Improvement strategy for older adults

I'm not just a adult but an old adult, 71.  I played a little in my teens and learned the basics of pins, forks, etc but mostly just started over a month ago.  At first it was an addition to games that (I hope) will slow down the inevitable reality of old age, you know, sudoku, kenen, crosswords etc.

But so far I'm loving it and doing puzzles every day, lessons, computer games and one or two live games.  I think my local rating is in the 600's and I seem to be more or less competitive with opponents in the 500's or 600's.  Trouble is I just don't have a sense of a plan.  I try and control the center, develop, castle, and then......... just react.  I usually feel lost until I spot an opportunity.  I realize it's the nature of the beast for my level.

So the other thing I do is lessons, although chess.com just flushed all my lessons and came up with a new format that looks more personable but less regimented, so I'm a bit lost.

Anyway, to cut to the chase, I know this question has probably been asked 10 to the google power, but what do people recommend for improvement?  I have no illusions about becoming a GM in my limited lifetime but I do know that to be really good and improve at anything takes daily commitment.

Right now my daily 'plan' is:

Puzzles, maybe 20 to 30 min (I have time)
A game of computer chess
A game with a live competitor  (should I play more than one? Two?  Five?  Ten?)
Read one or two books on chess like Silman's inbalances book, etc etc (There seem to be more books on chess than you can comprehend).  

Anyway, I'd like to hear what people think.  Again, I'm mostly doing this for mind improvement, but, well, you know, for us old competitive types it's nice to win once in a while...

Thanks in advance.

Hi. Welcome back to chess. I started in January after a 30 year break and then I only pushed pieces. Hadn't even heard of tactics. My suggestions are stick with tactics, if you solve them in your head before moving pieces your calculation and visualisation skills will strengthen along with tactical vision which will help you blunder less. Play long time controls say G30 or 45/45 if you have time and analyse your losses without the engine first. Dont necessarily look at move by move mistakes but look for themes you need to improve on. I enjoy playing through annotated GM games. Move by move books are good for beginners. Logical Chess by Irving Chernev is often recommended on here. Another good one I have is How To Win at Chess Quickly by Simon Williams. The title is because all the games are 25 moves or less. Finding a plan is always difficult for beginners. At low ratings planning is simple, dont hang material and after every move look for and attack your opponents undefended pieces and pawns. More helpful though might be to learn more about positional chess so simple pawn structures, weak squares, knight outposts, etc. You can then form short term plans around attacking a backward pawn or getting your knight to a weak square for example. Recommend John Bartholomew Chess Fundamentals series on You Tube. One of his videos are on Pawn Structures. Good luck.

Thanks Mark, that's helpful.

Welcome. I looked at one of your games. You missed a lot of opportunities. But your puzzle rating is a respectable 1400 which is good for a beginner and suggests you can calculate a few moves ahead. I think you are not giving yourself enough time to find good moves and form a plan based on the position. Play longer controls.

I wouldn't play against the computer, only humans.  What's the time control on your games?  I think 30 min per side ought to be minimum. If you play more than 2 games per day you wont have time to properly analyze and learn from them.

I looked at babloo2020. I think it was a 10 minute game.

I'm 64. I played quite a bit in my teens and twenties, but stopped playing chess more than 30 years ago. I started again in 2014 (IIRC), and have done pretty well for an old fart.

Study tactics, model mates (corridor, greco, lolli, anastasia, morphy, paulsen, etc), Pawn structures in the center and their effect on middle-game planning. Mix study with actual play, preferably at slow time controls.

Solid advice in this forum thread so far. Also, the way to improve at chess is the same regardless of age. The reason children learn faster is greatly because of time they can dedicate to chess and because of creativity. One could also argue that chess is like learning a language and having a growing mind helps ("can't teach an old dog new tricks"), but at least from my experience: older players can improve a lot at chess too. 

Here are some of my thoughts about that "daily routine" though:

-Puzzles for 20 to 30 minutes (if have the time) is reasonable. Tactics are important, but the key is learning patterns and themes - not tactic speed alone. Try to "understand" the puzzle the best you can and preferably "see the entire solution" in your head before moving any pieces. Doing the chess.com "daily puzzle" and even one puzzle rush session per day (survival is better than the timed ones if you don't want to be rushed). 

-I would not include "computer chess" in a daily routine. Computers do not make the same "logical" mistakes human players do; it is much better to play live games against human players. Maybe a "computer chess game" here or there, but no way would I include it in a daily routine.

-live chess is important because active learning and practice is important. How many games though? It depends on how much time you have, how quickly you "burnout" and how long the game time controls are. I would avoid games less than 10 minutes for a "learning daily routine", but even 10 minute games on chess.com can be beneficial. Preferably longer time controls though and also preferably in person games over online games: but practicality sometimes prevails over what would be ideal. Personally, I am a fan of blitz (not bullet as much, but that is personality) in moderation. I wouldn't use it in a daily routine though. The goal is to play games long enough that you can comfortably have time to think, but not so long that you get bored. That might be 30 minute games for some people and it might be OTB classical time control for others; experiment to see what works for you

Silman's books are good but tend to be a little more advanced I think (I've only read his articles; I'd like to read some of his books, but I haven't gotten to them yet). Perhaps this blog article may be a good starting point. It is by no Silman, but I like this author a lot 

https://www.chess.com/blog/KeSetoKaiba/opening-principles-again 

Chess is great for the mind. Crossword puzzles help you "recall" words and "known concepts" but chess is better because it is a combination of "recall" for "known concepts" (patterns and ideas in chess rather than specific words in crossword puzzles) and "new" exploration/creativity because each position you examine is likely different than the last.

