Interview with National Master Jim West
I recently conducted an interview with national master Jim West. Jim was very generous in sharing some advice. Here are some of the highlights from the interview:
- Focus on studying the middlegame and endgame.
- Don't spend too much time studying the opening - instead find playable positions and study the resulting middlegame.
- Play a lot of chess and study your games.
- Learning to think independently was the final hurdle in making it to the national master level.
Reading his responses and studying the games he shared definitely gave me some insight into my own training and has inspired me to rely less on chess engine analysis and try to think more on my own.
Jim also shared a couple of his favorite games with annotations. Here is the link for the full interview with Jim.
