11 Steps to Improve your Game

Chessbase author Steve Lopez has written a fantastic, very helpful article on how to improve your chess game where he outlines the 11 key steps. All 11 steps are listed here:

http://www.westportchessclub.org/links.htm#Training

Happy chessing!

Steve Lopez? Is he a relative to Ruy Lopez?

 No; I think he is an uncle of Triny Lopez.

Oh so he's the cousin of Jennifer Lopez. Cool.

Nice thx.

Thanks, but don't bother, people don't want to improve anyway.

You're welcome. I think it's wonderful advice, even if people don't want to hear part of it (the part about the openings),

Still the best advice for improvement I've ever read.

Don't study the opening, do tactics, endgame, positional chess.  Review your games, play over others' games, read the books you buy.  This is all good advice, so good in fact it's about the most common advice out there as well

Reading the books you buy is always good advice. I guess I need to do that. 

what books have you got so far woodshover ? I was just wondering if you are reading the right ones.

Idiot's guide to chess, plus some chess puzzle books.

 Thanks for posting this. Yes, I have read it all in some of my chess books, but it is nice to put in a file for quick review, which I need every once in awhile.

I do take the advice about learning from my lost games.  It really used to bother me when I lost, but now I truly do learn more from my lost games than my wins.  I just remember my mistakes and blunders like they are written in stone.   

This is exactly how I feel. The mistakes I make almost always teach me something that is hard to forget. But when my opponent makes mistakes, I don't remember much other than winning.

Sometimes my opponent's mistakes do help me remember. The last game I played is a case in point, because I took my opponent's bishop figuring he would exchange it, but he did not.  I agreed with him after the game as to why he did not, because it did look as though he had a great positional advantage.  However, he did not see my next move with my other bishop.  But it put a firm reminder in my mind to check out those advantages we think we see more carefully before moving.

Is there a more recent link? I get a 404 Not Found with the present link.

I tracked this topic when it was posted so I'm not 100% positive but I think it may have been referring to the following:

http://www.chesscentral.com/chess_knowledge_base_a/275.htm

There are 6 sub-pages linked on there that have the 11 steps.

Yes, that was it, thanks very much.

Is this link valid? I got an error message when I clicked on it.

I have rescucitated a dead thread! Yay!