4 hours a week to get better - what should I do?
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You can see my forum about improvement here on this site. The complete chess course is good for you.It is also included in a package called Chess Training Package for Beginners (5 Program Bundle) which contains mate studies and tactics. I have some courses from this company myself: endgame course , course for defense and a 3 level course for tactics.
What you may need is chess training for post-beginners (click it to read some pages) or chess from beginner to club player. The latter can be found also in downloadable format.
For your children and for completely beginners this is a good tool.
My proposal is to choose the software you want and keep solving the exercises.
Nov 18, 2015
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#24
tuccihops wrote:
I am a 34 year-old beginner. I have three kids and about four hours a week to spend on chess.
My goal is to get better than my arch-nemesis (brother-in-law and good friend), who spends about four times as much time as I do, playing blitz on chess.com.
This will be tough but I want to go for it. It's doable. My arch-nemesis is rated 1135 at blitz after 2,000 some games. The score is 29-17 in his favor.
I'm really weak but have improved since I joined in January. My blitz rating has gone from the 500s to the 900s in about 400 games. But I seem stuck in the 900s, briefly ventured into the 1000s.
I'm better at correspondence and standard (1800 and 1200...and I'm at 1360 on the tactics trainer.)
So what should I do?
Convince me that your advice, or training is the best and I will do what you say for 25 weeks.
If it works, I will publish a blog praising you and your method and detailing exactly how and why it worked for a newbie like me. I may also have flowers sent to your doorstep.
If you need more info about me or my playing before giving me detailed instructions on how to spend my four hours per week - I will be happy to oblige.
Here are my observations about my own playing, so far:
- Playing a lot of blitz doesn't seem to make me better at blitz.
- I hardly ever win on time. I've experimented with playing the clock but that experiment resulted in my rating going from 1014 to 914 very quickly. I seem to do best when I almost ignore the clock and simply look for the best moves I can find.
- My endgame is really bad.
- I get muddled, frustrated and depressed when I lose three or more blitz games in a row.
- IM Yaacovn suggests learning to play slow chess well is the best way to get good at fast chess, and this strikes me as true. Is it?
Thanks for any useful, or entertaining responses.
Yes it's true getting good at slow chess will help your fast chess (from my personal experience). In fact I find after an otb tournament with long time controls I seem to magically get better at blitz.
Nov 18, 2015
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#25
Do you have the four hours all in 1 go or spread out (if so how spread out e.g. I have 30 minutes on this day 1 hour on this day etc.)?
Nov 18, 2015
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#26
Well, I'm kind of flexible on how I can distribute my four hours. I could do it all at once.
Nov 18, 2015
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#27
Does the 4 hours include your playing time or is that separate from the 4 hours?
dont worry about winning or losing, wory about gettting better - then at some point, you will have passed him and not even realized - if you play to win instead of grow / learn, you are doing yourself a disservice - also, play the best moves, dont play down to the level of your opponent
dont blunder!!!!!! - number one - think of your moves ahead and what your opponents counters are, this is most overlooked by newer players - part of this is, accept fatigue as a reality - as the game goes on, you'll feel fatigue, so its important to be aware of that and try to be even more sharp - most games from newer players may start well but end by some overlooked move
practice visualization / tactics to get better at the former - when you do tactics trainers, do a good number of them, but make sure you're doing them slow and trying to see the whole sequence ahead of time - then analyze - if you're on chess.com or somewhere, make a point to read the comments / post your own comments on your thoughts / analysis - maybe 15-20 a day or so would be good
learning basic principles like center control, taking control of open files / weak squares, etc.
also, just play a lot - play a good amount, but not like you're on crack - analyze every game and figure out what you did wrong (mental or strategy related), attempt to work on those errors you notice - maybe 2-3 slow games a day, if you have time for that
find better players to help you analyze your games, use a computer for tactical help, not strategy
4 hours a week should be sufficient to get you going - i do like 2-3 a day and its still hard to improve, so another key tip is, continue to believe in yourself and give yourself credit for your improvements / accomplishments - its too easy to get caught up in how good everyone else is, they wont let you hear the end of it, believe in yourself and your hard work
It might help if we knew what time control you intend to beat your nemesis at: blitz, bullet, rapid, standard, correspondence? Each time control has different needs and may warrant slightly different training (other than just becoming a better player overall).
Do you have access to the nemesis's games? Maybe look for weaknesses or patterns, mistakes that they often make.
Play with confidence above all else
Nov 18, 2015
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#30
If you are serious about being better, buy a chess tactics book and spend lots of time solving problems. I suggest you get Chess Tactics for Champion by Polgar. Also play games at long time control. Get also an endgame book like Winning Chess Ending by Seirawan.
I think 4 hours a week is not enough to improve. It took me probably 15 hours a week for about a year to get from 1100 to 1800 (took one year to do that, ratings in USCF). And on weekends when I had tournaments I would obviously be spending at least another five hours, sometimes up to another 15 hours in Open tournaments where the games could last four or five hours apiece. I am also young (relatively young- 17 years old) which made it easier on me than it will be on you at your age to improve. All I'm saying is that with your schedule only allotting 4 hours a week, it will be difficult to show significant improvement. But if you expand that time a bit, and maybe get a chess coach with at least an expert rating, you may be able to get some direction in your studies and focus on your weaknesses.
Get this book and work the problems until you don't have to think about them anymore. Spend all your 4 hours doing this until that happens:
And then get this book and do one game a week (spending 2 hours on each game, really pouring over it)
The next hour play some games.
For your last hour, review your games, pointing out the obvious mistakes, and think about how you could better apply the rules given by Chernev.
