The reason why it's taking you so long to go through the games is that you are looking at new ideas in depth. This is good, you're making the effort, and when you've absorbed the new ideas it will get less demanding, you'll cover more material per night, you'll progress as a player. But it's not about how much material you cover as it is about how you translate that material to your game. Just going over games without understanding them doesn't help much. And here's an old-school trick: when going over games that have many variations, use two boards--one for the game, one for analysis. It helps a lot.
How should one read a chess book?
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"And here's an old-school trick: when going over games that have many variations, use two boards--one for the game, one for analysis. It helps a lot."
OMG you just changed my life!
I made the decision to read an opening book to understand the in's and out's of the opening, but I've come to a depressing senario: It is taking a LONG @$$ TIME!
At first I rolled out my board, set up the pieces, and followed through game one, but I had to reset the board from move one or a recent diagram since there are 3 or 4 variations every 3rd move that I must follow to understand the reasoning behind the move presented in the book as best.
I quickly changed to using a gui chess software that would let me return to the root of the variable and this made things easier.
HOWEVER, this still takes a long time, and game 3 is presented like I still have game 1 fresh in my mind. Going over an anotated game with all variables takes me no less than 2 hours and not only am I spent after these 2 hours, but I only make it through 2-5 pages!!!
Is this normal?
What approach should I take when reading a chess book? Should I allow for MORE time per day when taking on a chess book so that I can get through more illustrated games at a time?
There are some times when there are days between my readings due to work and life.
any tips would be great!
Thank you,
-C