Is this a good training plan?

It seems that you have a lot of time for chess, and I think you can use this training time a bit more efficiently. I will share some thoughts. Now, I am somewhat lower rated than yourself so of course feel free to question everything I say here.

1. I think that is probably too many games per day. You can do it that way, but you can probably use that time more efficiently. I will try to explain why. I am sure that you should take every game as serious as you can. If you do that, those games will make you a bit tired.

I will presume that you would like to mimic non speed chess over the board games. In that case, I would consider playing 1 game per day, a bit longer than those you've mentioned. Something like 30 minutes with increment, 45|45 or 1 hour per side comes to mind. From experience, at my rating even, it is not easy to find the opponent who plays those longer games. There are from time to time people rated over 1 600, but it is rare.

So what to do? You certainly don't have to play really long games every day. But it might be a good idea to join clubs that organize longer time control tournaments: Slow chess league, Dan Heisman and G30 are such clubs. When you want a game, you can ask there. There are 1700 and 1800 rated people in those tournaments from time to time, so you can even play a 2 leg tournament from time to time. 

Of course you don't have to play such games every day. You can do it 2 times a week, and on other days you can play 30|0 or 15|10, you can find opponents in those time controls easier. When you are done, analyze the game in depth. Try to gain as much as you can from the game. 

2. My advice is not to push yourself to read 1 full chapter a day. If you do it this way, you will most likely do things superficially. Remember quality beats quantity here as well. Try going slower, at the pace that is comfortable in a way that you really understand what you are reading. Try not to fly over what you are reading. Try putting a physical board if you like and (except it is a puzzle book where you should calculate without moving pieces) move pieces like in the book and try learning slowly.

3. The thing is this. It is better and probably more productive to focus on one thing for a few weeks than trying to practice multiple things at the time. PRacticing tactical puzzles is an exception and it is fine to do a little bit of those every day regardless of what you practice. But if you focus on positional themes and go through a book, doing 20 tactical puzzles would be an overkill. Do 5 instead, or do 20 minutes- half an hour worth of puzzles in a way that you really calculate those positions. 

If you decide to focus on tactics, then 20 puzzles is fine though. It depends on what you practice.

4. I am not sure how helpful this is to be fair. Perhaps only in the case where you train visualization, but even then I am not sure.

5. This looks fine, and is surely useful.

Now some final thoughts. Even this somewhat reduced plan that focus on quality over quantity is pretty draining. Feel free to adjust accordingly if you feel tired or you catch yourself to fly through a master game, or through a book or something. Don't do something just because it is in your plan. If you can't do something because you are tired it is best to leave it for tomorrow than to just do it superficially.


Sorry for the long post.

I doubt its very good practice if you have 70 going on at once. Its hard to imagine that you are doing much more than memorizing moves.

Also a titled player once told me its only good to play a lot if you analyze your games deeply.

Thank you!

Sighhhhhhhhh...... I would love one but, I'm broke

Thank you for taking the time to write that! I do agree that the plan might be to much for 1 day and I should do only one a day (besides a game and puzzles) I also don't think I'll be starting this plan for a little while as I started the woodpecker method which looks pretty brutal and time consuming

You're welcome. In any case, when you start it, treat first few days as an experiment, and see how it goes. You can tweak the plan untill you are satisfied with it. Generally, my advice is to focus on one thing (I don't include 20-30 minutes of puzzles daily, you can do those whatever you are working at) and practice that one thing for a several weeks. After that go on different thing.

So for instance, you work on endgames for 5-6 weeks, then you do more tactic based training, etc. And whatever you do, don't rush it. It is much more important to learn something properly than to learn it in exactly 6 weeks for instance.   At least, that is how I look at it.

I do plan on looking at this like an expirement and see if I like it and if I notice improvement! I also do agree with focousing on 1 topic and sticking to it for a few weeks and I might do that

Reading 1 chapter a day is subjective.  What book are you studying?  Is what you're studying in a chapter going to be able to be absorbed and completed in 1 day?

Studying tactics is about quality of study, not quantity of study.  Studying 20 tactics and not remembering "why" you solved them wont do you any good.  if you only get through 3 tactics a day, but you thoroughly understand those 3 will do you way more good.

The vision, coordinate, and move tests are again like tactics study.  Its all about quality over quantity.  Improvement isn't about how many you complete, but about how much you absorb.

1. Sounds good. Make sure to analyze your opponent as well, see if he could have beaten you.  Sometimes it's good to reach out and even DM them.  I tend to prefer shorter games for my daily game, but I see nothing wrong with 30 minute games.  You may want to mix it up, though, especially if you are busy one day. 

2. I would limit this by time rather than by chapter. so like 30 minutes a day of chess books. I have a book that is taking me 6 hours a chapter, which is far too long! 

3. 20+ is excessive, I would again go for time rather than number.  Or if you are going for number, aim for 5 and try to get 90% correct. 

4. This is pretty important, but I would not bother with coordinates. Visualizing moves is really important, though.  Trying to get that knight tour by memory rather than formula, for example.  Again, I would set for time(20 minutes) rather than number.  I would also take time to memorize games in this space, because that is helpful for visualization. 

5. Again, I would set a time rather than per game.  

I prefer 15|10 because you can't get flagged with the 10 second increment. Of course you're probably never going to get flagged playing 30 minute chess either, but I like being able to regain time.

Unless you're someone who learns better from books, videos and online courses (there's a ton of free ones) might be better.

Another thing is, I don't see any opening study or endgame study in your list. I'm only a 900 rapid player, so take my opinion with a grain of salt, but I've been under the impression that Openings and endgames should be studied just as much as middlegames if not more.

Openings aren’t that important because I know my theory well enough. Endgames though are VERY important and I play on reading books on them

Yeah, it is fine to know some moves in the opening and what piece goes where most of the time, but it is likely much more important to study the games in a certain opening and learn about some ideas later on. Heavy memorization and 20+ move lines are more for master level players I would say.  

i agree with tygxc. Personally I play 30|0, but 15|10 is good. 1 to 2 games, keep the setting in -100 to + infinity. I like the 2 chess sets idea, and I'm gonna implement that for myself (Thanks tygxc), and yes, you should focus on quality, not quantity in chess books. I usually solve 30 tactics from chess.com, and 5 tactics from a book I have. Vision tests are useless, but master games are good. I recommend the book "Zurich International 1953" for improvement in all aspects of the game.

At the OP's level, I would suggest sticking to 1 or at most 2 openings per color, but studying all lines thoroughly. Yes, knowing where the pieces go is useful, but you must know at least 9 to 10 moves of solid theory for any response from the opponent

I have the rating range set to -25 and +infinity which has helped a lot! 2 board idea is good but, I only have 1 sadly. I'll check out Zurich International 1953😁

For reference sake, I see that you are 2 000+ USCF. How much theory in the openings you play do you know, if I may ask?  

It doesnt have to be as expensive as you might think. My regular coach gives me lessons for a little less than $10. per hour. Also a couple of weeks ago I did a couple of hours worth of training games plus analysis with an IM for less than 20 dollars.

Yes there are some out there who are cheaper but, they are hard to find. I also need to save my money for OTB tournaments which can be very pricy to

You know the funny thing is you can hire strong players to play and analyze with you cheaper than you can enter an OTB tournament. One thing you might consider is hiring a coach from time to time to help you analyze some of your more interesting games as opposed to taking lessons every week. I find game analysis session one of the most helpful activities I do with my coaches anyway.