The Patzer Chronicles: Or Seven Steps to Improve at Chess.

For those of you who have not followed this blog before (and I assume that is most of you) I am a patzer who wants to improve. A couple of years ago I made a determined and industrious attempt to raise my ratings. And I progressed from 1000 to 1400. At 1400+, on Chess.com, that put me in the top five percentile. I thought that was pretty good and I took a hiatus. 

But you know, if you love chess, if you really love chess, it is hard to make a clean break. Once the hook is set, it will reel you in. 

The purpose of this blog, however, is to share some of the steps I followed to make that 400+point improvement. They are easy steps.  Well, that's misleading. They will be easy for me to write, not so easy for you to accomplish. 

Before I list the Seven Steps to Improvement, I have one final disclaimer. The best way to improve is to hire a coach. I did that for a few weeks. It was valuable, but this blog is Seven Steps to Improvement Without Hiring a Coach.   

One: Play Chess. Pretty obvious. You can't improve without playing. Let me add a couple of caveats. While playing at any time interval will help, if you really want to improve your game, the longer time intervals are where it's at.  Thirty-minute games or even sixty-minute games. 

Two: Puzzles. You are unlikely to improve if all you do is play games. You have to study. The maxim is that chess is 95% tactics. Maybe more. Which means you have to do puzzles. It's a must. At least 25 puzzles a day. Probably more. Chess.com has a number of ways to do this.  And I think all of their different ways are useful. Currently my best on the Survival mode here on Chess.com is 44. (I just had to get that in, as I'm pretty stoked about it.)

Three: Analyze your games. And let me add that you can learn so much more from a loss than a victory.  I will go more into analyzing in a future post. Personally, I enjoy analyzing my games more than playing them. You need to look at your mistakes. You need to identify the type of errors you are making, if you expect to improve. 

Four: Read Chess.  This could also be doing lessons on chess.com or actually reading hard copy books. There is a great deal of value in reading chess books. For one thing it improves your ability to visualize the board. But, you know, the easy way around to meet this objective is to read my blogs!  Eh? No, not really. 

Five: Visualize   Chess is a game with 64 squares. You need to understand the board. Again Chess.com has a tool called visualization. Where you must identify the algebraic squares as fast as you can move your mouse. This is important.  Another tool on chess.com is to play a game blindfolded. If you are going to do this, I recommend playing against a bot.

Six: Study the Various Parts of a Game: By this I mean do some opening theory study, and study the middle game, but also study the end game.  

Seven: Develop a Plan. And by this I am not talking about a plan for your chess game, although that is good. And I am also not talking about having a 3x5 card that you have by your side telling you what questions you need to ask before each move.  Again, that is essential.  What I am saying is get a notebook and outline your plan for the week. How many games will you play, how many puzzles, what are the other elements you have in your study plan. Have a plan. 

One more thing. For a very in-depth discussion of this see Davorin Kuljasevic's How to Study Chess on Your Own. 

Good luck.