Building Blocks for a Training Program

Let me kick off by opening a debate on the nature of chess training as opposed to chess study. Are they the same thing? Are they compatible? Which one do you feel is more important in becoming a stronger chess player, or even a chess master? Feel free to share your views in the comments.

Having spent most of my life as a student, I can see studying as a process of assimilating new information from a wide range of sources to acquire knowledge on a specific topic. Conversely, my basketball years as a youngster taught me training as a process of building up specific skills and abilities by means of repeated practice. Personally, if our main drive is to become stronger chess players, I believe we need to gravitate towards the latter. I am not saying we do not need to do any studying at all, I just feel more inclined to turning as much study into training as possible.

Who do you think has a fairer chance at becoming a better basketball player?

How is it possible to turn study into training?

I believe it all comes down to engaging in any chess activity as actively as possible. It is undoubtedly beneficial for our chess to read through chess books and watch chess videos, but not very likely we will be able to retain most of the key content in the long run. It has happened to me on countless occasions, and it generally makes me feel as if I do not really make much out of the material. Therefore, I am planning to stress this important point in all my future articles and try to elaborate on how I make use of my chess resources in the most active way.

Four pillars for my training program

Over the last three years I have attempted many times at writing down an ideal structured program for my own chess training. Sometimes, I have even sunk in deep thought to find out the ultimate list of chess topics which would be sufficiently exhaustive for me to keep working sustainedly over a long period of time. I was never satisfied. I always fell something was missing or something else was not as useful as I had pictured it initially.

Joining Rafael Leitao's chess academy came very handy here. Having an insight into the training methods used by a strong Grandmaster throughout his career finally helped me to put all my doubts to rest. My final choice of four pillars, or areas of primary focus, to vertebrate my chess training program is heavily influenced by his teachings. They will also stand as four primary categories to classify future articles in the blog:

• Method for Calculation of Variations
• Opening Repertoire
• Studying the Classics
• Endgame Repertoire

Funnily enough, by joining all four initial letters it is possible to form the word MOSE, which refers to the literal translation of "Moses our Teacher" in Hebrew. Isn't everything falling into place?

Thou shalt not forget the classics!

Before moving on, I would like to briefly introduce each of the four categories.

Calculation of variations is widely recognized as the single key skill any player needs to master to unlock improvement at all levels. This is so because calculation mistakes are often extremely costly and can turn strategic masterpieces into utter disaster. Whereas knowledge of opening theory and proficiency in positional play or endgame technique help us to gradually outplay our opponents, a slip in calculation is a game changer and will often turn the tables to either side regardless of the strategical imbalances in the position.

In future articles, I will try to stress the importance of building up to an efficient, effective and robust method for calculating variations, rather than simply solving exercises day in and day out (which is nonetheless already of great value on its own). I believe that it is by constantly reflecting on the process that we can gain insight in our mistake patterns as well as our limitations regarding calculation.

Building an opening repertoire should not be understood as studying opening theory all day. Again, the approach needs to be active, and I do not see much of it on trying to eat up hundreds of pages of theory only to forget them a week later. However, by playing over a number of model games and trying out standard ideas from our openings of choice in training games, we will come to understand the ins and outs of all the lines in our repertoire.

Articles under this category will offer numerous examples, based on my own opening repertoire, on how to work with model players and model games in order to understand the main ideas in the lines we choose to play. I will also share some ideas I have had along the way to improve retention of key moves in theoretical lines, which sometimes cannot be avoided.

I recently found a debate on Twitter about whether an aspiring chess master should know the list of all World Chess Champions in order, as well as the dates when they won and lost the title. What is your opinion? Is it such a big deal? In my opinion, it is something of great importance for one very strong reason. Any avid student and researcher of the great players from the past, not only will be able to remember the full list of World Chess Champions in order, but will not even be able to get it out of his head!

Broad knowledge of the classics is the cornerstone for strategy and positional play. By grasping the evolution of ideas throughout chess history as they are illustrated in hundreds of ageless masterpieces by our predecessors, it is possible to strengthen all the important strategic concepts we usually find in the manuals.

Future articles on the classics will try to synthesize model concepts, ideas, plans and manoeuvres which we can use to populate a library of patterns to use in our own games. Occasional stories related to the players and the most important games will also be included as an attempt to make the journey through chess history as enjoyable as possible.

The concept of an endgame repertoire occured to me as I was thinking about alternative approaches to endgame study which were more appealing to the average player. One of the reasons which is often reported as for why most players do not feel attracted by endgame study as much as they do for opening theory lies on a certain feeling of attachment. Whereas we tend to use sentences such as "the poisoned pawn is one of the lines in my repertoire" or "let me show you a new line I have against the king's indian", it feels rather awkard to refer to a rook endgame as "my Vancura position".

Therefore, in order to develop a stronger feeling of attachment to key endgame positions, I believe it might be an interesting idea to build an endgame repertoire which essentially consists of all the endgame positions which are appropriate to our level and which we have managed to master by means of regular practice.

In future articles under this category, I will not only share those endgame positions which I keep adding to my repertoire, but also a number of ideas on how to practice them and, more importantly, on how to develop an appetite for endgame work.

Bringing everything together

Is it enough to master all four areas above to become a stronger player and eventually reach chess mastery?

For me, the answer to this question is rather evident: no. A chess player needs to play to improve, practice is of the essence here. And he/she needs to play a lot. A chess player also needs to analyze his play to find out repeated mistakes, sources of uncertainty over the board, holes in chess understanding, etc., and then be clinical about repairing them. Extinguishing all sorts of mistake patterns in our play weighs as much in our chess work diet as learning a new opening, mastering the positional exchange sacrifice or being able to calculate complex pawn endgames.

Sources of mistakes need to be extinguished so our play can blossom

Practice and Analysis is the title for the fifth category in the blog. Articles under this category will carry my views on related topics such as the analysis of my own games, use of online chess, and ideas to implement with fellow chess players.

A playground for out-of-the-box ideas

"If you don't feel that the game can unleash your creative potential, then you're already on the losing side." - Garry Kasparov

About one year ago I discovered Kasparov's brand new MasterClass offical trailer and, even though I concluded it was not the best product for me, the quote above resonated with me the moment I heard it. Maybe because it sticks to the roots of my love for the game of chess: a platform for giving birth to original ideas, the cradle of creativity and imagination.

From time to time, I like to think about different approaches to working on chess. I am fascinated, for example, by the huge number of chess variants which have been invented so far. How do chess laws apply to them? Also, potentially "stealing" ideas from computer chess or even applying data analysis algorithms to chess learning sound very appealing to me.

Under a sixth category titled Thinking Outside the Box, I am planning some interesting excursions beyond the sixty-four squares, hopefully to add up to our understanding of the game itself.