Good luck with your chess

Chess and Aging

As a person ages, there are three areas that can affect his/her chess performance. Reaction time, fatigue, memory.

Reaction time in chess is how fast you move your pieces.  There is little you can do to improve that.  Research in driving shows that the physical reaction time of a 60-year old man is that of a 30-year who drank two glasses of wine.  I am sixty-year old and I can see reaction time affecting me.  I play better than 95% of people at chess.com in 3-minutes games but can’t move the pieces fast enough in 2-minute games.  My advice to you is to play 5-minute games or longer.

Fatigue. Older people fatigue faster, mainly because of eye strain. If I play chess for more than an hour, I develop a headache because of eye strain.  My advice is always play when you feel energized. This means after a good sleep and being well caffeinated.  More importantly, stop playing when you feel your eyes tired.  By the way, playing on smaller screens (phone, small tablet) drastically increases how fast I get eye strain when playing chess.

Memory gets weaker.  You need memory for everything in chess: pattern recognitions, openings, and end games.  The best way to counter weaker memory in senior citizens is to repeat learning things (opening, tactics, checkmate patterns) through the many drills and lessons in chess.com.  I recommend to focus on one lesson objective; for example, learn checkmate with two rooks rather than solving checkmate puzzles of all types.  This could help.  In chess.com, you can narrow down what you want to learn about (an opening, a checkmate pattern, end game with certain pieces, etc.)  

In the past, most people used to learn chess through discovery learning, that is by playing game after game.  Thanks to computers, we can easily get player-specific lessons now. Chess.com has a new feature called ‘Game Report’.  After you play, take the time to analyze your game and find your mistakes. The report asks you to solve any error you made –and this is a very good learning tool. The Game Report classifies all the moves you had and gives you a ‘moves score’. You can aim at increasing your ‘move score’ rather than winning games. (I am not sure if the ‘Game Report’ feature is available only to paying subscribers.)

The nice thing about chess.com is that it always makes you play with people who have similar ranking to yours.  Enjoy making progress at your level.  I would not obsess about increasing my score –though it is always a nice thing.  One good game is better to me than gaining 100 points through ten average games. 

I hope that every game of chess presents new opportunities that can help the brains of senior citizens to do novel things in order to prevent dementia and Alzheimer.  I have recently discovered in chess.com many new games of chess: 4-player chess, Chaturanga, Fog of War, etc.  These were available only in the desktop version, which is why I have not discovered them before as I used to play only on my tablet.  Now I play these new varieties of chess daily because they are a completely new learning experiences to me, and make my mind thinks in new ways – I can even feel my neurons build up 😊

While we, senior citizens, start losing the game of stamina, reaction time, and memory relative to younger people, we always gain the game of experience. The more you play and build your experience, the more you can win over young players of your ranking thank to that developed repertoire of chess experiences.  There is always hope!  The trick is to enjoy, rest when tired, and not overdo it, for the game of chess can be very addictive.  

Enjoy!

Enjoy each day of training.  You will be better than the day before.  And that is something to celebrate, rating results notwithstanding. 

Improving Your Chess - Resources for Beginners and Beyond...

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/improving-your-chess-resources-for-beginners-and-beyond

I'm 80. Generally I recall the ideas of only the last opening I studied or played. Most of my practice is tactics, which helps. I'm considering taking up Fischer Random to "level the field" of the opening.

Interesting thread.

I like survival mode puzzle rush as a warm up. There's no time limit, and you can continue solving increasingly difficult puzzles until you get three incorrect.

I agree with the other commenters that you ought to skip the computer opponent and play games against other humans instead. The rating and matchmaking system ensures that your opponents will likely be roughly equally matched to your own strength.

I like 15|10 rapid (15 minutes on the clock for each side, with an additional 10 seconds added after each move) as a time control for people focused on improvement. It's short enough to be convenient, while long enough to allow time for calculation and planning rather than playing solely on intuition.

>I am not sure if the ‘Game Report’ feature is available only to paying subscribers.

Free accounts get one game report per day. However, once that's consumed, it's also possible to do a less elaborate self-analysis that will walk through the moves and at least show the engine evaluation at each point. If nothing else, one can identify blunders in this way (when the eval swings significantly) and it's usually obvious why if one thinks about it.

I'd ditch the 10 minute and computer games. 30 min minimum and have some daily games on the go. The latter give max time to think and what you learn there can transfer to shorter time controls. 

Good luck.

What happens when adult patzers meet expert kids? Hilarious incidents!! Enjoy this story

https://www.chess.com/blog/Abemo/the-pathetic-patzer

Haha; sounds all too familiar 🥴

Good on you.  I'm 67 & restarted chess during the plague, after 55 years of no chess.  I recommend "Chess - beginners & intermediate - openings, strategies & endgames" - book written by an American - Hugh Patterson, published 2018, cost $25 in Australia.  chess.com lessons are good - I am slowly working my way through them.  Puzzles (learn mode) are excellent & playing the computer at higher levels is great practice.  In my opinion, 30 minute games against similar ranked players are best - you have time to consider your moves as well as potential moves by your opponent.

Thank you all for taking the time to respond.  The biggest take-away I got from this is humans rather than computer chess and longer games to allow more thought.  Above all I'll continue to train and play every day for sure.