Hi,

So after almost 20 years and never getting past the 'beat your Dad' stage at chess I've taken up playing the game. I've been doing chess puzzles quite regularly for about a year and that's been quite helpful, but recently I've started playing a former colleague via. the Internet and using Chessmaster to play some quick games.

I'd like to develop into a okay player and found this article which appears to offer some decent advice.

Apart from playing as much as possible and then revisiting the games does anyone have any advice for a mildly bemused guy :)

 Cheers

Paul 

 

 

 

"does anyone have any advice for a mildly bemused guy"

 

Yes, leave the Queen's Knight's pawn alone. 

 

FRAGMENTED STUDY! The curse of most people when learning chess, especially me. I lost a number of years when I was younger to fragmented study and had nothing to show for it but bits and pieces. The list of books is great but unless you have the time, it will take forever. Here's a thought:

If you have Chessmaster, you have a built in training program. Start with the most basic lessons, the chessboard, pieces, etc. It doesn't matter if you already know this stuff. Go back and start from the beginning. Go through every lesson and every game. When you get to the intermediate lessons, go over the correct and incorrect answers and make sure you understand them both.

Another thing to do to study the opening but don't get hung up on it. By this, I mean that you should know the basics of opening defense but not loose track of the middle and end games. You have to be able to make the transition from opening to middle, and middle to end game smoothly in order not to find yourself lost in the midst of a game.

I am by no means a good chess player. However, my game has improved so much these last four months because I have had a game plan that was not fragmented. I have to note that I am in a position for the rest of the year to work on my chess game for five hours a day (which I pretty much do) because of taking time off from my occupation, so this helps. However, even putting an hour ot two in a day if the time is well spend will improve your game.

 

That was a good article and the list of books. I keep a library of chess books in pdf files on my laptop so I can refer to them when using Chessmaster to train. Good luck, although I think things will turn around for your playing!!

Continue doing puzzles. For tactics try to find puzzle books or CDs were the position actually came from games (from masters, or even beginners). Same advice for endgame puzzle books.  For me personally, I find it effective to start studying the endgame first, since you learn to recognize the patterns, positions with just a few pieces.  Start with K+Pvs.K, with just these three pieces you would have weeks of study. As you master more and more positions you will notice that your pattern recognition improves and consequently your tactics will improve too.  With regards to the opening don't pay much attention to it, pick 1 or 2 openings as white and be comfortable with them.

I've been doing the Chessmaster Waitzkin tutorials which are quit good and I've got one book I'm working in. I'm still trying to work out if I can load my games into Chessmaster so it can analysis them for me.

 

 

Bemused wrote:

I've been doing the Chessmaster Waitzkin tutorials which are quit good and I've got one book I'm working in. I'm still trying to work out if I can load my games into Chessmaster so it can analysis them for me.

 

 

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You should be able to. Click on the "moves" tab on the chess.com page with the game you wish to analyse, and hit the "get PGN" button.

I use Chessmaster 9000 (which having costed me €2 in Spain, must be the software bargain of the century!) and can "import" games to the gameroom by:

In the gameroom, simply use the "File" menu's "Load" command to select the PGN you have downloaded.

I know there is at least a 10th version of Chessmaster, but I don't imagine Ubi Soft will have got rid of this useful feature.

I hope it works!

Chessmaster 10 cost me £4 in a software bucket.