Nov 18, 2015
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#33
BakerStreetBishop wrote:
It might help if we knew what time control you intend to beat your nemesis at: blitz, bullet, rapid, standard, correspondence? Each time control has different needs and may warrant slightly different training (other than just becoming a better player overall).
Do you have access to the nemesis's games? Maybe look for weaknesses or patterns, mistakes that they often make.
Play with confidence above all else
I want to beat him at blitz: 10 minutes a side. At correspondence chess with him I am 3-0. My rating is 1800 at online chess, but I've only played 8 of those games and I really think the heck out of each position before making a move - so I am not sure how much the rating means.
Nov 18, 2015
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#34
Candidate35 wrote:
Does the 4 hours include your playing time or is that separate from the 4 hours?
The four hours includes my playing time. Part of the reason I made this post is my larger curiosity about the possibility of making great strides in something by focussing very narrowly on the right things.
To use a rough analogy:
I like to split firewood. Some wood rounds are very hard to crack. If I don't focus every blow of the splittling maul in the exact same spot, and a good spot, I'll get nowhere.
I feel like there must be some point of greatest leverage in chess practice and I'm thinking all these responses might give me a clue as to where a good place to aim my blows might be. One or two things that I can really focus on in my limited time and get the greatest benefit. I could easily spend sixteen hours a week trying a little tactics, a little strategy, a little opening study, some blitz play and maybe not see much improvement.
I'm attracted to Zombie-Agammemnon's suggestion about spending all my time working the problems in one single book until they are completely ingrained...but I looked at his rating and I'm note sure it has worked too well for him. I just don't know.
Keep the suggestions coming. I will report back when I decide where to aim my chess axe.
Best,
Tuccihops
Nov 18, 2015
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#35
- Don't go for quantity, go for quality.
- Every game you play, you should play with complete commitment and absolute focus.
- Improvement is not proportional to quantity of play, rather, it depends on how you change the way that you think when you play.
- Play at a speed where you can fairly often get through the game without making what seems to you a big blunder.
- When you have played a game, you will often learn more from analysing the game and seeing how you could have played better than by playing another game.
DavidIreland3141 wrote:
very much disagree - no blitz, just slow games, even 3 day a move games. Treat them as learning exercises. Spend hours on each move. Research openings, play through alternate moves, and if you get to a close end game, research that end game.
I agree with this, playing blitz, or playing computers, just reenforces bad habits and prevents you from learning things like how not to blunder, how to see good moves, ect.
Books with famous games that you can play through are good. Logical chess move by move is a nice one.
Why waste time with something you aren't good at?
Good luck! There's nothing wrong with studying one book until you learn it. It's basic advice for learning anything really.
well, I think your going at this with the wrong attitude. I too have kids/job/etc. but I don't proceed with the idea that I'm giving chess 4hours/week Tops. Instead, I try to give chess as much of a try as possible.
I keep careful track of my time. sometimes when life is busy I get down to 4 hours a week. but using my evening; doing puzzles when I have the free time,etc. I can get startling amouts of time sometimes.
I've had 25 hour weeks! and the point is I'm REALLY striving to give it my biggest efforts. chess is important to me. and getting as much time to understand its secrets is one of my biggest aspirations. you might even say, that improving in chess is one my only huge obsessions.
stuck in middle age; I feel like my job and family is more about being faithful and true to commitments- but in chess at least I have goals and dreams of something much better.
the point is the feeling here- I think you mostly just want to want to beat a sparring partner. that is a short goal in chess... and perhaps without motivation to take your game to the next level, you really can't.
FWIW, i agree that with smaller efforts you should keep focused. If I had to use just a little time to improve, I would solve tactics puzzles.
Nov 19, 2015
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#40
I understand your aim, I am trying to gather as much info about your specific situation as I can. so your biggest area that will give you as broad yet effective improvement is tactics. I'd split half my time doing tactical work and half my time playing. For tactics, do some tactical work every day. for example as a free member here you get 5 puzzles a day, it takes about 10 minutes or less to do them. Next, I recommend you get a tactics book that is aimed at beginners or get a membership online from a chess website that allows you to do beginner tactics only (you set The rating of the problems low). The plan is to do 1 hour of tactics a week where you break it into two half hour sections ( pick two days, like Sunday and Thursday for example) solving basic problems until you can spot and solve them easily. Solving easy ones helps you build a foundation to recognize harder problems where you have more "noise" (more pieces on the board, more going on) to tune out and hone in on the exact pieces that matter. Now, your last two hours is to play three blitz games one day (fun, focus more on pattern recognition and opening ideas), and one 30 minute game (for each side!) on another day. Every 30 minute game loss you review it, determine why you lost, and submit the game on Chess.com "game analysis" forum and ask for users to give you feedback on. Send it to me if you want Or find a stronger player who will review them. Get feedback to help you find your mistakes and know what to work on in the future. That's my suggestion for you. I'd add endgame work but for now Playing and tactics will give you the most growth.
I hate to spoil the party but I'm a 33 year old who's in his first year and a half and I can tell the OP this: With 4 hours a week you're going to have a very, very difficult time once you hit a very early plateau. It's just not enough time. I had a horrible, terrible, very bad time myself trying to get over a certain tactical curve. Until you reach a certain tactical proficiency, the game's a foreign language. You'll have to spend countless hours working on tactics to even start getting close to winning games. It's extremely competitive out there.
With only 4 hours a week I would suggest nothing but playing 15 or 30 minute games, reviewing them and seeing what the openings were called, and doing as many tactics as you can over on ChessTempo. That's it. I don't think your time could be spent much better since it's so little to begin with.