Becoming A Class "A" Player

In Volume II of The Comprehensive Chess Course By Roman Pelts and Lev Alburt there is, what I find and interesting statement in the afterword by the authors:

As already noted, Comprehensive Chess Course is part of a multi-year course of study

long and successfully employed in the former Soviet Union. This ambitious course is 

designed to make masters out of rank beginners. Volumes I & II contain materials which,

if completely mastered, bring most players up to what we call the Class A level.

Volume I teaches notation, how the different pieces move and capture, the chess board and the starting position of the pieces, the relative value of the chess pieces as well as en passant, castling, drawn game rules, as well as how to record chess moves. There is also a mentioning of three general principles for opening a chess game. In Volume II goes through more rules of play and notation. Then after some chess terms it goes into attack and defense, trading pieces, starting a game, mistakes in the opening basic mating patterns, opening traps, short games, tactics, e.g. double attack, the skewer, back rank mate, and other basic mating combinations, the concept of planning, endgames of K+2P V K and K+P V K. 

So what we have for information and instruction is only the most basic of basics that every beginner should and/or has learned. Now why is it that the vast majority of chess players 85-95% never make it to the class A level? There is no mention of strategical themes, the bare minimum of endgame play and only the most general principles for opening play, and yet the authors claim that this is enough knowledge to get us to the class A level. Why? and How?

I believe that this is because not only in chess but in education in general information and knowledge is given precedence over intelligence. While intelligent people make use of knowledge, knowledgeable people do not necessarily become intelligent. This is what is missing and is required, i.e. to work on one's "chess intelligence." We have become victims of the information age and to much knowledge. I am as guilty as anyone of this. I keep trying to reel in the "need" to but the next new book, as the next panacea to my patzer blues. I would like to offer up to anyone who has tried studying all the advanced opening, middlegame and endgame theories and information out there, to get back to basics and study books and authors that work on fixing your thinking process, i.e. intelligence issues. There are several authors that I like in this regard, Andrew Soltis, Amatzia Avini, Ariel Mengarini, Jonathan Rowson, Jeremy Silman are some that I like. The two books that are at the top of my list for chess thinking and improvement are "A Guide To Chess Improvement" Dan Heisman" and "The Search for Chess Perfection II" By CJS Purdy. The poor man's alternative would be to simply analyse you wins and losses with the help of a chess coach and'or a chess program to learn where your thinking errors lie and find ways of correcting them. 

Thoughts, suggestions, ideas?

I don't know. As an "A" player, all I did was attend a chess club and studied and played a LOT. I personally would go for the "poor man's" alternative because chess is 70% practice, and 30% study, according to what someone (an expert) told me.

However, Jeremy Silman's books are very good. I recommend those for study!

Yes TremaniSunChild I agree Silman's works are very good and I am a fan of his. I was stunned though when I read what I quoted above by Alburt and Pelts, it seems so many players continually try to absorb more knowledge and information when to Alburt and Pelts point that isn't required. As you mention you simply played and studied a lot. Working on my own games and my mistakes is where I am going to focus most of my time and energy at/on right now.

Yes, that is probably the most effective.

It took me about a year and a half to get from 1300 to 1900.

DeirdreSkye wrote:   "What Alburt and Pelts say is simply an advertising trick.They are willing to say any nonsense in order  to sell books and make some cash."

That doesn't make sense, since he is essentially telling the reader that you DON'T need to buy any more books that these two volumes are all you need. And you wouldn't have read the afterward until AFTER you had already purchased and owned the books. I agree that there is a lot of "advertising tricks" out there, but the section I quoted is not one of them. 

As for after a person "finishes" the first two volumes of the Comprehensive Chess Course Alburt I's sure would not say resting is what a player should do, but to continue to study, play and analyse. What he is saying is that you don't really need to acquire more chessic knowledge or information to improve, which again is anti-capitalistic. He is telling us to play and learn and THEN when we hit 1800+ maybe then buy the other works in the CCC. 

Also how would you differentiate between a class A player that has chances to go higher and one who doesn't? 

DeirdreSkye: but he is telling you IF you don't make it to 1800+ you don't need to buy any more books his or anyone else's. That is not good for profit his or anyone else's. 

I disagree with you on your statement that "the rating jump happens it will be relative to the quality of knowledge." That is part an parcel of why I made this post in the first place. lots of players become more knowledgeable but they experience little if any increase in the rating jump. Once again chess "intelligence" i.e. playing strength, is not proportional to chess knowledge. If that were the case then a player in his w 20's would be stronger then a player in his teens, a player in their 30's would be stronger than a player in their 20's etc. Every year, every decade a player becomes more knowledgeable than they were before yet "rating jumps" do not continue to happen year after year decade after decade. 

I don't know about this mythical "right things, in the right way... in the right quantity and the right quality" that you refer to. Since no one seems to agree on what all these right things are and if we did I think we would see more players at the master level and above rather than the opposite. 

At 53 I no longer hold on to that myth that I just need to find the right book with the right knowledge and study the right amount in the right way in the right quality. At some point I think we have to simply be content with the level that we play at (whether that is 1200, 1800 or 2300) and enjoy the game. 

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and ideas with me and in the forum. 

Yes I think that is a large part if not the entirety of Alburt's thinking. If you avoid simple blunders and becoming proficient at tactics you can become a class A player with out resorting to all kinds of opening, positional play and endgame theory. I think to this follows along with what Dan Heisman says in his articles and books.  Studying to much "advanced" knowledge and theory is a moot point if your blunders and tactical play cannot alone get you to the class A level. So many players, INCLUDING MYSELF, study way to much "irrelevant" information when we still need to work on the basics of thinking, visualizing and calculation. 

