if not targeted individually or specifically.
When starting out, there might be a great discrepancy between your analysis and the annotators’ but with time, you learn to delineate relevant moves and variations as this training and final comparison will exercise and target the mind’s ability to perceive chess positions and produce high quality moves. Initially, this system of training may appear time consuming and even monotonous, but patience and diligence will return generous rewards since you will:
* Achieve total mastery of a new and important position
* Broaden your opening repertoire and theoretical knowledge.
* Become better acquainted with positions of similar pawn structures or themes (note; not “pattern”)
* Absorb motifs which you can also apply to other positions.
* Dramatically improve combinative skill.
* Improve both long and short range planning.
* Analyze more deeply, accurately and efficiently.
* Increase concentration and attention span.
* Sharpen board visualization.
* Develop patience and perseverance
* control impulsive tendencies.
For the full article please go to: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=5055
For those of you who follow Dan Heisman, this training technique is very similar to Stoyko Exercises.
Stoyko Exercises
from Dan Heisman’s Exercises page
A summary of Stoyko exercise:
1) Find a fairly complicated position
2) Get out a pen/pencil and paper
3) You have unlimited time
4) Write down every (pertinent) line for as deep as you can see, making sure to include an evaluation at the end of the line. This will likely include dozens of lines and several first ply candidate moves. Evaluations can be any type you like:
a) Computer (in pawns, like +.3)
b) MCO/Informant (=, +/=, etc.)
c) English (“White is a little better”)
5) At the end state which move you would play and it’s “best play for both sides” line becomes the PV
6) When you are done, go over each line and its evaluation with a strong player and/or a computer. Look for:
a) Lines/moves you should have analyzed but missed
b) Any errors in visualization (retained images, etc.)
c) Any lines where you stopped analyzing too soon, thus causing a big error in evaluation (quiescence errors)
d) Any large errors in evaluation of any line
e) Whether the above caused you to chose the wrong move
etc.