About Dean Ippolito's interview with Ben Johnson on The Perpetual Chess Podcast - Chess Training

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Caissa_Soze

On Tuesday's great episode, Dean Ippolito made some really insightful comments about how to improve and also on the difference between kids' and adults' chess development. I'd like to pick his brain about a lot of what he said, but something I'd like to ask here concerns the best way to improve as an older (in chess terms!) adult player.  He mentioned using chess.com's puzzle rush and some space-based repetition stuff at chessable.com. I'm going to try the latter but I wondered what would be the most productive approach for improving my game using chess.com's tools, which are immense. I'd really like a guide saying: watch this, do 20 minutes of this, do that, don't do that. I appreciated his comments about kids having the availability of all these online tools, which we didn't have growing up, but, at the same time, when there are so many to choose from it's easy to become a "deer in the headlights"!

In terms of "why", I'd like to stay competitive against my son. We play 5-minute, 10-min, and untimed games. He quickly learnt to beat me in the 5-min games and just recently started beating me regularly in the 10-minute games. My slower mind can still hold him when time isn't a factor, but for how long?!

stregachess

It was a great interview. Puzzle rush 5 min increments; if you can do 3 daily, great. I looked at the Chessable thing, and the Wood Pecker program (it's also a book) was endorsed by Dean, but the reviews looked pretty mixed. Make sure you review every game you play, let "chess.com" run it's number and go over the game but also take a few moments to do self-analysis. Something the bot's recommendation are not in the spirit of the opening or playing style.