Anecdotally, when I got to 1800 rating, it wasn't through doing anything special, but rather I stopped blundering.  I stopped (or greatly reduced) hanging pieces, hanging pawns and walking into simple two-move combinations.  That was literally it.  I knew some typical plans, mostly kingside attack motifs, but I didn't outplay my opponents so much as I waited for a mistake and then took advantage.

Now, getting past 1800 was a completely different story, and it took a decade to finally do it (and I gave up half way through, thinking at one point I couldn't get any better).  Also, 'just don't blunder' is easier to say than do, but it's a skill you can develop.  It doesn't require much knowledge, beyond knowing the basic tactical motifs like standard forks and pins.

As a final thought, I've recently moved near a chess club and have played several games against players in the 1400-1600 range, and endgames appear to be a glaring weakness.  And I mean glaring, lacking the basics of the basics: put Rooks behind passed pawns, elementary piece coordination, making the King active.  I'm no endgame expert, but I've turned dead equal positions into wins fairly easily.

I suspect mastering the absolute 'basics', so basic opening principles (not moving pieces multiple times, not starting premature attacks, etc), basic tactics (not hanging pieces, not missing two-move combinations, etc) and basic endgames (how to play with two or fewer pieces) will get someone to Class A if not higher.  It's just unfortunate that truly mastering these items takes so long and aren't as sexy as other things.  Similar to learning music: we all want to play our favourite song, but our teacher keeps making us practice the scales.  It's only after we master them do we realize why it was essential to start here.

 bb_gum234 wrote: One thing that helped me at 1600, that it seems Pelts and Albert would have disagreed with, was going through Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual. It's practically a reference work, and for players much better than 1600 right?

Very much so. Dvoretsky's work is generally acknowledged to be for strong players, minimum master or at least titled FM, IM, GM. The fact that you as a class player where able to make advances in playing strength is outstanding. It's one of those random things where you stumbled into a book/author that was able to benefit you. I think though that for many if not most class players we do not often find that perfect book/s. I have enjoyed studying, reading and playing over many books. The only one to date that has made a strong correlation between the studying of it and an increase in my playing strength would be Dan Heisman's, A Guide to Chess Improvement: The Best of Novice Nook. It may be that what is required(?) is what DeirdreSky mentioned just above that what one needs is a good chess coach/trainer that knows what their student needs and when they need it. Age might have something to do with it also as it is much easier for younger minds to learn and absorb new patterns. This seems to apply not only to education in general but for music, language and mathematics as well, so too perhaps for chess. I doubt at this point in my life I will spend the time and money on a chess coach. Perhaps for those who want to try and make a career of playing chess coaching is the way to go for the amount of time, effort and money required not only to have a coach but to play in enough tournaments as well, which in my day meant OTB pretty much exclusively. Perhaps nowadays with technology one could save on the travel and other expenses plus time and get enough tournament play in online to make a go of it, perhaps. 

Thank you for your insights.

I think Purdy's The Search for Chess Perfection II is a great book. I'm surprised more players aren't aware of it. I'm working my way through Silman's material now and have noticed an improvement in my play, though I still have a way to go! Good luck. 

ChessAuthor yes Purdy's TSfCP II is a phenomenal book ranking as my number two book right behind Heisman's  A Guide to Chess Improvement: The Best of Novice Nook. If I had only two books to take with me to a desert island or to grab as the house was burning down they would be the two. 

Thanks, ZebraGang, surprisingly I've never heard of that title. 

I just tried Amazon and Google can't find that title let alone that title be Karpov. Any suggestions? Do you have an ISBN ?

pelts and alburt are right, but we don't reach class "a" because we haven't mastered it

"quick,what colour is the d6 square? What colour is f7? there should be no hesitation in your answers"-vol one

Learn when you are young.  Just like languages.

If you have at least a B.A. education, you can probably reach your "natural playing strength" in about 1-2 years of OCD-like study.

After you reach or break 1800 USCF (that's about 90th percentile), who cares if you rise any higher -- Because the top 10 percent of tournament players in the U.S. play (essentially) 10 times the number of rated games compared to the lower 90 percent of the distribution!

Paul Littlewood (Chess Tactics) and John Nunn (Chess Endgames, 100 Essential Positions) is basically all you need (knowledge wise) to get to @1700-1800, i.e. strong B player.

BUT -- on balance, most people will "burn out" before reaching 1800 USCF.

I broke that level 4-5 times in my first couple years of OCD Chess playing, but haven't risen (any higher) against the top 10 percent of the rating distribution since then.

And it doesn't bother me, not one little bit.  :-)

Now my middle game and endgame play is roughly as strong at Game in 5/5, as was my 5 hour OTB strength when I regularly competed in tourneys for 3-4 days straight.

It's all a mater of what you want to achieve, and what's possible for you.  Enjoy it.  If you can.  If you don't enjoy it, what's the point? 

Exactly right. They emphasise that it's not enough just to understand the material, you have to know it like you know your own name or that 2+2=4

Good ideas here. Basics are very important. A friend of mine got mad at himself because he failed to win won positions because of time trouble. The camel straw was when he couldn't win with a Knight and Bishop vs a King with 5 minutes left on his clock. He practiced until he could do it in under a minute. Then he started working to be able to do other basic book endings from Fine's book real fast. His OTB USCF Std Rating went from the 1600s to the 1800s because this.

What I'm saying is that he saw his basic weakness and went after it with a will. Bad basics can hold your rating down more than most other things.

I looked on Amazon too.  Perhaps it's Finding the Right Plan with Karpov.