For those of you who have the orange books, do you do a whole chapter in one go or do you do a little bit (say about 10-30mins) each day?
There was a little bit of discussion on this in the Quality Chess Blog comments recently, and since then I've decided to try to do 15-30 minutes every day instead of one chapter on one evening every week. Aagaard and other commenters were unanymous that doing a little bit every day is better than doing more at a time but less often.
Okay, I will do that then.
I wonder about this alleged award winning course what award and by whom? Were there statistical studies that prove his course deserves to be award winning such as student success.
couldnt you have said that before i ordered the book???
Anyway it was mighty stupid from me to do that anyway, chessmentor is really awesome who needs a book...
I wonder about this alleged award winning course what award and by whom? Were there statistical studies that prove his course deserves to be award winning such as student success.
One book in the series won the 2008 FIDE Training Book of the Year award
The next year, another book took the 2009 Boleslavsky Award for best Chess Author from FIDE.
It was a finalist for ChessCafe Book of the Year
Yusopov was once ranked #3 in the world, and his skills as an instructor and trainer are well documented. The books are a reworking of his academy's chess curriculem.
He holds the title of FIDE Senior Trainer. His students have included Svidler and Movsesian. He has been a second to Anand and Leko.
You can find numerous high quality players and other instructors providing comments as to his qualities as a trainer and advisor in pretty much any of the standard chess periodicles.
Honestly, if you have no idea who someone is, it's ok to ask. But to insinuate that his accolades are immaginary or in some way made-up simply because you are ignorant of his biography is ludicrous.
He coached Anand.
One of his students won the world junior championship a few years back. His students include numerous IMs and GMs for whom he was the primary trainer.
One of his students won the world junior championship a few years back. His students include numerous IMs and GMs for whom he was the primary trainer.
i hope his student was karjakin
It is one thing to ask for information, it is another to do so in an accusatory manner.
I would venture to say that there few titled player in the world who doesn't owe something to Yusopov. His books with Dvoretsky are widely regarded as some of the best instructional material on the market on a variety of subjects. His skills as a trainer and second are noted by many.
And, frankly, his record as a player is exceedingly lauditory in and of itself. This is a guy who held 3rd place behind Kasparov and Karpov for many years, was himself world junior champion, made it to the semi-finals of the candidates 3 or 4 times, and is considered the world's leading expert in the Petrof defense. He's been a trainer or coach for 3 players who ahve competed for the world championship title, and the current world champion attributed his success during the time Yusupov was his coach to Yusupov's skill and insight as a trainer.
His books have been widely reviewed and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who has much bad to say about them at all beyond a frequent complaint of he asks his students/readers to work hard.
I own the orange books and I have complained. Simply put, his books are not designed for people of my rating. Im sure he is a world class GM trainer, but this is far from my level and he seems to be less than adequate of a trainer for people rated my level. If you are above 1800 Im sure that these books are excellent. But these books are far beyond my level of 1500... even though thats how they are advertised. Those who review his books are probably high level players themselves and seem to have forgotten what a 1500 lvl player needs. I know that they have done nothing for me.
what i saw till now was quite good, but im only at the introduction again. It has a forward from Anand and he has only the highest praise, ironically the trainer of Dvoretzki was IM, never would have thought that.
@Inconnux: Quality Chess themselves have mentioned at some point that obviously the rating ranges that Yusupov gives are too low, the first books should be for 1800s or thereabouts.
The "Step-by-step" workbooks by Van Wijgerden have a similar philosophy based on lots of lots of exercises, but they do start at absolute beginner level, and at step 5/6 I think they are more or less similar to Yusupov's orange books. They're used for junior training in the Netherlands, Germany and quite a few other countries.
So I think doing Steps first, then Yusupov is the way to go for people not strong enough for the orange Yusupovs first. At 1500 you can probably start at step 4, perhaps 3, hard to judge.
On the other hand, there's a fundamental problem. If you take, say, the chapter on Centralization, then there's a ** problem where the solution is 1.Bg2-e4! += (2 points) and two other moves 1 point. There is no tactic involved, it's simply the best move in the position as it improves the position of white's bishop. I found that problem quite hard, because I'm used to problems that have a much clearer solution, that leads to winning material or a much better position. But there isn't one, and the slightly better position is the best available.
That is hard, but it's going to be hard regardless of when you first learn it. It's because chess is hard. So maybe it is actually possible to do the Yusupov books earlier, and you're just not used to how hard you actually have to work.
That is a good way of looking at it :-)
Another note -- anyone here who has the blue books? I wonder how he treats openings in this format. How does e.g. the chapter on the Petroff as black work? What kind of exercises does he give in it?
I have one of the green books which has openings in it (The Colle-Zukertort, the French Defence and the QGA), basically he gives a few variations really in-depth and then some other variations study, and the puzzles are also related to the opening but not so much on what you just studied, he gives some different thematic opening ideas (and traps) for the opening
kikvors i think differently, Yussopovs lessons were real lessons by real under 1500 people from his class. I think if we cant master the same as the others, i think we definetly need to give up chess or consider that we are overrated.
but did any of these students get anything out of his lessons at this rating? A prime example is his chapter on 'basic opening principles'. This is a TERRIBLE chapter. The 'test questions' are asking what moves to play 11, 12 and 13 moves into the game. This is NOT basic opening principles and isn't even closely relevant to anyone at 1500. Even FM Eric Schiller knows better and doesn't use such poor examples in his books.
He expects you to know principles such as quick development, castle quickly, don't move you're queen etc. If you are rated 1500 FIDE/USCF you definately should know this.
i dont know i had it once on a train, shame i lost my book. The tactics seemed pretty easy in his book, i think he even said for what tactic to look for. Well im tactically not strong, but i would think the book wasnt very advanced. I have no otb rating but on first sight (i might be wrong though) yussopovs seemed really simple, but i probably getting another and see maybe its way better then i thought it was. He explains basic stuff like windmills and then you have to look for windmills.
Not everything in the book is tactics. Moreover, even the "easy" tactics aren't always that easy as Yusopov wants the reader to write down ALL the relevant lines to quiescence, missing nothing. Even when the first move is obvious, analyzing the line out to the end isn't always trivial. If you just use it like a tactics book finding the first move and moving to the next problem, you likely won't get much out of it. But if you do what the author asks, you'll find it to be a very useful work.
Come on im not saying the book is bad, and im thinking about getting it myself . But you dont honestly want to tell me the windmill tactics get harder because i write down the candidate moves and the replies. Ofc i wouldnt have solved them if i only had the first move right. (Also as the other poster pointed out it had much more im aware of)
You know if you want to discuss the merits of the books then please do but dont use unfair tactics like suggesting i only guessed first moves.
I never said its the worst book on the planet i thought it could be good, no reason to be so mean.
By the way did anyone look at the sharpest sicilian book?