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Hey everyone and thank you for adding me to your group (even though it was automatic ;P). i've recently rediscovered chess as a game and joined this site as a way of improving myself and having some fun playing. i can probably be considered as a beginner since i do not posess all the basic knowledge about chess. that's also my first question, what do you guys concider basic knowlege of chess? (stuff like control over the center, ways to anailse moves by you and your opponent) i'm asking this question because i do not want to learn things the wrong way now and end up in trouble later (i've had that happen to me before, and beleave me it's no fun :P). anyways, back to my story: i've been on chess.com for a couple of months now and i have seen my rating rise from 800 to about 1200 at this moment (live rating). my online rating is still not clear since i've only played 5 games. well i hope you guys can help me improve in chess and that i can help you too :) best, styxtwo PS. i'm not completely sure what to put in this journal so i'll probably start next with posting a game of mine with my own analisis and ask for your feedback.

Hello buddies, my name is Wibee, I am from Indonesia, my rating is 1370. I’ve always loved chess, since the first time I discovered it. But I’ve never played much of it, and I’ve never got to learn much. My being here in chess.com, has awakened my desire to be a better chess player, this is the place where I’ve played the most chess games ever in my life. One of the first things I did in 2009, was to be a member in a lot of groups. One of the groups I chose, and start to be active in, is this group, I must say I am beginning to enjoy it, especially by the presence of farbror who has been very helpful and friendly to me. He encouraged me to make this journal, I checked out some of the journals of you buddies, and I must say wow this is the real deal, you would really go somewhere with it. So invoking the power of the Study Buddies, I would start my journal hehehe.First and foremost, I would start my entry with my commitment to myself with you buddies as my enforcers, I want you to apply the peer and the pressure to me hehehe.1. I’ve made a commitment last year which I wasn’t able to fulfill, that is to be in the 1400s rating by the end of the year, so I will extend that to February 5.2. I will increase my rating by 100 for every quarter of the year, so 1500 on April 5, 1600 on July 5, 1700 on October 5, and lastly 1800 on December 31.3. To learn about the first phase of the game, the opening, I would concentrate on 3 openings for every quarter. For the first quarter, it would be the English, the King’s gambit (recommended by farbror), and the Latvian counter gambit.4. Other than my regular games, I would make sure I would play 5 games for each opening, within the quarter. I hope I would be able to play with you guys, using the featured openings.5. I must confess, I never analyze my game, so I would commit myself to analyze, and post it, in this journal. The number of analysis I would make is, 1 for each opening, and 1 for the regular game, so all in all, 4 analysis. This 4 analysis would be posted by the end of the fifth day of every month, starting this February 5. The choice of the game to be analyzed would be picked randomly among the said criteria.6. To develop tactics, I commit myself to 5 puzzles a day starting today, the 5th of January.This is my commitment and my first post of this journal, it would be improved if need be, but for now I state my commitment to the 6 posted above. I haven’t thought of the consequences yet hehehe. Any suggestions and comments would be greatly appreciated.

I just picked up Seirawan's Winning Openings. Anyone either reading it now, or has already read it, let's discuss.

Farbor, what's pick for the superbowl???

I am going back to square one. Here is my plan: Reread the Complete Idiot's Guide Keep on with Purdy (who is just wonderful, but I have to keep rereading to make sure I get it.) Read again Play Winning Chess by Seirawan ( and also the chapter in Winning Chess Strategies on Pawns.) Read my new book Predator at the Chessboard, and other Tactics books that I have like Woolman. Also, spend time with the Tactics trainer,Ct-art beginner tactics, and the new feature on this site called "Workout." Chessmaster: playing various characters and trying to improve AND working in the "academy" with Josh's training. That ought to do it for now. I am putting Silman and all my other books on hold and trying to discipline myself to this plan. Just going back to basics for now. Hope to spend at least 2 to 3 hours a day with this for now. stwils

Here's an interesting game from the current tournament. I'd be interested in what people think - is White's knight sacrifice sound?

Well, with the new year, I had big plans to be disciplined in my chess study. But, even though I have put a lot of time in study, I seem to go from book to book... I guess I am trying to improve faster than I really can. Anything, tennis or playing the cello, takes time and can't be crammed like a test the night before. I can't seem to settle on a plan of study. I love reading my books. Purdy especially. But playing games in a tournament is another matter. I'm not doing too well. Sigh.. stwils

You might find this article of some interest. Silman suggests a training regime for non-masters: Endgame: Read the material in SILMAN'S COMPLETE ENDGAME COURSE up to your rating group. After that, you don't need to look at any other endgames until your rating/strength improves by a class. Tactical puzzles (found in countless books on the subject): 15% of your study time. The study of positional concepts (in a book like THE AMATEUR'S MIND or HOW TO REASSESS YOUR CHESS or any other positionally oriented textbook): 15% of your study time. Analyzing/deconstructing your own games (ideally with the help of a much stronger player): 30% of your study time. Analyzing master games: 30% of your study time. Openings: 10% of your study time.

