Studying chess making me a worse player?

Hi everyone!

As many people in this part of the forums, I'm relatively new to chess, having played only in a few high school tournaments when I was a teenager. Now that I'm older, I found by pure chance chess.com and somehow got it hooked back to chess.

As I watch many people play and see how fluid is their game, I have recently started studying tactics, some common endgames scenarios and analysing my matches to try to improve my game, but I'm surprised to see that instead improving it seems that I'm getting worse somehow. I'm not sure if now I'm trying to see patterns everywhere and that's making me blunder more than before by losing sight of my own pieces or is just a common issue to get off your game when you learn new things until you adjust to the new knowledge.

It would really help is someone could give me some input about this. Is this a common issue? Has someone experienced the same situation? And if so, how did they evolve over time?

Thanks in advance!

Hi Daniel, As you mentioned, sometimes trying something new can make your game worse temporarily as you internalize the new skills. But I'd also suggest not trying to improve too many things at once. You can try focusing on just one part of your game for a month and then play some slow games to see how your game has changed. For example, maybe March and April can be all about tactics. Or just endgames or just positional play. But definitely trying to do everything all at once will not lead to good results and may increase your frustration with not seeing results. Hope this helps. I am a professional coach and if you'd like me to look at your games and help you with making an effective training plan, send me a message.

Hi Dipankar,

Thank you for the suggestions. Maybe you're right and I should take it a bit easier, though it's quite addictive, especially studying tactics. I certainly wouldn't mind anyone reviewing my games and coming up with a study plan, though my goal is not to become a titled player or even reach a high ranking, just to enjoy playing on a personal satisfying level.

Why?

Hi kindaspongey,

I played that game yesterday night being a bit too late for me and I was just trying to try new things. I guess that I set in my mind that I had to castle as soon as possible and I was afraid of 3. Nf3 fxe4, so I didn't think properly and I moved Bc4 thinking on 3. ... d5, which doesn't make sense. I don't know much about openings but I think I would have played Nc3 instead Bc4.

As I understand it, after 1 e4 d5, the usual move is 2 exd5.

Yes! This is another example of what is happening to me lately. For some reason I'm playing very strange openings and making way more blunders in the mid game than a week ago. Here I thought that I didn't want white's queen out in the opening after 2. exd5 so I played the very bad move Nc6.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to look at Discovering Chess Openings, a book about opening principles.
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627114655/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen91.pdf

"... the problem with developing the queen so early: the further advanced the queen becomes, the more prone it is to attack from enemy pieces, and this is particularly the case in the opening when there have been no piece trades and the board is cluttered. If you're not careful with your queen handling in the opening then you could easily lose time as it gets pushed from pillar to post. And losing time is not a good idea because you are likely to fall behind in development. ... [1 e4 d5] 2 exd5 Qxd5. Black's idea with 1...d5 is to immediately open lines for his pieces and thus ensure easy development. The price he pays is that he loses time having to move his queen again after 3 Nc3. …" - GM John Emms (2006)

Play me some unrated games, and I can  distinguish your weaknesses.

Happy to be helping

You should get yourself some annotated game collection books such as Logical Chess Move by Move and Max Euwe & Walter Meiden's books

"... In many ways, [Batsford's new edition of Logical Chess: Move by Move, written in 1957 by Irving Chernev] would [be] a wonderful 'first' book (or first 'serious' book, after the ones which teach the rules and elementary mates, for example), and a nice gift for a young player just taking up chess. For one thing, the games are clearcut and instructive. ... they contain powerful thematic lessons for the beginning player. My only warning would be that the impressionable student should be gently reminded by a friend or mentor that most of the rules and principles Chernev so dogmatically states do not actually have any consistent validity in real-world chess, so that the book should be looked at as a way to get started thinking about positions, not as a reliable guideline to what chess is really about. With that proviso, I would recommend it heartily to anyone just starting to explore the game, ..." - IM John Watson (1999)

http://theweekinchess.com/john-watson-reviews/assorted-recent-books

https://web.archive.org/web/20140708104437/https://www.chesscafe.com/text/logichess.pdf

Thank you Chamo for those 2 games! I'm sorry about the third one, I clicked the wrong button instead rematch!

So many book recommendations! A problem I found while trying to do this on my own is to pick up one to start with. Since you're commenting a few of them, which one would you recommend first?

My choice would be Logical Chess Move by Move. 

And don't just read it once. Play the games over and over untill the moves and the annotations start to make sense. And then try to transfer the knowledge to your own games. It is also very useful to go about the book using a guess-the-move method (see method 1). 

My guess would be that either of these books would be a reasonable choice. Just look at the available information and choose what sounds most interesting to you.

Thanks to both, I guess that each player has their own favourites and asking to agree on a single book would be hard, but crossing both references seems that Logical Chess has consensus! I'll check it out!

@DanielSanchezD -

From your profile you play almost exclusively speed chess...

