Hi, I think currently I am stunting my chess growth.  See, currently I've gotten rankings all the way up to 1900 from 1400 (dropped back to 1700 =/) in a matter of months.  How did I do this?  Rediculous amount of time considering variations.  But this isn't getting me any better at chess, as evidenced by my blitz and OTB play.

I love chess enough to spend every spare moment playing it, screw the brain hemmoraging.  I spend 3 hours studying, and 2 hours playing, but I'm just not getting better.  I have chessbase 9 (no database), and a cruddy 1.33ghz laptop. I earn $10-$20 a week (I'm young, If you haven't realized), live in canada, and visit an informal club weekly (Strongest that comes is an NM). What should I do now?

- Chess coach? (keep in mind that I would need to get a part time job to afford one regularly)

- Pay for analysis by strong players?

- Any books on how to improve at chess?  Any books I should have generally? (no credit card access, so one I could get from a chapters would be nice).  I strongly prefer algebraic notation and books that are likely to be found at a bookstore

- Things I should do?

Take it easy.  Have fun.

HOW THE **** AM I SUPPOSED TO DO THAT? 3 HOURS OF TRAINING A DAY?

But seriously, I took it easy with chess for awhile, and I feel like taking the next step.  I don't want to be a casual player anymore, I want to be stronger, experience beautiful games... you know?

Thats why I love vote chess so much, the depth and complexity of the games.  I want to experience that in my regular play.

I'm just like you..started playing for real just three years ago, a complete beginner, now I'm a developmental player (between intermediate and advanced)..i win comps that are those community centre kinds, (come on, lady champion is just $30 cash prize), but otherwise, I'm not very good. I'm trained up in tactics (my tactics trainer rating is forever higher than any OTB or turn-based or live chess), but I just want to hit the mark of 1500 or something.

I play chess online almost daily, maybe that's how I improved...but well, in the same shoes as you I guess. My allowance is about yours, I'm just a student. Just that my rating's nowhere near as high as yours(;

Again, my rating is illusionary, my blitz rating stayed stagnent at 1400...  Only my corrospondance jumped (I'm just spending more time on moves...).  Its not that I have a mental block with blitz, its more that I spend 30 minutes on variations because I'm very mean to people playing corrospondance.

But I'm still lacking ideas.  Well I think what has to be done tomorrow is clean whatever the library has for chessbooks *looks up catalouge* Oooh a beginners book by capablanca.  I heard capablanca was a good chess player.

 BE PATIENT!  all will work its self through and your growth will happen one day as if by magic. It happened to me and it will u. Even on this web site i got to 2051 during a purple patch and then bam! i went down to 1656 a few months after that now i have to climb back up again which is always fun hahaha. You might be going through a season. I remember in OTB games for 6mths or more i didnt improve in fact i felt like i was getting a bit worse, then one day it fell into place and i went up 200 points in skill just like that. So be patient ok and keep working at it and all will be fine. If ur really worried get coaching from a master for a month or 3 and see what they have to say to give u an idea....

Bu Bu a month of coaching is expensive .  Are there any coachs that work more like consultants?  You know, swoop in every now and then to help my progress?  That would be more on par with what I could afford.  Otherwise, its time to start saving up pennies...

Hmmm im not sure unless u go to an actually club and play if they have any really good players u might ask of them for tips and advice on how they got to be that good or do that here online maybe.What i do know is i didnt get any official coaching either as i had the same trouble with money you did. I learned from books and hard study of my games and perfection attitude to playing it better and finding better moves, asking higher rated players what there thoughts are on my games. I dont have pc programs to analyze my games its old fashioned hard yaker from me that does it. Just a thought. Other wise im not sure....

My study regimen generally goes like this

--- 3 hours of study ---

1 hour doing puzzles on chesstempo.com.  Time is set NOT to affect ratings.  I do a bit of them on a chessboard, as I find I can more easily visualize on a computer then a chessboard.

1 hour reading through chess articles/books.  Currently looking through chesstactics.org.

1/2 hour visualization drills or blindfold training, this isn't the best use of my time probably...

1/2 hour browing the chess.com and chessgames.com front page.

Weekly I send my games to my friend for analysis, WITH HIS FANCY GUIS AND RYBKA AND WHATNOT.

--- Play (2 hours+ during school) ---

2 hours of corrospondance, blitz, and vote chess.  But I can get wayyy too engrossed in vote chess.

7 hours at a chess club on friday (including transportation)

Yes, sometimes it's frustrating when you get the feeling that you are not improving as fast as you would like, or may be not improving at all.

May be you find this video about chess improvement interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2TfoJN3q-w

When i was serious about chess i played for about 6 hours or more a day and about 2hours study a day i could stay up real late just to play chess against the pc chessmaster 3000 and others. i didnt have any particular tactics books except winning chess tactics which i borrowed from a friend mind u and i once had borrow a book called 1001 tactics combinations, i think thats wat it was called. i didnt have a good program as u do, as i said i did it through hours of hard studying and looking at myself, what i was thinking at the time, where was the pivitol point that made the difference and so on. I hope u figure out your plan mate.....

