Chess for Beginners

Tag: announcement blitz break

  • The Chess Directory Project

    The Chess Directory Project

    Chess Directory Project
    Chess Directory Project

    The Chess Directory project aims to consolidate all online chess related information into one place.  Currently the Chess Directory has 11 different chess related categories with 50 chess related sites already listed, and is growing quickly.

    Popular categories in the chess directory include:

    If you have a chess related business , you are a chess coach, or if you frequent a site that hasn’t been included, then feel free to submit your site for free to the Chess Directory.

    The aim is to have one place where all good quality chess sites can easily be discovered.

     

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  • From Disappointment Comes Change

    I haven’t posted for several months, because I have not been happy with my chess improvement.  I have taken these past few months to review my training program and to try to figure out the missing piece of my chess improvement puzzle. I am not any closer to coming up with an answer than I was back in December, but I think that this time of reflection will lead to improvement in the long run. When I achieve measurable improvement, I will post on what changes have made a difference

    UPDATE — 3/4/2011
    I have been following my new training program for 1 month, and I am tracking my progress via my standard FICS rating and my chess.com tactical trainer rating. After 31 days, I have gained 23 standard rating points and 26 tactical training points. I continue to take detailed daily notes, and I have had many ideas to improve the training regimen as I go. I figure that in a few more weeks I will be happy enough with the program to post a few more details.

    UPDATE — 2/20/2011

    I am in the 3rd week of a new training program , I am working it out as I go, but I am happy with the short term results. I am keeping detailed personal notes on what I am doing, as well as tracking my standard rating on FICS to validate the program.  I am trying to synthesize all of the  things I have learned about chess improvement in the last few years. Because I don’t have to edit the content of the training log, I find that I am writing more frequently than if I would be posting on the blog.

    I don’t plan on updating beginchess much in the next few week / months, but I will add periodic updates under this post, and an occassional blog post.

  • Yet Another Training Plateau

    I haven’t written a new blog post in quite a while, and I wanted to give an update on what I have been up to in the past few months. I have started writing about my specific training on my Chess Notebook blog and that has taken some of the time I dedicate to writing for beginchess.com.

    I have modified my trianing program so that I focus my study on specific content and I don’t jump around from book to book and topic to topic. This new focused training was working well until one week ago when I started missing training sessions, to the point where I have been almost two weeks without following the program. I continue to work 20-30 minutes on tactics, so I don’t lose my tactical vision, but I have decided to take another 1-2 weeks off training.

    I believe that the disinterest has to do with over-training which has led to a training plateau.  I plan on writing an update to the training plateau post where I will deal with “muscle confusion” in chess training. I think this P90X style training schedule, will keep things fresh and training plateaus will be delayed or avoided altogether…so stay tuned for that.

    Leave a comment if you have unique ways in which you deal with training plateaus.

  • On hiatus

    Other things have taken my attention away from chess, and I have neglected posting for several months now. One interesting observation, is that while I have not been training other than playing 1 G30 game a few times per week, my chess has not sufferred as much as I would have thought, and I think this has to do with not playing any blitz whatsoever.

    I do plan on returning to returning to chess within the next few weeks, hopefully refreshed and invigorated due to my chess break.