Thanks for this topic.
I would love to suggest themes that we would like to study, and ask you to prepare puzzles or games that cover the theme... Is that OK ?
Suggestions for a better group
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Suggest anything you want but we will discuss about it first.
If you want to learn Najdorf(for example) , I can't help you.
Nehz attack puzzles :D I'm going to have to try that opening now, you've made it seem a bit too good to be true!! lol
Nezh attack puzzles........hmmmm........opening puzzles......not a bad idea...........
In my opinion to get better at chess you have to get experience by playing games. Only reading books ,articles and solving puzzles will increase your chess knowledge but NOT improve your chess play. Additionaly you have to study your own games by analysing them and therefore First I would like to suggest to open a new forum where we learn how to analyse our games.
As an Intermediate Player I can say that as I was at the beginner level I did not improve because I did not calculate moves seriously and I did not know what do calculate and how, calculation bored me. But when I began to pay attention on calculation I got better results. I Think this Topic is very important.I have heared from chess players that they have calculated 30 minutes on a move and than rejected it to play. So I would like to suggest to open a forum about how to improve your calculation skills how to select the candidate moves, how to calculate and find the best move
Who does not know the phrase chess is 99% Tactics. Tactics is very important. But when there are not tactic combinations in a position, what do you do ? I think besides Tactics, Strategy is a important topic especially for players rated under 1800. I would like to suggest to open a forum about strategy, positional play in the middlegame, maybe with strategy puzzles where we study how to find the right plan in a certain position
For me I have find out that I am weak in strategy and positional play as well my calculation skills could be better and I think for the most intermediate players this should also apply. When I hear from a club mate,that he agreed to a draw in a middlegame position because he did not see how to win the position I think he lacked a plan or he was lazy to calcucate or feared to miscalculate
I hope I could give some input what can be done to make the learning group a better one.
Michael, I love your article on the Nezh opening. More articles on openings for beginners would be great.
That is a great suggestion.
Some games we play are extremely exciting, because they are unusual, or dangerous, or for other reasons ; and some are suddenly boring. You have developed from opening to middlegame, and nothing comes up. That is the moment when you (I) have to choose a plan, because none has developed on its own.
How to find the right plan, what to analyze in order to find the right plan... Great suggestion.
Strategy puzzles is a great suggestion but there are some questions that have to be answered.
Are they going to be random positions or focused on specific topics(openings or strategic concepts)?
For example , we can take a good , well analysed , game and try to find the moves of one side (either white or black ) and the reasoning.Does that cover you?
You need to be more specific.
Finding the right game to analyze requires a huge knowledge of specific games... I guess you have that knowledge Michael, and discussing the reasoning behind certain obscure moves in games you know of sounds extremely nteresting, and covers my interests for sure.
I don't know whether Paristar thinks it covers it for him, or if he wants a more genral and theoretical debate on how and when to imagine a plan.
My interest lies in middlegame strategy after 10-15moves we have put a pawn in the center , developed all or pieces at least ones,castled and connected our rooks and the opening is completed, we are in the Middlegame. In this stage we have to decide at which side of the board we want to be active. Queenside ,Kingside or the Center ? How whe find out where we should focus our attention ? For Example if we castle to opposite side as our opponent, we start a pawn storm and want to open files for our Rooks to launch an attack at the kingside like in the Sicilian Dragon. I think that the strategical concepts is that what I was thought.
I Think the idea of going through a whole game of masters will help us to get a deeper understanding of the chess game. I think this would be the next step after we internalized the strategy concepts. Let us start first with step 1 and than step 2 and so on
Additional for beginners I think strategy puzzles where we have to decide with which peace to capture for. example capture with a pawn and open a file or with a piece and let the file closed, or capture with the pawn towards the center or not, exchange peaces to weak the opponents pawn structure-doubled pawns,isolated, move pawn to d6 so the black d-pawn can not move and blacks bishop can not develop, Attacking where you have a space advantage, Exchanging the fianchetto bishop like in the kings indian, exchanging bad bishop for a strong knight and such things would very useful for beginners .
I hope I could give you some insight what kind of strategy puzzle I was thought.
What you ask Paristar is not exactly easy.Needs the correct games taken from the correct pointWe can start doing this but you have to be patient . I have a lot of high level analysed games so they can be certainly beneficial even if I don't manage to take them from the correct point.
We can start with a game from early level, just after the opening , try to find the correct plan and then following it until planning it's over.
if we take a kasparov game we can be sure it is good :) lol
Good will be , but instructive?Not necessarily because how instructive a game is has to do with how much you are able to understand.So picking any Kasparov's game may not be the best choice we can make."Every long journey starts with a step" , so it's the "step" we are trying to find.
On the other hand we can just start and see how it will work.Mistakes are inevitable.
Not any kasparov game, only good instructive ones.. like how he puts pieces on the best squares and converts that into an attack :)
Any suggestions you may have on how we can be better , we can discuss them here.