Speed/Rapid chess tends to be primarily an exercise in moving pieces around faster than your opponent while avoiding checkmate, in hopes that his/her clock runs out sooner than yours.  There is little time to think about what you should be doing.

It makes sense that taking more time to think about what you should be doing would promote improvement in your chess skills.

An effective way to improve your chess is therefore to play mostly longer time controls, including "daily" chess, so you have time to think about what you should be doing.

This is not to suggest that you should necessarily play exclusively slow time controls or daily games, but they should be a significant percentage of your games, at least as much, if not more so than speed games which do almost nothing to promote an understanding of how to play the game well.

Here's what IM Jeremy Silman (well-known chess book author) has to say on the topic...

https://www.chess.com/article/view/longer-time-controls-are-more-instructive

And Dan Heisman, famous chess teacher and chess book author…
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627052239/http:/www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman16.pdf

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/dan-heisman-resources

and the experience of a FIDE Master...

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/how-blitz-and-bullet-rotted-my-brain-don-t-let-it-rot-yours 

also focus most of your study on fundamentals, and understanding principles, as opposed to memorization of "patterns"...

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

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

Good Chess Books for Beginners and Beyond...

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/good-chess-books-for-beginners-and-beyond

"... Most internet players think that 30 5 is slow, but that is unlikely slow enough to play 'real' chess. You need a game slow enough so that for most of the game you have time to consider all your candidate moves as well as your opponent’s possible replies that at least include his checks, captures, and serious threats, to make sure you can meet all of them. For the average OTB player G/90 is about the fastest, which might be roughly 60 10 online, where there is some delay. But there is no absolute; some people think faster than others and others can play real chess faster because of experience. Many internet players are reluctant to play slower than 30 5 so you might have to settle for that as a 'slow' game." - NM Dan Heisman (2002)

https://web.archive.org/web/20140627010008/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman12.pdf

"... I have strong anecdotal evidence that balancing slow and fast chess practice provides optimum benefits … . In my experience, students who play fast chess almost exclusively have problems visualizing (moving pieces around in their head), they often play the occasional slow game too quickly, and have difficulty in planning and endgames. Players who play only slow chess have difficulty learning their openings, recognizing critical positions and basic tactical patterns, and often panic in time trouble. The best solution, as in many things, is a healthy balance. I would guess up to ninety percent of your playing time should be slow games (thirty minutes for each player or preferably more) and the other ten percent speed games. ..." - NM Dan Heisman (2009)

https://web.archive.org/web/20140627020325/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman100.pdf

"... WGM Jennifer Shahade ... : … '... I think blitz can be very good for you... ... but if you don't look up your openings after the game you are missing most of the point.' ...

... I recommend that if you are a beginner, you should avoid speed chess for a variety of reasons. Among them:

• it can get you into a variety of bad habits,
• cause inexperienced players to rush in slow games, and
• can be very frustrating when you are not very good and can't see the chessboard very accurately in a short glance.

However, once you get good enough to have sufficient board vision and tactical vision to play speed games, I do recommend you add them to your practice repertoire. This usually occurs in the 1200-1400 range, but of course can vary widely. ...

… if done reasonably, speed chess is good for you." - NM Dan Heisman (2017)

https://www.chess.com/article/view/is-speed-chess-good-for-you

@RussBell first of all, thank you for adding your comment, I've read some of your articles and they're extremely instructive. What you mention makes a lot of sense and the articles you linked definitely reinforce that idea. I really appreciate it and I'll try to play more slow games.

On the same note @kindaspongey also has a good point (not to mention he seems a living archive of information!) from my humble beginner point of view. I definitely don't want to play bullet chess as it seems too chaotic for me, but blitz at 10 minutes seems slow enough to don't move pieces around blindly and gives you the opportunity of analysing more games.

That said, in the games I played yesterday I noticed that in blitz I'm starting to lose my grip by doing very dubious moves without thinking twice about them, which leads to getting a lot of hanging pieces, forks, pins and all kind of "nasty" stuff. So it seems that though playing blitz is definitely fun and worth it, slowing down on those (not abandoning them completely) and playing way more longer time control games is definitely the way to go.

I wanted to thank everyone in this thread for their help and suggestions. I have started reading some books and taking some time to think about my moves and I'm starting to feel already more confident during games. Today I played a game against the computer which I wanted to share. I have analysed the game and I'm aware of some moves on my side that could have ended very badly, but I think that finally I'm managing to start doing more solid openings. Once in the mid game I feel way more safe thanks to a constant practice on tactics, but I'm seeing the game much better thanks to @RullBell and @kindaspongey recommendations on books and articles (which I'm starting to read slowly).

The computer made very strange moves, so I just focused in making a solid game. My initial idea was to trap the queen as soon as the computer moved it in 3. ...Qh4 and then focus on a kingside attack, but it shifted to queenside after the very strange 10. ...Nb4. I really liked this game!

Thank you once again for all your suggestions,
Daniel