Below is my target, it is part of my profile, too. Start learning chess in Sep 2008, hope I could become the 1800-2000 rate player in 2009, and 2000-2200 in 2010 in this website. this journal will be updated each quarter (or month if need) to show my footprints of growing, and another useful function is proving I am not cheater, in case I reach 2000+ and somebody doubt me in future - it is too bad to be banned from chess.com, as a lifetime diamond member. Jootoo's Training Journal Mid of Sep 08 - Jan 2,2009 my rate now (Jan 2,2009) is 1431, after playing 337 games without any reading and training, it seems a good start, 95% or more of them start with E4 But I need to handle 115 games at the same time now (peak time is 166), it take me too much time even I make one move in one mintues, it take me 2 hours each night, so boring, I made this mistake to open too much game,some opponents already complained my slow response. so I will resign most of current 85 tournament games, if its move is less than 20, regardless I have materials or winning position or not, sorry for the players at those tournament, I will disturb the fair play of those tournament - very sorry again. I will not resign from any team match, for I attend thoese matches means I will fight for that team, even I will loss by checkmate finally, the promise is promise. ( I will say sorry at chat tab and let them go to this threat to see the text at blue color, and it will be removed later,hope this forum is public to let them see) Jan 3,09 - Mar 31,2009 After close lots games, my rate will drop to 1200 or less, it is OK, my target is 1600-1699, after completing the following in Q1, 2009 - Read a 300 pages of book for beginner, it cover everything (openning, midgame and endgame ...) but basic knowledge only. The book is in Chinese, generally Chinese is shorter than English for the same statement, eg. English: How are you? you play chess very good. Chinese: 你好吗? 你下棋不错 so that books should be 400+ page in English. - Complete 2000-3000 attempts at Tactic Trainer of chess.com - Spend 30-50 hours at Chess mentor of chess.com - Read the good post at the forum, focus on endgame - Study all completed vote chess and its comment. Q2,2009 (Drafted plan) - Read another 400 pages book for beginner. - Complete 5000 attempts at tactic. - Speng 100 hours at chess mentor - Read the 286 pages book about basic ending game - Read the good post at the forum, focus on endgame and tactic Q3,2009 (Drafted plan) - Read another 300 pages book about endgame of king+pawn - Complete 5000 attempts at tactic - Speng 100 hours at chess mentor - Read the some of chess magzine, there is only one chess magzine in China, I bought all of them from 1995-2007, one book (1200 pages) each year. - Read the good post at the forum, focus on endgame and tactic

I suggest that we document our New Year's Chess resolutions in our training journals.

I don't have a super amount of time, however with time off work I intend to spend 1 hr. a day studying, broken down as follows: 30 min. Tactics 15 min. Strategy 15 min. Endgame Books I am using: Chess Tactics for Champions Simple Chess Silman's Complete Endgame course. I don't really have lofty goals for myself other than to enjoy chess and finally understand the phrase "and after 17. Nd5 *insert color of your choices here* is clearly better!"

Hi all. I was invited to this group by farbror and thought I would join to see what you have to offer and see if this would help me become a better chess player more quickly. I am picking up chess again as an 18 year old. I never got great but a few years ago I was actually pretty decent. I didnt know about ratings so I never had one. Recently, to get better, i joined chess.com and have been reading a book called "How to Reassess Your Chess" by IM Jeremy Silman. Its very good but at 400 pages is going to take me a while to get through. What I like about it is that there is actual text. Ive seen chess books that promise to be instructional that are just full of diagrams and notations. Well, unless you know how to read and absorb that, its no good as they never offer a good guide at the beginning either. So thanks for having me in this group, hopefully I can learn from all of the experianced players around me.