Don't worry if you lose rating trying new lines. Consider the points well spent for the learning experience. Getting locked into the same lines of the same openings makes you predictable and opponents will know how to prepare to play against you. You aren't going to get better without expanding your knowledge, and that means taking the time to learn something new once in a while, even if it means sacrificing a few rating points in the time it takes you to learn the lines.

Well, MikedaSnipe, that's happened to me before. As your rating goes up, certain themes become more important like openings and other stuff. Anyway, your best bet is to go over your games. This is extremely important. You may notice a trend in your loses and then you'll know exactly what to improve. You could be making tactical errors (tactics training) or maybe your endgames need work (study some GM games). By going over your games you'll see where you need improvement and then you can fix those things and improve your game.

Looking at your games didn't help much since after glancing over a few of your losses, it turns out that they were lost on time.

Don't worry about what your rating is since it may not reflect on how well you play.

If time management is a problem, try playing more blitz games or getting something to remind you when your next move is due.

diskamyl wrote: Marshal_Dillon wrote: Don't worry if you lose rating trying new lines....  You aren't going to get better without expanding your knowledge, and that means taking the time to learn something new once in a while, even if it means sacrificing a few rating points in the time it takes you to learn the lines.

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 I do not agree with this...

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I have to say I think Marshal_Dillon is quite right.  Experience of different opening ideas and middlegame ideas is one way to improve your overall ability.

Sunshiny wrote:

Looking at your games didn't help much since after glancing over a few of your losses, it turns out that they were lost on time.

Don't worry about what your rating is since it may not reflect on how well you play.

If time management is a problem, try playing more blitz games or getting something to remind you when your next move is due.

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There's always room to improve, unless those games were perfectly played. Running out of time in the middlgame usually means trouble with planning. I suggest looking at games by titled players to help improve your middlgame knowledge for your opening. If you can't always make a plan for your opening in 30min games, then you'll be screwed in blitz.

There is a tremendous amount of information available for free download on the internet.  Chess.com has some.  1000s of games, listed by player, event, opening, are available in both PGN and Chessbase format, as well as Chess Assistant, from the University of Pittsburg's site.

ftp://ftp.pitt.edu/group/student-activities/chess/

It's open to everyone.

Lots of books, including many of the classics, are available at various sites for download in PDF version and WinDJ versions.  If you want hard copies check out

http://www.dealoz.com/index.pl?ad_id=15310&gclid=CMHn66eD2ZICFQKhlgodQBSUAg

and

http://www.alibris.com/booksearch?DI=1&cm_ven=Email&cm_cat=External&cm_pla=05262008V2A&cm_ite=Search

Both these sites search their member book dealers for copies of whatever books you are looking for.  You can do a search by author, title, keyword, subject, etc..  If you buy anything from Alibris (for the time being, at least) type BOB in the coupon code when checking out.  You'll get $1 off your order.  Or, if you're buying $50 or more worth of books, type DYLAN and get $10 off.

AnthonyCG wrote: Sunshiny wrote:

Looking at your games didn't help much since after glancing over a few of your losses, it turns out that they were lost on time.

Don't worry about what your rating is since it may not reflect on how well you play.

If time management is a problem, try playing more blitz games or getting something to remind you when your next move is due.

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There's always room to improve, unless those games were perfectly played. Running out of time in the middlgame usually means trouble with planning. I suggest looking at games by titled players to help improve your middlgame knowledge for your opening. If you can't always make a plan for your opening in 30min games, then you'll be screwed in blitz.

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 Of course there's always room to improve, but Mikedasnipe lost on time in games where the plan was clear and he could have won. So the problem with his rating drop is not due to poor in game planning, but poor time management. Either that or Mikedasnipe is just pulling our legs.

Looks at his games and decide for yourself.

I would buy the Comprehensive Chess Course (it's a book) by Lev Alburt. I has helped me.

Alburt says spend most of your time studying tactics and endgame, 25% time studying openings, and a little bit of time studying strategy.

diskamyl wrote: Marshal_Dillon wrote: Don't worry if you lose rating trying new lines. Consider the points well spent for the learning experience. Getting locked into the same lines of the same openings makes you predictable and opponents will know how to prepare to play against you. You aren't going to get better without expanding your knowledge, and that means taking the time to learn something new once in a while, even if it means sacrificing a few rating points in the time it takes you to learn the lines.

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 I do not agree with this. Unless you're at a professional level (2300+), being predictable and sticking to few solid openings in which you feel comfortable and get eventually better and better due to experience is a very good approach and it's what has pushed my game one step forward. 

 also in correspondence chess, in-advance opening preperation before games means nothing, since you have access to an infinite amount of references. 

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 The top players may stick with a few standard openings for the most part, but they ARE familiar in depth with a lot more than only what you see at top level play. They have to be. The possibility for transposition from one opening to another demands that they know how to play the opening that gets transposed to or they will lose.