Did "Rapid Chess Improvement" by Michael de la Maza work for you?

This is only for people that went through the program.

After recently horribly faily in an OTB tournament, going 0/3, each time making a blunder in each game, I decided that I would try this book. 

Before going on this rigorous tactical  course, I want to make sure that this book will actually work for me.

Thanks for any help,

Suvel K.

de la Maza is a Schuyster, selling elixer.

He stopped playing tournament chess for a reason.

have you read Daniel Heisman soft version of De Lamazza's book. seems more rational.

Here's an article by Dan Heisman that may give some insight.

http://www.chess.com/article/view/the-michael-de-la-maza-story

It will undoubtedly improve your results... the question is if it's the best way to go about it (focusing purely on tactics).  But if you're desperate and it appeals to you, then why not.

I don't think you'll find many people who went through the program as outlined to the end though.  But I think anyone can tell you that tactics have been a part of their improvement.

I feel as though I should should just get CP-ART and do lots of tactics, that will really help me improve. The seven circles seen weird after reading Dan Heisman's article on the 7 circles. 

I recently went 0/3 in a tournament on Sunday, losing 46 USCF points, after being tactically destoyed in all 3 games!

Interesting.  This is what I suspected... that Michael had already acquired a general knowledge base for chess and his weakest link was tactics.  Otherwise I think 400 points in 400 days would not be possible.

Also I looked at some of his games a few years ago, and he clearly knew openings and basic strategic ideas.  He wasn't just sitting around waiting for tactics as his annotations seemed to suggest (although obviously he was good tactically!).

If tactics are your weak link, then improving that area will be the most beneficial.

Yeah, I'd buy CT ART rather than his book.  His book is just an expanded version of the article he wrote which I think you can get for free online.

lol yea, you have a point. In the book he said, you don't need postitioanl undertstanding at all, although in order to get tactics, you must a good chess position.

There are tournaments having only 3 games?

I read the book, thought it was great, tried downloading the CT ART, didn't work out, tried chess.com Tactics Trainer, raised my OTB rating about 200+ and here I am.

I read this book and I don't believe in it philosophy. Tactics are very important but tactics without strategy or insights is a nonsense. However the book can help you to improve in tactics, I think can be a good idea practice de la Maza methods for a few months and improve tactics, and after continuing with the study of strategics, endgames and others.

My critic is against the perpetual focus only in tactics but the focus for a time or combining it with strategics it can be fine. 

Silman says the same thing (probably because de la Maza went out of his way to insult Silman, presumably to get some buzz over his book and sell more).  However, in the same breath, Silman says in HTRYC that he's amazed that pretty much no player U2200 has a serious plan in most of their games.  That implies something stronger than MDLM's statement, that tactics can move you to a USCF rating of 2000: it says that, whatever moves a player as high as 2200, it certainly isn't strategy.

Then we have Heisman who "does not advocate" MDLM's 7 Circles, yet suggests 7 Circles light, i.e., an less intense, less effective tactics-intenseive brand of training geared toward not burning out players.  In other words, he does advocate 7 Circles, but it's not his book, so he doesn't; buy his, instead, and buy his articles (which now cost money at Chess Cafe).

GM John Nunn commented on the book in his own book, Secrets of Practical Chess (2nd Ed.).

https://web.archive.org/web/20140708110907/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review580.pdf

Players on the low end of the rating scale certainly got better by trying his methods or some variation thereof.  There doesn't seem to be any evidence for players in the class B range improving much this way though.

I doubt the drop out rate of the participants means much though.  Adults leave chess all the time.

I completely agree.  There are a number of us who have made tremendous progress in general ability and rating on the basis of the method.  The drop out rate is high because, as with all things difficult, people don't want to invest themselves in difficult endeavors.  I can list the names of numerous people, other zealots like myself, who have gained in a tremendous way from the 7 circles.

The biggest error people make is that they do not realize how horrible innumerate they are.  MDLM's claim is "400 points in 400 days."  One pass through the 7 Cirlces takes a little more than 4 months, and people I've seen make comments and blog about their attemp leaves them saying something like, "it didn't work, I gained 60 points [in whatever metric], nowhere near 400."  Um... One pass through MDLM's 7 Circles is not 4 passes, as claimed.  Still, if continued, 240 poins is not bad --actually, it is the most you'll find in consistently active OTB players--, especially if the metric used is the USCF or FIDE OTB rating.

The simple fact of the matter is that adults, particularly over 25, do not absorb patterns the way youths do, and the development of pattern recognition requires a very forceful process.  MDLM didn't invent this.  You can find plenty of cog sci, neuroscience, and empirical psychology papers that come to this conclusion.

Nunn ends his review:

"The above comments should give the potential reader a good idea what to expect from Rapid Chess Improvement. The best that can be said is that if this book persuades you to spend more time on studying chess, then your game will probably improve. However, the author's highly mechanical training methods, quite apart from not being much fun, may also not be the best way to spend your time. "

Chess is more fun when you have done some work on it.

what is the seven circles?

Yeah, it's similar, but there are some pedagogical and theoretical differences.  At the heart of both methods is the idea that adults need to recapitulate patter recognition attempts of individual particular patterns, in order to achieve instant and automatic pattern recognition.

The Woodpecker method is effective, too.  Since the 7 Circles is so much harder, I usually do the Woodpecker method when I'm focusing on studying endings, Master games, etc.  Devoting time to the 7 Circles means, for the most part, putting aside two hours per day until the very end, when things get crazy.  (You basically need to take a vacation week to do the last three circles.)  I now know 7 people (i.e., adults 25-51 years of age) who have had tremendous success with the 7 Circles.  You can read about one of these people's success by clicking on chessmo's blog or clicking on my blog link.