Greetings everyone. It's a pleasure to accept Patrik's invitation to join this group. I'm here because I appear to be a hopeless "B" player and I'd really like to break through to the next level before I get too old and senile. I'd like to think I qualify for the 'Grumpy Geezer' subsection of the group, since I'm certainly a geezer (58) and my poor play does often make me grumpy My current rating on this site is very misleading, since I have found that if you are careful and don't blunder you can pick up an awful lot of free points against lower rated players here, but against good players I flounder usually somewhere late in the opening and either lose or deserve to lose. Lately I've been making it a point to try to get games with better players and as a result I'm getting hammered, of course, but I think I'm learning a few things as well. To wit -- 1. The deeper you are in the opening the less you can trust books and databases. I'm starting to learn to spend more time looking at opening moves as if they were middlegame moves, i.e. trying to find the best move all on my own, and only as a last resort consulting 'the book'. I adore books of all kinds and over the years I've probably trusted too much in them and not enough in my own analysis. 2. In tactical situations look at EVERY legal move. Grandmasters may be able to see the correct candidate moves at a glance, but I've noticed that I only have the ILLUSION of seeing the correct candidate moves a glance, usually with disastrous results. 3. In the late middlegame make sure you actually know how to play an endgame before you head for one I have more than once forced a simplification to what turned out to be a lost endgame! 4. I have reduced my chess library from 500+ books to only about 50 but among the volumes I treasure are the works of CJS Purdy, absolutely the best chess writer you've probably never heard of! (Well, Farbror has head of him, I know, but for everybody else, check him out!) I look forward to learning a lot here!

The holiday season is hectic but I crave some slow live games. Any takers?

I like playing OTB, and online (correspondence and live), and am a pretty average player. I want to improve my endgames, and defending against pawn storms. I also need help avoiding walking into tactics. One more thing- Playing White against the Sicilian. I dont need that much help though- 'cuz I most of the time i play 1.d4. http://www.chess.com/groups/home/1d4-group edit: Those are my goals for improving. My rating goals are, by the end of March, 1550 rating online, and 1600 CFC for OTB.

Hi. My name is Alex. I have only been playing seriously for about a year. I practics tactics on Chess tactics server and I have a book for tactics. I play a lot here and on FICS. My rating is around the 1500s though that may be low for me. I have an endgame book called Silman's endgame course. I also have other books.( I am looking for more so I will take sugesstions.) I play at a club during the week. THey have rated tournaments there. I hope to one day recieve a title such as national master. Alex--

Thanks for the message, I think I figured it out :-)

Stoyko exercises is part of my training regime. Here in this thread I will post a few positions that might be interesting (I am yet to study them myself):

I have managed to catalogue the major part of my chess books. Any day now, I will celebrate my 100th book! My Books

Hi I'm new here and i liked the look of this group so i thought i would join. Look forward to getting to know others here and help improve this group in some way. In what way i don't know yet. This is my Training journal and my goals for 2008 and the end of 2009. My goal for this site is 2200+ want to achieve and maintain this by 30/12/2009 or sooner. Setting a date helps to make something more then a dream or wish list. 30/12/2008 I want to achieve 2100+ if possible. I'm over 2000+ now so its possible with serious effort. Goal for Over The Board playing (O.T.B) is; I want to achieve 1700+ again for the ACF rating which is Aus rating system. Maybe even 1800+ its been about 4 years since i played in one so the one in Feb 09 ( Newcastle Open) is what I'm thinking of doing. I plan to play in about 2-3 tournaments next year which consist of 2 or more day's of play and see how much i have improved since i last played. I have not decided whether to play in a F.I.D.E. tournament yet as i don't know how much they cost and in these times being wise with money is important. Whats needed 1st is:- Taking time to study my games while in play and not simply go over them or annotate them after. Examine games i have played already especially the lost games. I will go over games in my mind first and confirm them with the analysis board taking notes and saving them to get as much understanding of why i lost in the games i have played and lost in, and in what area's I'm struggling in is very important. Also i shall take advantage of the new feature chess.com has provided in the PC analysis. This could take 1-4 hours of my time a day. 2nd:- Spend 15-30 mins on tactics trainer to continue to improve my tactical vision. I will try to calculate the tactic's as fast as i can while trying to keep accurate. 3rd:- Continue in my endgame studies to become a very solid opponent overall. Im Starting with Yasser Seirawans book "winning chess endings" and go from there. This could take 1 hour a day 6 days a week. 4th:- Pay for a year's membership of chess mentor and see how or if it improves my skills. I will give 1 hour a week to this. This is like getting coaching from IM's and GM's so the add say's. So All up could take up 5-6 hour's a day. That is a lot but to improve as much as i plan might have to find the time, such as watching a lot less TV. That wont be so hard as there isn't that much on these day's. Schedule my time so i can fit my part time job, my new business and chess into my day and nights. Will be difficult but i will try. Well that's my goal's and journal for now. Signing off till next time:- Ian Sinclair.